My drive to work this morning, on the radio the DJ is going on about how warm it is in Jhb, how you can smell spring is on its way…… listen Mister, not in Cape Town it isn’t.  Flip it rained during the night and my entire drive to work this morning.  Not fun.

 I’m starting to think I need a new camera, ‘course Wouter won’t agree with me - but I’m figuring this one I have - whilst it is great, and can take some awesome shots…. indoor and night time pictures - it’s not so good. No doubt it’s ‘cos I don’t know how to use it properly, but if Tamsyn is going to continue on her gymnastics path (we have another competition tomorrow - the big one) I’d love to have a camera that could take awesome indoor action shots.  Ah well, pipe dreams are nice to have. 

I had to laugh at Tamsyn the other evening, she’d worked herself into a fever pitch over the competition and decided to take her mind off things by looking through old photograph albums.  The next thing I hear her bawling her eyes out. “What now?” I ask somewhat exasperated.  Between gulps for breath she says “I don’t remember”  Thinking she meant her gym routines, I say in that motherly, never mind dear everything will be alright, tone ‘everything will be fine, you’ll remember them on Friday’…. which just caused more tears and a plaintive wail “I don’t remember!” this time she points to the photo. 

*sigh*

“You were 1 when I took that photo, no wonder you don’t remember”

Can you believe it? It’s almost the end of August, technically we should all be checking our Xmas shopping lists and buying presents to avoid the Xmas Eve panic. Yea, who *really* does that? There have been a number of years when I’ve thought to myself, if I buy a present each month for one or other member of the family by the time December rolls round, I’ll be sorted.  Hasn’t happened yet. I’m a great admirer of people who are that organised, I think somewhere in my brain I have a loose wire* - the one which is meant to ensure organisational skills are at a premium, I reckon I either never got the right wire, or mine has shorted out.  I try really hard to be organised and just never quite get it right.

* shut up Wouter

On the house front, the kitchen is coming along - if you want the technical ins and outs of Wouter’s kitchen cupboard assembling you need to read his blog, all I can tell you is that it is looking awesome, is flippen hard work, and is killing him slowly - then again I think the whole house is conspiring towards his demise.

Our very trendy little cupboard…

We had a number of firsts this weekend, our inaugural launch of the jacuzzi - must say I’m not a huge jacuzzi fan because I find I get too hot, but when one has been sitting in an empty house, which is freezing - to slip into that warm water, is utter bliss.

The other first was a personal one, I did some scrapbooking in my scrapbook room, yay! ‘K so I was perched on a stool which is almost as tall as the surface I was working on, trying to fit everything onto my makeshift table but when one is determined enough, one can do anything - besides I’d already finished the weeding (I’ll get to that a bit later) and Wouter was busy with Randall installing the electric gate.

Scrapbooking took some time to take off in South Africa - I can remember a few years ago when there was next to nothing available here, and I’d do a lot of online shopping from American stores. Things have improved quite dramatically and the hobby is becoming almost as popular here as it is in America.

An electric gate, what a pleasure not to have to get out the car, fumble with the side gate lock, eventually get that open, fumble with the gate lock, eventually get that open - drag the gate out the way….. get back in the car, drive in - get out the car - drag the gate closed again.  Life is good.

Ah yes, the weeds….. I swear those little buggers are sitting right now in the garden laughing at me. We bought some weed killer over the weekend, spray on stuff that is supposed to get rid of broad leaf weeds (to the uneducated….. broad leaf weeds are…. well I have no clue what they are - I just sprayed everything). You know, there are more weeds in that damn garden than there were before I started weeding, there’s a conspiracy out there I’m sure.  Either that or the weed pixies come over in the middle of the night with bags of assorted weeds and plant them, I can just see them giggling to themselves, jostling over prime spots in the garden and shrieking with pixie glee at the end of a nights efforts. *muttersaboutlittlepixiebastards*

You probably don’t recall the flowers Tamsyn and I planted some months back, I was amazed to see one of them actually flowering again - I figured they were long gone.

We also  have this plant in the garden which I thought looked quite interesting - and yes I’m still trying to achieve the perfect macro shot.

Lastly, I had my hair done on Saturday - told the girl to make it a bit redder…. The kids reaction - “Mom, what have you done!”  I like it

We had another outreach programme at work today which afforded me the opportunity to take this photograph, considering the day was a little dull, I think it came out ok.

I got into trouble over the weekend…. yep, big trouble. I have this rather bad habit of expecting cars to run forever without any care or attention on my part (my car passed the 150 000 km’s service some time back) We left W’s car at the house and drove home on Friday in mine….. conversation went something like this….

W - *incredulous tone* “That’s your engine light!”

T - *defensive tone* “I told you I had a light on the dashboard”

W - *trying to maintain patience tone* “Your car could breakdown at any moment, I told you to book a service”

T - *mutters under breath* “You said the light wasn’t serious”

W - *somewhat exasperated tone* “If you don’t book a service things could go horribly wrong”

T - *petulant tone* “Don’t know why I always find a car with problems”

W - *making a point tone* ”If you had a horse it would be dead by now”

Suffice to say, the car is now being serviced and I’m driving W’s car.  I think I’m going to phone the guy and tell him to take his time with my car.

Not only do we have the semi-regular visits of Spikey but we also have the regular *twice a day* visits from The Black Cat.  Almost certainly my fault, because the first time he came to visit I gave him a teensy snack from the fridge, outside mind you… I didn’t feed him in the house, I gave him the teensy snack out on the porch.  He’s now snacking on Woolies ham and whatever else I have in the fridge, on a daily basis.  He’s a smart animal, has worked out when we leave in the morning and makes sure he’s there before we go, and pops around just after we’ve come back home in the evening. His owner gave him a collar with a bell on it, so you can hear him coming a mile away. He’s a lovely looking animal, beautiful black shiny coat (probably as a result of all the Woolies ham he gets from me), what can I say, he’s a cat.  Explains everything.

What a glorious day today is, the sun is shining, there isn’t a cloud in the sky and Spikey didn’t get into the dustbin last night. All is right with the world.

W on the other hand is ’sukkeling’ with the jacuzzi, he was supposed to get instructions on how to set the temperature, but they were never emailed, so now he’s battling to figure out how it’s all supposed to work. (didn’t take him long, the jacuzzi is now warming up)

On the way back from Makro, and our 2nd favourite haunt at the moment, the Muizenberg Market, we drove over Boyes drive and I took these shots of Kalk Bay.

You have to say, my part of the world is beautiful.

I have decided the porcupine has to go. This morning was the second day in a row that we have had to pick up the rubbish he leaves behind after he’s rummaged in the bin. You’d swear he thinks the bin is his personal lunch box or doggy bag, um porcupine bag. The thing is, one doesn’t want to be confronted every morning with rubbish strewn around the place, it has the habit of making the whole day feel icky. I guess the answer is to somehow fasten the lid down so he can’t get in, which is all good and well, but what about the extra black bags one has? We can’t very well keep them in the house, think of the smell, nope the porcupine has to go. Either that or Wouter is going to have to pee around the bin twice a night!

Our lime tree is doing well, I was taking some pictures of it and complained to Wouter that I wasn’t getting as sharp a picture as I would like, using my makro setting. Handed the camera to him and voila, he gets a perfect shot. Not to be outdone, I took more….. first one is Wouter’s, second mine.

Yea, I know his is better than mine. Shall have to work a little more on my technique.

Some house news - we’re not sure whether the people that signed up to buy my place have pulled a fast one or not. At the beginning of July they phoned me to let me know that they were having problems selling their place but were still keen to buy mine, but they just wanted to keep me in the picture. Last week Wouter asked our agent if they’d sold their place and she confirmed they had. We don’t know when they sold, but they certainly haven’t phoned me with the good news, so we figure they are using the excuse that they couldn’t sell their place as a way of getting out of buying mine. Does kind of put a spanner in the works, on the one hand it means there’s no rush to get out of mine (which helps from the kids and school point of view) on the other hand it’s a bit of a concern, because we’re planning on putting the money into the bond. Will have to try and find another purchaser I guess.

We’ve started to work on our bathroom again, put the basin in as W wanted to check if the hole in the wall for the pipe was in the right place, sadly it’s a few mm’s out, so that’s going to have to be sorted out.

I’m now off to see if I can persuade W to stop long enough to order pizza…

I was told I had to do some weeding in the garden. Being the obedient type (*erhum*), I did as asked - bought some gardening tools (turns out I didn’t need to buy the tools, W bought some for me) and set about tackling the front garden. My word but you only realise how many weeds you have in your garden when you get down on your hands and knees and really look. Ugly, mean looking things. They also have this sneaky way of moving around the garden when you’re not looking. Just when you think you have them all, another 3 pop up smirking at you in a snide flat green way, almost daring you to turn your back, so that they can call their friends. Without making myself sound completely useless, I have to mention that, much like cooking, gardening and I aren’t the best of friends. In fact I’ve never gardened. I blame my folks, they evidently raised me extremely badly.

So this foray into the gardening world was a first for me. I’m most chuffed with my results.

The overgrown flower bed…

Once I’d cleared it. (Took loads of yanking, pulling, swearing, muttering, sweating and dirt under the fingernails.. *shudder*)

That was my weekend work, Wouter on the other hand was doing the *real* work.  Our kitchen really is starting to look like a kitchen, awesome

Must just show you some photos I took on Friday, I was involved in an outreach programme at work, celebrating National Women’s Day - amongst other things I created the posters for the event, helped organise various parts of it, and was designated official photographer.  We tend to be jack of all trades where I work.  We held the event in the Company Gardens, and the weather was superb.

If you look really closely you can see the cable car starting up the mountain (you have to look *really* closely).

hehehehe

A baby Egyptian gosling….

 And my all time favourite shot…..

Isn’t he cute?

Not the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything, it is however how old I am now (yesterday being my birthday).  I’m  not sure at what age one starts to feel like an adult, but I don’t think I’m there yet. It does sound old though, guess one saving grace is I’m not forty yet - now *that* sounds old. (Sorry Wouter)

I may be getting older, but I still love birthdays and I had a good one yesterday. In fact you know how special you are when, in no particular order, you get birthday sms wishes from:

Your medical aid

Your chronic medical aid

Your cellphone service provider

One of your many clothing store accounts

Warms the cockles of ones heart, that does. *grin*

Ah, and Spikey was back last night, so I’m guessing the territory war is back on.

One other thing before I rush off to my week long training session, do not wear a practically brand new jacket, assist with lugging a jacuzzi from one part of the house to another, past an unbeknown to you, freshly painted wall.  The paint doesn’t come out. *sigh*

The penultimate gymnastics competition for the year, Western Province trials was held on Saturday (2 August ‘08) at the UCT Sports Centre for levels 1 - 4.  In Tamsyn’s level, level 3, there were 15 chosen to represent Western Province at the Western Cape Championships to be held 29/30 August ‘08 - and yay, Tamsyn is one of them. Not that we had any major doubts of her getting in, still it is always nerve wracking. In fact one of her team mates didn’t make it, much heartache over that one.

Intense concentration before the competition started.

Her beam routine.

I love this picture, quality is iffy - but still awesome.

Tamsyn with her team.

On the house front, the kitchen is starting to look, well almost like a kitchen.  Yipee! W has a lot still to do and none of it is being easy, especially when the company supplying the kits to be assembled get it wrong.