Late this afternoon I was driving along the M3 listening to Cape Talk when I smelt an odd smell, did a bit more sniffing and the vague thought struck me that it smelt electrical. A few minutes later smoke was coming out the dashboard. Even a complete mechanical idiot like me realised this can’t be right. I put my hazards on and moved across the road to park on the shoulder, a lot more smoke was now coming out. I had visions of the car blowing up around me so I grabbed my handbag and bailed.

Conversation to Wouter went like this:

Me: I think my car is on fire.

Wouter: Oh dear, why?

Me: Smoke’s coming out the dashboard.

So I stood on the side of the road, in the shade of a tree, waiting for Wouter to arrive and watched the smoke fill the car. It’s a bit of a depressing sight really - watching your car deteriorate before your eyes. When Wouter arrived I popped the hood for him to see what was going on, in opening the door the oxygen caused the fire to accelerate, so now we had flames as well as smoke. A quick phonecall to 10111 and the fire brigade were on their way.

Whilst waiting for the fire brigade a friendly good samaritan stopped and gave us his fire extinguisher - Wouter used that but by then it was too late.

A tow truck guy arrived, friendly chap. A volunteer fire fighter arrived, also a friendly chap. Fire medical rescue chaps arrived, again friendly. Eventually the fire engine pitched up (they’d got a little lost… miss-communication) quite a few chaps and a couple of gals, all very friendly.

I stood and watched my car being drowned in water, the dashboard pulled apart and more drowning (see Wouter’s blog for pictures).

*sigh*

R.I.P

P.S. I don’t have any nice pics of the car but thought this one was cute.

Tomorrow is phone the insurance company day.

“Mom, I’m bored”

“Mom, I want to do something with you”

“Mom, I’m booooooored”

*sigh*

The problem with a bored 10 year old - they don’t let up.  So I suggested a few things having established that said bored 10 year old had no clue what she wanted to do, all she knew is she wanted to do it with me. Naturally I picked the least labour intensive options, playing cards - no, something artsy craftsy - no, tidying up the house - NO. In desperation I did what any mother does when faced with a bored child.

“Would you like to bake something?”

(desperate times, call for desperate measures)

Having managed to bake the cakes for J’s project I figured cupcakes couldn’t be too difficult. So off we went to buy the ingredients - including lots of assorted sweeties and we were on our way.

Alright so some purists might say that using a packet cake mix and instant icing isn’t ‘real baking’ - to them I say “pfffffft’

Looking good

 

We even got creative and made pink icing

Ahuh! Caught in the act…..

Would you look at those? All decorated by Tamsyn.

A happy daughter - bravo for Ina Paarmen’s instant cake mixture and icing. Oh and an oven that is very forgiving when you use the wrong setting to bake cupcakes. (oh come on.. you knew I’d stuffed it up somehow.)

(Rather a lot of catching up actually…. )

Tamsyn had her cast off on 19 January and seems to be coming along nicely - of course the poor child was scared to death when her doctor came at her with a small electric saw - sometimes my father’s sense of humour gets the better of him. He’d told her awhile back about some horror story (made up of course) involving a doctor, a cast and several missing digits, so naturally this was upmost in her mind.

I must commend her though - having a cast on for six weeks is bad enough, having to have one on in the middle of summer - must have been torture. I’m not sure who was more pleased it came off, her or me.

(If you’re moderately squeamish - avert your eyes)

She says it feels better - but the real test will be when she starts to play sport again. Sadly she won’t be going back to competitive gymnastics, but she has said she’d like to do what we call fun gymnastics on a Friday afternoon.  She’s just delighted she can swim again.

Of course the start of a new school year means the start of projects again - this one proved to be quite fun. Jessica had to make a 3d representation of an animal and plant cell. Based on a suggestion by her teacher she decided to make it out of cake - I suspect the idea of being able to have one’s cake and eat it too, appealed to her. (I know, lame)

 

 

It was quite funny the next day when Tamsyn and I were walking around the local Spar - a mother had a cake mix and several packets of sweeties in her hand and her daughter was going “We shouldn’t need too much licorice”.  We know what you’re about to do. Turns out a lot of pupils figured the easiest way to do this project was to go the cake route.

I have to show you this picture - I figure if ever a teacher asks for proof when one says ‘But Miss, the cat ate my homework’ this would be perfect.

 

For the record - the bottle of OB’s just happened to be on the table, it was not used in any way as a coping mechanism for having to cover 498* books. *hic*

The bubbly glass in my hand is also not the reason why I’m nodding off whilst Wouter is talking…I had a cold and was tired!!

* Alright so I might have exaggerated slightly - sure felt like 498.