Gert's birthday weekend

Gert wanted a real special 40th birthday party, so he invited friends and family for a long weekend at a guest house at Zinkwazi on the South coast of KwaZulu- Natal.

On November 15th Helgard and myself picked Gert up just after 5o’clock the morning. Gert started the holiday by teaching me the refrain of “General de la Rey”, he also made an unwritten rule – when the song is playing we have to sing along, soon “General de la Rey” became the holiday song.
The first day we were like real travelers, we stop at tourist spots and we did the tourist things.
Our first stop was at Estcourt at the Wagendrift dam. Helgard and Gert saw the photo opportunities and there for it was play time with the cameras. (Please visit the site for nice photos)


Estcourt


For lunch we stop at a place called Old Halliwell close to Howick on the Natal Midlands. The food that we order looked and tasted delicious.

We planned to spend the first night in Howick at my friend’s house. Kath could only meet up with us after 5 the afternoon, so we went to the Howick Falls. It is an easy hike but the humidity made it so much harder to walk up the hill. More photos can be seen here

Howick

On the 16th we met up at the beach house in Zinkwazi with Rudi, Charmaine, RJ and Gert’s family. The house is built in an “L shape”, all the rooms have an on suite bathroom and all the rooms have sliding doors which lead to the stoep and swimming pool. Book the place and go see for yourselves.

The first day was a sunny hot day, the next two days were cloudy and rainy, even on a cloudy day a day was filled with laughter, friendliness, food, good company and so-so-so much more.



Gert’s birthday was on the 19th. The morning after we woke up we had coffee and some rusks on the sunset-veranda. While drinking coffee we decided to go for a swim. We had breakfast and the rest of the day we “chilled” at the swimming pool while Gert was making a “potjie”



Thank you Gert, we had a wonderful time!

More photos can be seen here

Under attack

It is pleasant to talk about the positive things in life, but life isn’t always a bed of roses, sometimes one-experience unpleasant things but one has to carry on living with a positive attitude.

During October I was visiting friends, like friends do we were sitting on the porch looking at the rain and drinking wine. A pleasant, friendly, lighthearted atmosphere suddenly changed when 3-armed robbers came around the corner of the porch.
For 50 minutes our hands were tied to our backs, our mouths were gagged with towels and the robbers were saying, “shhhhhh, I’ll shout”. A pistol and knives gave them power, we were forced to lie on the porch as they were robbing us from our valuable belongings. In an armed robbery things like a laptop, cell phone, gold chain, money, car has no value, you just value your life and body. A woman is more of a target in such a situation, there were moments that I was very scared but a hand from heaven protected me.

My experience and emotions were much more than the few lines I wrote, I struggled to cope and I had to call a psychologist to explain how my body and mind would react; a book by Yvonne Retief also gave more insight.

When I’m scared and having flashbacks I find comfort in people around me that care.

Bakwena Super Classic

It was a Sunday morning and I really had to kick Helgard out of bed. He is not a morning person and to make matters worse we had a party at a friend’s house the night before, so the shouters were still in his system.

I was very excited because it was my first cycling race. All the sport reports were saying “South Africa’s fastest road race”. The race was on the Bakwena highway that was closed for the morning. The highway is flat with a smooth surface and for the first 25km the wind was behind us. We turned around at the Ga-Rankuwa off ramp. Cycling against the wind on mountain bike is hard work. We tried in vine to catch up with racers that were passing us in large bunches. The last 10km we were cycling with a small bunch that helped against the wind.

I’m very proud of my first cycling metal. The refreshing sports drink at the finish line was what we needed after the 43km at 26km/h average speed.

Sylvia's “P” party

Theme Parties are a new thing for Helgard, and me but we are getting into it.

We went to Sylvia’s birthday party and we had to dress up according to the letter “P”.

Helgard when as a Photographer (just to show every one his nice camera), I had dressed up as Pippie-Longstocking. It took me sometime to get dress because I had to convince Helgard to Push the wire through my hair and not my ears; Helgard isn’t really a hairdresser so it was Painful.

Sylvia went trough a lot of effort with the Party; she decorated the house with a tribal theme. The people were Playing along, and were dresses as Prisoners, Princesses, Priest and a Policewomen. Others were more subtle with theme they were dressed as the Perfect Pair (cards).

The Party turned nasty when we were forced to drink shouters, we left early the next morning knowing that we had to cycle.

Kiddies concerts

Small things are important to small people, and for little Lerinda it was important that uncle Helgard come to her school concert – “Wild William around the world”.

“Wild William around the world” was about a young man William who traveled around the world to find the right women. The kids were singing as he was traveling from country to country. The innocence and enthusiasm of the kids were spilled over to the audience, the audience was also clapping and singing along, in the end it was difficult to say who enjoyed the concert the most.
Lerinda was dressed up as a Chinese girl and danced with her chopsticks.

After the concert there was a karate show. The instructor (shen-sen) taught the small the children to kick and scream, some of them can kick but not really scream.

After the entertainment we went to Leonard and Munda’s house for a lovely dinner. The excitement of the evening took its toll on Lerinda, when we left she was sleeping on the couch.