Some photos of the kennels, etc.

It's been a big week in W-land. J1 had his 31st birthday (I'll let him write about that) and we had a good time with our friends on Wednesday night for that. He got lots of presents and phone calls and managed to have a good day, even though he's been feeling a little bit under the weather and a lot stressed out lately.

Last night a big "thank you" drinks & braai for the SPCA volunteers that helped out at our big open day a couple weeks ago. I took some photos of the shelter between drinks and nibbles.



This guy always jumps up on cars and then stands on their roofs and proceeds to jump up on top of the carport. However, the cars then eventually drive away and he's left stranded. Us committee members have no sympathy, and let him stay there. Actually about 8:30pm last night in the dark, Jenny finally gave in and moved her own car underneath him so he could get down.


Bunny & Guinea-Pig Land:

A couple of the shelter's new kids:

Eric showing off my favourite little guy: "The One Who Got His Ears Munched":

And finally, it is indeed bushfire/veld fire season. Since last weekend every night there's a massive orange glow on the horizon which stretches as far as the eye can see. Very upsetting. Especially last night when it was so close to my neighbourhood that I could see individual smoke plumes and flames from my kitchen window.... (this photo would look a lot more dramatic if my camera was actually zooming properly these days)

Is it too early to be excited for Christmas?

My friend Scott just wrote me that our tickets to the Chiefs have been officially procured!!

It's been one of my lifelong dreams (well, life-long since about 1994) to go see the Chiefs in the flesh, in Arrowhead. Now someone has made it happen, so both J1 and I are over the moon. The kicker is that he managed to get us Club-level seats AND there will be tailgating involved. To be honest, by this stage I'm not even caring that they're probably going to be on the bottom of the ladder by the time December rolls around, I'm just so excited. Seating chart below...

Other things I'm looking forward to:

• Seeing friends in DC
• Driving from the east coast to Missouri with no plan or itenerary
• Spending time in KC
• Spending time in Columbia
• Xmas (of course)
• New Orleans for New Year's with our friends
• Driving from New Orleans back up to DC with Jéan, through the Carolinas

And of course seeing everyone, eating a bunch of food, and showing J1 a bunch of new places all over the country.

Ironically enough, I just got Scott's email while watching an overseas broadcast of the MLB game of the week: Minnesota vs. Tampa Bay. Apparently the Devil Rays are now just simply "The Rays". Who knew!?

Memories of Reggie (J1)

The unavoidable has happened a little over a week ago. Our dear old beagle hound companion and friend has left us. Reggie had been struggling with cancer since the start of the year, and had a number of tumors removed. The Tuesday of the week he went in for surgery to our vet to have another tumor removed. Unfortunately he lost a lot of blood during the surgery, and the vet told us he was getting to old for this, that it would probably not be a good idea to operate again in the future.

Anyway, we were so happy he had made it through this one, and was spending his days with us in the office again. We did however notice he was not quite himself since the surgery, poor Reggie was sleeping even more then usual, he was sometimes loosing his balance a little, and just did not look the same. We thought it was because of the loss of blood, and were hoping for recovery.

On the Friday of that week he came with us to the office in the morning, and we dropped him home during lunchtime, because we had plans during the afternoon. Early evening we got a call from our dear Mary telling us Reggie was very sick, he was vomiting. When we came home he was in his shed, and he followed me very slowly on a walk back to our house. Halfway the walk he collapsed, and at this stage I realised the poor hound might be very close to the end. We carried him inside and put him on his chair. About a half an hour later he had his last breath, while being in J's arms.

It has been very very sad since, we miss him so much. He had such a unique character and habits. We miss his noises, his barks, but most of all his companionship. He has been such a good pet, but we are glad he went on his own terms, while we were able to be there with him.

We made a grave for him the same night, in his fenced area in the garden. It is nice to have it there so close to our house, and I am going over there nearly every day in the morning, when I miss him during the feeding of the dogs, Reggie's favourite time of the day.

Reggie during on the Thursday night, the last night with us.

Reggies grave, with his favourite food bowl

J1

Part II of holiday by me

As the Mr. wrote, we had a great time in St. Lucia, and on the way back we stopped off in Joburg to stay with Alan for the weekend and go to the last tri-nations game of the season for South Africa.

It was a fantastic game that the Springboks HAD to win, seeing as we'd lost the last 3 in a row (not a great run for the current World Champions). That and we just couldn't possibly go down to those nasty Aussies two weeks in a row.

Well that turned out to not be a problem. The end score was 53-8, with South Africa pulling off the most exciting game I'd ever seen live, in my life. It wasn't just a walkover, it was a slaughtering!!

Vodacom, one of the local cellphone providers, sponsored free plastic bongo drums for the game, placed on every single seat in the stadium (as you can see if you look past Alan's face)The noise was outrageous and it was no wonder the Wallabies fell on their faces. And, everyone in the stadium got these cheesy green visors (as modelled by Alan & I). Not a bad freebie since we were sitting in the stand that was looking DIRECTLY into the sun. Excellent idea.

After the game, we were just about ready to head back to the car, when we realized the "beer garden" that was just off to the side of the stadium had live music (Queen covers to be exact) pouring out of it, so we went in there. There was a good band and about a thousand Springbok-jersey-clothed fans drinking beer and celebrating the outcome. It was great - the first live rock & roll I've heard in Africa in nearly 2 years. (if you look closely you can see the ONE Aussie fan in the beer garden getting consoled here by a nice, caring South African)

While we were in Joburg we had a great time as we always do there, and were extremely sad to come home, particularly as our 7 days of vacation was well and truly over. Til Christmas...

holiday and beach (J1)

We are back in Gabs again, after a really nice holiday in South Africa. We started our trip on Friday morning, and took a scenic drive through Free State, going south of Joburg and Pretoria towards the east coast, with as final destination St. Lucia. J2 has drawn this little map to show our route.

Even with real maps, the route was not always clear to us, since we were not following the main motorways as usual. We even encountered some gravel roads, our poor Honda went places where it was not supposed to go. To break the nearly 1200km drive we stopped overnight in a small place in Free State, called Memel. A small village with approx 200 people, but a really nice B&B.

During the drive through Free State we saw loads of big empty spaces, big distances between small (agricultural) towns, and very dry and brown fields. The next day there were about 4 hours driving left, and upon arrival we spoiled ourselves with the Neptune Platter in the local restaurant and bar. How is that for some seafood?

St. Lucia is a very unique area and is a heritage site. The river is joining the Indian Ocean through enormous wetland areas, which host all sorts of wildlife, including most of the big 5 animals. The hippos and crocodiles are right at the edge of town, and enjoy their sunbathing just as much as the people! More about this a little later.
The town has a great selection of bars and restaurants, where we enjoyed Greek food, Italian, Portuguese, and loads of seafood. Of course also the necessary alcoholic refreshment.
On the nice days we enjoyed the beautiful beaches, this picture is of the beach in Cape Vidal, 25km from St. Lucia in a national park. We encountered Rhinos on our drive to the beach.
Two days were less sunny, which gave us a nice opportunity for some shopping, reading, and mountain biking.

Besides the hippos and crocodiles, there were of course many many monkeys everywhere.

Our lodge was called Amazulu lodge and was a really amazing place, nice rooms, beautiful setting, thatch roofs, great breakfast, on the edge of town, and walking distance to the beach.

The rooms are all located around this 'inside' area with pool, jacuzzi and a 'boma' at the top, complete with bar.

To help us not miss our own dogs too much, a very sweet 'resident' cat kept us company nearly our whole stay. J2 named him Pufpuf.

As I mentioned before, the hippos and crocodiles were on the edge of town. Hippos normally come out of the water at nighttime to graze, and go back to the water when the sun comes up. The can walk over 3 kilometers away from the water, and back. In St. Lucia that means town is within reach easily. The hippos have discovered that the green areas in town provide nice fresh grass, and the come INTO town at night. On one of our night when we walked back to the lodge from a restaurant, there was one right along the road, and on our last night this one was right outside our bedroom! Remember: Hippos kill more people in Africa then any other animal.

After our week in St. Lucia we were nice and rested, finally had a chance to read some books again, and were totally ready for some action.....RUGBY ACTION. More about that in the next post.

J1