Beach and Birthday (J1)

After being totally landlocked for the first time since I moved out of Holland, we (finally) spent some time on the coast again. J2 had organised an early birthday break, and we met up with the P. family in Umhlanga, just north of Durban. The weather was very nice, we did some swimming in the ocean, and of course lots of eating and drinking. Some pictures:

Our resort, as seen from our apartment

Jill on the beach

Dinner with the family P.

A little note on the side: This dinner was right before the France - Ireland game (rugby world cup), which explains my shirt. For those who do not follow rugby: Ireland's game has been terribly poor this whole WC, they did not stand a chance against a poor French team, and have now lost all chances of progressing to the quarter finals. My support did not help. I will be supporting the Springboks (South Africa) from here on for this tournament.

Still happy, an early birthday dinner (an before the rugby)

After our lovely few days in Durban, we stopped over for a night of partying in Joburg with Alan and Jean. We had champagne, a really nice dinner in Moyo and of course loads of drinks.

Drinks in Ratz - Melville

I have been overwhelmed by all the presents, wishes, superpokes, cards etc for my 30th. Thanks everyone. And while I write this I am only halfway through the day. Jill bought me a new (Bosch) hammer drill and a really good pair of binoculars. I can not wait to take them into the bush for a test.

Finally a small negative. The picture below is me paying a speeding ticket to a possibly corrupt traffic cop in Groot Marico. I got caught again....He halved the fine on the spot for paying cash though, welcome to Africa.

J1

Lo and Behold, it's here!

The big news from the dark continent today is that our website is officially up and running!

Please check it out and don't forget to let us know of any glaring mis-spellings or appalling grammar.

Big thanks to our friends Jéan and Alan who helped us make it. Definitely couldn't have done it without you guys. We really appreciate it, and appreciate it even more that you were willing to do it for free. Or rather, do it for wine and muesli (respectively).

The next post will be filled with far more excitement, I promise.

In the meantime we're just busy watching the World Cup rugby, Twenty20 cricket World Cup, and working a little bit.

Otherwise, it's getting hot. Really hot. I think Alan is going to melt.

And finally, we 2 Westras are going down to Kwa-Zulu Natal, to Umhlanga beach (Just outside of Durban, SA) for 3 days with the Polson parents at their timeshare next week (19-22 Sept). Our first sight of coastline and anything that resembles a large body of water (The Indian Ocean) in almost a year. For those of you who don't know, SOMEONE is turning the big 3-0 on Monday the 24th and we thought it would be nice to do something fun that weekend. A day in Joburg with Jéan on the way home, and a stop in Rustenburg for sushi before crossing the border back into Botswana on Sunday. Can't wait.

Spring (J1)

This is probably going to be the most cheesy and boring blog so far. But even though Botswana spring is so very dry, everything is flowering beautifully. I went around our garden this weekend and took the following pictures:

Did we already say it was getting hot again?

A little 'log' we hung, which has been inhabited

A beautiful 'native' in full flower.

And the aloes are just gorgeous.

This is taken from our 'lawn' area.

Nice white flowering tree around the pool.

The creeper on the pergola close to the kitchen.

An even our pruned peach tree is showing the first flowers.

This is a little lemon tree we planted a few weeks ago.

And of course our farming.....some carrots and onions

We finished a major deadline last week, so we are slowly catching up with everything else, such as working out, playing tennis, having long lunches etc. Sorry for this boring post.

J1

Khutse again (J1)

We headed for yet another weekend into Khutse last weekend. Alan's first weekend in the bush, and it was as great as always. We stayed at 'campsite' no14 this time, about an hour further into the park compared the the last times. This also meant that there was absolutely no-one around. It is always amazing to only be able to hear the sound of crickets, and a roar from a lion or hyena, but no other noise at all. And the skyline is only lit up by stars and the moon, no other light at all.
As mentioned in the previous blog, we did pick up a nice roof tent, which worked perfectly. Below a picture in the folded position, and when put up (takes less then 1 minute)


There is no shop anywhere near the place, the nearest (very basic) shop and petrol station is approximately 150km from the campsite, so the car was packed with supplies and extra diesel to keep us going all weekend. Having the tent free up some space in the back (which would have been taken by our tent, air mattress, bedding) was a welcome bonus. Cooking on the fire is always fun, Jill makes the best stew with kudu, wildebeast and oxtail in a potjie (cast iron three legged pot). She is also very good for cooking breakfast:
I usually do a braai (barbeque) with wors (sausage), lamb chops and corn on the cob. The cooking keeps us occupied for a good part of the camping, but collection of the fire wood for probably just as long..... It is very dry in Botswana at the moment. Rain season does not start until October / November, and the last rain was in April. The tracks had gotten very heavy and sandy, and the car was put to a real test. Especially on our way back when we found 2 cars stuck in the sand. One had sunk away into the sand, and the other managed to get itself stuck trying the pull the first one out. It is very important to keep driving in these sandy spots, and we were reluctant to try and pull them out, with danger of also getting stuck ourselves. But leaving them there would be cruel, so we did give it a careful try, and managed to pull both of them loose.

We did not spot any of the cats such as lion, hyena, cheetah or leopard. But we did see plenty of wildlife again:

Giraffe

Beautiful bird, I have not identified this one yet

Gemsbok

Ostrich

Hartebeest

Unfortunately we are back in the office now, buried into the work. But weekends in Khutse definitely make up for all that.

J1

Just a random update

The year has flown, it's springtime again and we don't know where the months have gone.


Here are some recent photos from just "around", and a few notes to go along with them.


We're still loving having Alan around the place, even though the testosterone level in the house has been thrown so totally out of balance. I'm seriously considering getting at least a few more female animals around or something. 3 male dogs, 2 boys and 7 sports channels on TV... Or maybe redecorating the house... in shades of pink and lilac or you know, along those lines.


So, what is the queen to do?


Besides put them to work (obviously):



A & J1 pruning the snot out of our overgrown peach tree. Desperately needed. Now we might actually get fruit this year that won't be the size of a golf ball, but rather actual peach-sized peaches?!?

Also in the last week or two I planted a passionfruit vine and a grape vine. I have no faith in my own ability to cultivate edible plants, but we'll see if maybe the warm and dry Botswana climate can do it for me. With the help of the great Irish slave-boy, I also planted chillies, sweet peppers, cucumbers and coriander in the vegetable garden. I aspire to make my own salsa by the end of this coming growing season. The gardener laughed at me because I've obviously not sown a single seed since my 3rd grade botany project. I had seeds everywhere and he overheard me telling Alan to space them out in "exactly 30cm spacings". whatever! apparently that's not necessary when you can transplant them later on in the year. who knew?!

While I was busy out there, I noticed some weavers have begun building their nest in one of our other climbers on the pergola:

Speaking of birds, we suspect there is a crested barbet building a nest in one of the trees in our yard. Actually, not the tree itself but in a log that we nailed to the tree, which we took over from the Polsons. Fingers crossed.

The landlords came by last week to check us out. They live in the West Indies and were back in BW for a visit/general stuff. They said we weren't keeping the pool clean enough and we said "but it's winter" and that was pretty much the end of that. I think they realize they got some good renters in the place and we're obviously not wrecking the joint. She nearly had a go at J1 for not mowing the lawn enough but before she even went down that road he reminded her that we'd just had frost the night before so I think that was the end of that thread. Either way, I suppose we can understand, I mean, not a day goes by that we don't breathe a sigh of relief that those nice (clean) Swedish boys who are living in our house back in Ireland aren't a bunch of irresponsible scumbags or something.

The road to fitness (and summer i.e. swimsuit time) is still going strong. We're still climbing the mountain 2x per week, yoga (Alan in tow) and J1 playing tennis on mondays, plus we manage to work a run or something-or-other into another day during the week. Sprinter Lynch is pushing us to the point where we're actually running up the mountain (from about halfway up - where the track starts) rather than climbing. We're getting there. If we can only pull off about another 100m, we'll be there. But of course the last hundred metres is the steepest and most uneven and looks like Mount Everest. But I'm enjoying the feeling of having legs-of-jelly. It's been a long time since I've had that feeling.

This weekend the boys were filling up at a petrol station and J1 saw some guys moving a roof tent, in the back of a bakkie. So he went up to them and offered them money for it on the spot (without even asking if they would consider selling it), seeing as they obviously weren't using it (come on, it was in the back of their bakkie!). So, they realized their chance to make a quick 3k right then and there had arrived, and lo and behold the tent is ours! It's a total bargain considering new ones retail at 7k. It's brand new and would have only been sitting in those guys' garage. Now it has a nice comfy new home on the top of a lovely '93 Pajero, where it'll get lots of abuse scraping along thorn tree branches and will enjoy a wide variety of foreign bodies sleeping in it throughout the year! (We will kindly be offering it to our visitors and taking the old trusty ground tent for ourselves - that is until said visitors realize how much of a pain it is to get in & out, up & down etc. in the middle of the night when nature calls).

So anyway, now we just have to get a rack welded onto the top of the rig and fix the tent on, and we're 2 items closer down to the bottom our never ending 4x4 (standing at the bottom of a diesel tank tearing up dollar bills) wish-list. We're going to take it on a test run with Alan this weekend, in Khutse. Can't wait. Photos to come.

A little preview (J1)

Having recovered from our porcupine intruder last week, and the dogs (literally) licking their woulds, we went into a very nice and relaxing weekend. Poor Alan really deserved this after putting him to work at our office all week. He came expecting a holiday....

Friday night we had sundowners (drinks while watching the sunset) at the Gaborone yacht club on the dam. There was music by our friend (and ecologist) J, and giant hamburgers from the kitchen, very enjoyable after a busy week at work.

Saturday morning was spent (again) repairing the fence we built for Reggie. When he is determined to get out, nothing can stop him. He can pull chain link fencing apart like it was not even there. We made another attempt in re-enforcing it, and will have to see where he finds the next weak spot.

During the afternoon we had the plan to walk from Gaborone to Gabane, we had done this a few months ago, and it was very enjoyable. Just outside Gaborone we stumbled by total coincidence onto the back of the set for the 'No. 1 ladies detective agency' movie. Of course we had a wander around, until security came to kick us out. No-one was allowed to see anything until the release, so enjoy these pictures, before we get solicitors' letters etc telling us to take them down......

The amazing thing was, this whole village had been built recently as the set for the movie, but it looked like any Botswana village, which had been there for years. It included broken down cars, chickens and buildings in need of repair and re-painting. I am reading the last book in the series now, titled 'The good husband of Zebra drive', and would recommend them to anyone who has not read them yet.

Our 2 1/2 hour walk ended in Gabane village, at the "Mountain liquor restaurant", where cold beer was waiting. At about 6 the barbecues were going at full speed, and the restaurant sell the best marinated steaks, with complementary pap. Some pictures of us around the barbecues at the bar:

We also went to see the Simpsons movie this weekend, I thought is was very funny, and would certainly recommend it to anyone.

Yesterday I played my first game of tennis in over 2 years. Our work experience student E. has access to the university courts, and it was great to play again. We will try to make this a weekly habit. Maybe we might also join a local tennis club (and squash courts), so Jill can start playing tennis as well. I am looking forward to teaching her.

J1

The Night We Fought Off the Giant Porcupine

...and Alan's introduction to Africa just keeps getting more and more entertaining.

Last night we were all a bit late getting to bed, as there was a bit of a bloodbath going on at la casa.

As usual, I let the dogs out to do their thing around 10:30pm before bedtime. Normally I do this thing where I stand out on the stoop and stare up into the sky trying to spot at least 1 falling star before the 4 legged monsters are done peeing and ready to go back inside. Last night, however, I was only out there for about 30 seconds before I realized all 4 of them had all bolted off into the bush, and some seriously scary noises were starting to come out of the darkness over there.

(I keep telling Hannes we NEED SOME LIGHTS OUTSIDE but so far as far as we've gotten is the string of jalapeno christmas lights that hang over the stoop. Not exactly the practical flood lighting I was hoping for)

First there was just branches breaking and a bunch of growling, which then turned into howling and crazy barking and a doggy shriek or two. The scary part that was no matter how much I called any of them, they just weren't listening and it sounded like something ferocious was on a rampage. Then the weirdest sound I ever heard - it was like someone had a corrugated iron box full of timber and was shaking it violently and running and stumbling randomly around through the bush... or something.

Of course my first thought was: "Crikey!!! Leopard!!!" but then I realized

1) the only growling that was going on was very dog-like

2) leopards are graceful and don't thunder around awkwardly in the bush

3) all 4 dogs sounded like they were all still alive

and then I realized how LARGE the thing (whatever it was) sounded, nearly like it had hooves so I thought "crap!. . . probably a cow or a donkey I bet Mary left the gate open again!" but the way the dogs were shrieking bloody murder still made me pretty scared that something huge was going to come crashing out of the darkness and straight at me.

So I hollered at the boys and they both came running out of the house and neither one of them had any clue what was going on, so weren't really being any more help than a box of rocks. Not to mention the flashlight that I grabbed out of the kitchen was giving off about as much light as a dying wristwatch, so we were all pretty much helpless, standing there in the pitch blackness stunned, listening to 4 hysterical dogs on the attack, an unidentified large disoriented creature making sounds I'd never before heard in my life, and our own voices shouting out the names of dogs who had absolutely no intention of following any commands whatsoever! By this time, every single dog within the entire neighbourhood of Notwane was going crazy in response to Sech, Reggie, Reilly's barking and howling, and of course Billy's high-pitched, blood-curdling screeching.

After about 2 minutes of just being stupid and standing around frozen in fear, we kind of all started moving towards the chaos and somehow that ended up with the dogs dispersing a bit and Sech (of course) charging the THING towards the swimming pool. THen Alan got a glimpse of it fighting it's way into one of our landscaped beds and goes "it's not a cow! it's spikey!" around about the same time Johannes managed to catch Reggie, who was all bloody. I found my way to the swimming pool lights and turned them on, and then Hannes managed to get into the dog pile and grab Billy. His back was full of spines about as long as his own body. I would've believed sooner that it was a porcupine, had I not caught a glimpse of this thing that Sech was currently attacking, and seen the sheer size of it.

It stood taller than all the dogs with the exception of Sech, and had feet the size of a small human. And when it reared its spines, they actually stood HIGHER than Sech (who already comes up past my waist, himself), and it was most definitely fighting off the dogs with some serious agression. It even came AT us a few times while we were trying to corral the tornado of fighting dogs into the light. It was really, really huge!

I was pretty confused because the only porcupine I'd ever seen in my life was back in South Dakota when I was a kid and I remembered it being small, docile, sitting in the middle of the road, and only about as big as a large hedgehog. This thing was bigger than a Boerboel!!

Anyway, to make an already long story shorter, we saved all the dogs & threw them inside, except Sech, within a few minutes. You can tell this dog is bred to fight and protect by the way he was wired to the gills with adrenaline, had a face full of spines, and was STILL GOING. The porcupine was rattling his spines, hissing, attacking, going for it, and Sech just wouldn't back down. There was blood everywhere. I managed to grab the camera, it was taking so outrageously long to get the situation to a manageable position. I can swear that the whole neighbourhood probably thought that there was a full-scale attack in progress on plot 32A.

This photo doesn't do the size of the giant porcupine justice. It was really scary. It was like a small person stomping and storming around with 10,000 million knives sticking out of its back, going rattle rattle rattle hiss hiss click click rattle rattle....

Thankfully Alan didn't know anything about porcupines, and actually got up close enough to be able to grab Sech, eventually. The struggle involved a thick jungle of thorn trees, a pissed-off porcupine, and a raging boerboel who was ready to kill. I'm still not sure how he did it but it must be that insane Waterford warrior blood in him. Check out all that champion blood splatter all over the face:

With all the dogs inside, it became clear exactly how much blood was being lost. The living/dining room looked like a murder scene.

The quills that we pulled out nearly resulted in a few hands getting chomped off, but it was all out of love.

Here's some of the un-broken ones we saved for posterity:

Since none of us knew that much about the Giant African Porcupine, we did some research this morning and found out the following interesting facts:

- They can weigh up to 30kg (60lbs)

- They walk flat-footed and have 5 toes

- They are Africa's largest and heaviest rodent

- It will stamp its feet, click its teeth and growl or hiss while vibrating specialized quills that produce a characteristic rattle.

- Quill length on different parts of the body varies, from 1 inch up to 12 inches on the back.

- Porcupine quills have long been a favorite ornament and good-luck charm in Africa. The hollow rattle quills serve as musical instruments and were once used as containers for gold dust.

Alan's closing remark of the evening:

"Well, that certainly wouldn't have happened in Ireland!"

Back in the office...

...after a nice trip to South Africa last week, mainly time off for pleasure. We did a great job timing our first week-off-of-the-year with the arrival of Alan. The week consisted of:

- Hanging out in Joburg with Jéan.

- Hanging out in Pretoria with the P's.

- Fetching Alan from the airport.

- Quickly integrating A. into Africa, and Joburg in particular (where he's starting his new job in about a month).

- Shopping around (a bit) in the greater Pta/JHB area for roof tents and other 4x4 accessories.

- Hitting Pilanesberg for a quick camping trip and some animal-spotting for the new guy.

Apparently A. had never slept in a tent before. Well now he can't say that any more. He also got to enjoy my (Jill) campfire eggs & bacon & onions deluxe. And who wouldn't kill for that opportunity.... really.

We've been to Pilanesberg many times, but this time took the cake as far as babies were concerned. Apparently we hit the peak time for new arrivals in the wild kingdom and every adult animal spotting offered a newborn or two, to boot. So for this blog, I will post a couple photos of not even half of the baby guys that we saw in just 2 short days.

(Oh yes, and A. got to see 3 of the Big 5 in his first expidition out in the NorthWest Province, so he's doing very well for himself. He's also proven to be a natural born spotter... catching quite a few really really really long distance views on hillsides at least a mile away that even J1 and I didn't spot. Although I'd say every single time he made me slam on the breaks, it was zebra. I think he's well and truly got some sort of zebra-magnet hidden somewhere on him)

Baby hippo (look to the right)

Baby ellies

Baby waterbok

We also saw: baby rhino, baby bosbok, baby baboons, baby zebra, and baby giraffe.

Once we got back to Gabs, of course we had to make Alan climb Kgale Hill a couple of times (not to mention the end of vacation means the beginning of fitness for us, too), and we did a lot of showing off Gabz-City and that kind of stuff. We also celebrated his birthday and put him to work (kind of) in the office. By the end of this week, he'll probably be desperate for his new company to come through with all his immigration paperwork (which is why he's here with us for a few weeks), so he can get back to Joburg and start working at a real job where the boss doesn't drag you off to yoga class in the afternoon and make you do work on your so-called "holiday"!!!

Thanks to anyone out there who is holding thumbs for our beloved Reggie. He's doing just fine, we're keeping our eyes peeled and our hopes up high that if he did have a cancer "thing", that it won't be coming back. Surely he has a few more good years left in him. The vet thinks he removed it all so we just have to go with that. Meanwhile, he's still the same old high-maintenence, obnoxious food hound that he's always been, so that's good enough for us! I think he's doing just fine.

Poor Reggie (J1)

I am going to have to start this blog with some very sad news: our poor Reggie has / had cancer. He had a swelling underneath his body, that kept getting bigger. We took him to the vet, who at first told us it was nothing to worry about, and treated Reggie with antibiotics. The treatment did not help, and Reggie started to lick the swelling open, with as a result several blood trails through our house and garden. Took him to the vet again, and this time it was decided to remove it. After removing the vet came to the conclusion is was probably cancerous, but luckily he managed to remove it very well, and hopefully it had not spread and rooted yet. It is way too early for poor Reggie to have trouble, is is only 11 years yet.

We have been very busy working, but I will not bore anyone with the details of that (again). But I guess this would be our lame excuse for no activity on this blog. Last weekend was lots of fun though, we went to a rugby game, the vultures (Botswana national team) against Mauritius. We were amazed, the atmosphere was fantastic, the stadium (University Botswana stadium) was nicer then most places in Ireland (such as Musgrave Park), and the game very good. These guys are all not professionals, even soccer players, which is the main sport here, are not professionals. Our friend Eric and neighbour Terry game along for the afternoon, and we enjoyed some beers in the stadium while watching this game. Some pictures:

Jill and Terry.

The police band before the game

The Vultures - Botswana National rugby team

Saturday night we went our for a nice dinner, or that was what the plan was. We went to Dros, a South African restaurant chain, usually very good for a good steak and a nice glass of wine. Not this time.....it was probably the worse steak I had ever tasted. We sent it back to the kitchen, something I never do, and the replacement was just as bad. We took it up with the manager, but they still made us pay! No more Dros for us for a while.

Our friend AL from Ireland is coming over next week, and will stay for us for a few weeks before starting his job in Johannesburg. We will pick him up from Joburg airport, and will try to make a few holiday days out of the trip, and meet up with some old friends. We used to be planning our holidays so well, but now having our own business, things are different. It sounds like it's great to have your own business, you can do whatever you want. But look how it has worked out: we have been here 6 months, and have taken exactly 2 days holidays so far, and even ended up working on some public holidays. We have to change this nonsense, starting next week!!!

J1

The Detectives are in town

For those of you who STILL haven't taken our advice and read any of Alexander McCall Smith's series of books based in Botswana (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series), you'll have a chance to get your enjoyment "cheater" style, when the movie comes out! It's been all the buzz around here for the last 9 months or so, but now that the film crews are running around town and actually getting to work on it, you can't help but feel the vibe.

The sets are up all over town and they're filming away. Amazingly enough, one of my favorite R&B singers (Jill Scott) is going to be the lead role in the movie, and hardly anyone here knows who she is... all they're concerned about is that if you get picked to be an extra, you can make 200 Pula per day!

I'm slightly annoyed that the main characters are all Hollywood actors (or in JS's case, not actors at all). Was there not one Motswana (traditionally built) lady that could've possibly done the job? I have very little faith in Jill Scott's ability to pull off a traditional Botswana accent... she's a singer, for crying out loud! eh, we'll see.

Presidents Day (J1)

July is a very good month when it comes to holidays in Botswana, we had a bank holiday early in the month, and this week Monday and Tuesday were days off, because it was presidents day. Unfortunately we only realised very close too the weekend that we actually would have two days holiday, instead of the Monday we expected, and we made no exciting plans to do anything.

Of course it had only been a week since we were in the bush (Khutse) with Jean, so no huge urge to go back straight away. And we are going to South Africa in two weeks time, so no need for that either. Mary went back to her hometown called Plumtree, in Zimbabwe, so no-one to feed the dogs anyway. And it was very nice to have a relaxing weekend at home, the last week at work was very busy, and even though I am still doing a little work, we also had loads of time to relax.

We are trying to get back in shape, so our plan was to go up Kgale Hill every day for exercise. And at places the path is really steep, so it’s a great workout. We went out for dinner with friends on Friday night, and had some lovely Ethiopian food. Later this weekend we grilled some yummy (aged) porterhouse steaks, and we had an Indian lunch. I also got a few jobs done around the house.

Sunday afternoon we went for a little game drive into Mokolodi. Just across the road from us, very convenient. And it is always nice to go game viewing, I never get bored. We saw kudu, impala, waterbok, wildebeest, warthog, zebra, rhino, ostrich, springbok and all that in an hour and a half. The Mokolodi restaurant is being refurbished and getting a new owner, it will be open again on the 3rd August, so we are excited to see what it will be like.

As I said, work is busy. We (mostly Jill) is still really busy with the powerline project, and will be for the coming week. Besides this we were awarded a small job on a new terminal building at the airport, and it seems we might get a job on a new dairy facility. I have been very busy putting a proposal together for a new park in a small town outside of Gaborone. With these jobs we usually form a team, with architects, civil engineers, quantity surveyors, and electrical engineers. It takes a lot of effort to get all this together in a proposal. After submitting a proposal as such to the council, it usually takes a long time, it can take 6 months are longer before a decision will be made, but that is how it works in Botswana. We are also working on a proposal for the environmental input on a new road.

Anyway, that is probably too much writing already, I will try to find a few pictures to go with all this…..

J1

More camping, more friends, more photos

I have been informed by the husband that he is "too busy to blog" today, whereas I have just finished off a big project (WAHOO!) so it's going to be my turn to do two-in-a-row for once.

First of all, having Jéan in town with us for 5 days last week was great. We kept him busy. We dragged him to the office with us where he started the ball rolling on our company's first website. It's about time, too! We have already registred the domain name (watch this space!) but we have not yet actually gotten around to constructing THE WEBSITE. So J. came to work with us on Wednesday and created a temporary webpage that basically has the back bone of our future site and some appropriate links that you can click on which all take you to the same page that basically says: "sorry, this is under construction!!" What an anti-climax!! But it's something, and we can hopefully get it hosted and put up for all to see, soon.

If anyone out there wants to finish it off for us, (HA!) let me know, you're welcome to put your name in big fat letters on it, if you do it for free ! ! !

Considering that Jéan is now officially our most frequent visitor, and we have not yet ever taken him outside of the big city of Gaborone, we decided that we would spend a few days out in the bush with him before he headed back to Johannesburg and subsequently up to the rain and gloom of Scotland in a matter of months. Here are some photos:

Jill

Johannes & Jéan

Hornbill - practically sitting on my head

The highlight of the weekend's game viewing was the sheer number of oryx that were out in masses. The oryx (aka gemsbok) is one of my favorite antelope species and they were everywhere (see photo). At one point we came around a bend in the road and caught at least 40 of them in a pack less than 50 metres from our truck. It was really beautiful.We saw giraffe as usual, many mongoose, bustards, springbok, steenbok, impala, and hartebeest. I hate to sound complacent, but I'm getting pretty sick of giraffe by this stage. I think I have suffered a serious giraffe-photo-binge since we got here, and it's about time to declare a photo embargo on myself for pictures of them walking around, standing, drinking, etc. It really is getting ridiculous. From now on unless they're mating, running, playing poker or singing karaoke, I've officially decided to avoid taking any more (hundreds of) photos of those guys.

Lions came very close to our tents at night, carrying on and roaring like crazy - I think there was some substantial mating going on - and scared the pee out of Jéan. In the morning he told us he had even pondered which strategy the Botswana Government would put in place to cover up our deaths in an effort to avoid any potential negative impacts on tourism.

This weekend is yet another public holiday (we have 2 in July - fantastic! The first one being Sir Seretse Khama day 2 weeks ago). This one is actually President's day and we get both monday AND tuesday off, but I believe SOMEONE wants to work on tuesday because we have a big proposal to submit on wednesday morning. It may be possible to do some of that work at home, however. We'll see. We won't be going anywhere far away anyway, as Mary is going back to Zim for the weekend and we didn't line up anyone to look after the dogs.

The only thing I want to do this weekend is exercise. One yoga class per week for me is not cutting it. I'm seriously annoyed by our lack of fitness these days, due to the really early hours of darkness every night which has given us way too nice of an excuse to go home and go running/walking like we used to after work. If we didn't maintain such a healthy diet, we would both probably pack on at least 2 extra kilos during the winter here. I have decided that we are going to climb Kgale Hill every day between tomorrow (Sat) and Tuesday. That's 4 climbs i n 4 days. If that doesn't kick our butts into gear I don't know what will. Oh yes, and kayaking too.

I'm really looking forward to the days getting longer again, but I'm wary of complaining about the cold weather because I know that within a month we'll be back to sweating and sunburns. My only real complaint about this winter has been the climate-challenged nature of our office. Even with our house being freezing cold in the morning and nighttime, it's not so bad because we just make a fire in the TV room or turn on the heater in the bedroom. Here at the office, it is always and I mean ALWAYS at least 5 degrees colder inside than outside!!! Even with the sun pouring in the window, the cement walls and floors that we're surrounded by in here make this place like an icebox. My feet are always frozen and my hands and nose as well. I don't even bother dressing nicely to come into the office because I know I won't even bother removing my fleece, snow hat, and scarf throughout the day. This photo was taken of me looking "professional" at my desk during what should be the warmest part of the day... outside anyway.

Anyway, happy President's day weekend to us and to all who will miss out on a fabulous 4-day weekend wherever you may be! We're off to enjoy some ethiopian food tonight with a couple of our friends at the Abyssinian cafe, and then the rest of the weekend is an open book (for once)!

Long time, no post.

Well, there's a good explanation....
we're just busy!!!

Never has more work been cranked out of the office than over the past week. The power line jobs are eating into both our days and nights. Proposals still keep rolling in like crazy, and we have a visitor staying with us as well (Jéan again, from Pretoria). However, we made an effort to stop and smell the roses this weekend, for a change.

Saturday we slept in until 9am (YAHOO!) and woke up, got in the car, and drove about an hour and a half south.... over the South African border, through the R51.00 toll gate, and into the booming platinum mine town of Rustenburg. Rustenburg has recently been named the fastest growing city in South Africa. Why is that little fact important? Because with major growth comes.... Major shopping malls!!!

The new(ish) Waterfall Mall in Rustenburg is home to many, many shops (where I finally proceeded to spend many, many Pula on clothing... my first time clothes shopping in a whole year!!) as well as....

....?

.... The CAPETOWN FISH MARKET!!!!!!!!! Home of the only SUSHI BAR to be found within a 3 hour radius of Gaborone!!!!

We had been craving sushi for so long now (it's been over a year since our last raw fish feast, as there is none in Cork, either) that it was all worth it. A nice glass of white wine and a conveyor belt full of tasty, delicious, fishy/sea weedy delights was by all means worth the 3 hour round trip and R102 toll fee. (I hear Dutch people shreiking in horror!) It was also nice to do some clothes shopping, and we picked up yet another boxed set of another season of "24". It was a really great day. And we were home around 9pm.

Since Monday was a bank holiday here, there was also more time to attempt some relaxation, and even though I ended up working on the laptop at some stage during the afternoon, we still managed to work a run in, as well as a bike ride (with Reggie) and some bonding time with the neighbours and their newborn twins.

The new babies are unbelievably tiny (they were a few weeks premature) and together the 2 of them only weighed in (combined!) at 4kg when they were born. Boy and girl, pretty cute. I think they will definitely keep S-H&S (mom and dad) plenty busy. S-H's mom has come up from Cape Town to live with them and be the nanny, indefinitely, so the household has not only grown by 2, but by 3, all of a sudden. Pretty ironic considering that S still hasn't finished building the house yet!! Luckily he got 1 bedroom & 1 bathroom totally finished while S-H was down in the Cape giving birth. Mom & grandma have since moved into that room and S is hiding out in the half-finished guest room.

At any rate, there's the update for now. Given all our hard work and accomplishment over the last mad week, we're taking thursday and friday off to go camping with Jéan, which we're really looking forward to. With any luck we'll spot the lions that our friends saw when they were at the same campsite a few days ago. Fingers crossed.......