Blah

Today's day is a blah day
The reasons I think
are numerous
onerous
tasks

And my head is stuffed
to the brim with
memories
thoughts
fears

A friendship - lost
A love - betrayed
A father - died
A baby - born

Maybe a new love - Reborn?
Dreams and fantasies
Are they real or
just my musings?

The rockstar pout

This is my kid's best 'I am cool imitation', which I caught in a moment of unguarded facial expressions

His awareness of death continues and yesterday he decided it would have been better if he was space. I thought I misunderstood the kid and asked him if he means he wants to be in space. No mom, he says in that rolling of the eye tone of voice.

I wish I was space, because if I was space, I would not get old and die.

Yes, It is digital

Finally, I have splurged on that digital camera. Now if I can only figure out how to take really shit hot photos with it, all will be well. But for starters, look how my kid has grown!

E and John watching superbikes racing with E telling John exactly how the guy must turn to make sure he can get around those corners real fast without falling over
Yip, my kid has chores in the house and here he is helping us set the table for a family dinner at my parents. He had to do all the cutlery and then helped with folding and placing the serviettes in the wine glasses
A couple of visits to the bicycle park and E has become really confident in his own riding abilities. Now he keeps telling me that I need to buy a bike so we can bike together and that is definately something to be done soon!

Another month or two and we will have to adjust the seat on that bike - the speed with which this kid is growing is just mind boggeling. We measured him at my parents house in March and again in June and the kid grew just more than two centimenters in just more than two months

My kid is a practical joker and whenever he sees the camera coming out, all these poses start immediately, with whatever props he can find handy for the moment

Shilogh - The horse next door

When I moved into my little cottage, now nearly two years ago I was seriously in transit and could not even cope with owning a couch or a dog. As we all know that has slowly changed over the last two years, with me drifting less and less and slowly settling back down into the routine of life and responsibility. Getting a puppy, buying a couch, acknowledging my relationship with John....and recently, starting lessons on Shilogh and taking over the management of his upkeep.

See, Shilogh is the little horse next door that I have been riding on a very informal and irregular basis for the last eighteen months. In the past, I have kept the relationship and the riding very loose and uncommited but the desire to start competing and taking my riding more seriously have steadily been growing. Firstly I thought of finding a horse to halfbate, then to buy and eventually I decided that I actually have a wonderful little horse to ride, I just need to put the effort and the cost into him and upgrade my riding experience with him. So I spoke to the owner and we have changed his food and his stable management as from today - no more will he be treated as a live-out second class citizen. Oh no - he has gone onto competition quality food and stable management principles. Even though this is quite costly, if we share it, it is affordable and the results I am sure will blow us all away. But to start with - this is what the little guy is all about.

He is rather skinny at the moment with very little muscle tone especially over the hind quarter which is a critical area for your showjumper. This is also then the area that are currently enjoying the most focus in terms of the exercises I am doing with him. I love his short compact back, well balanced neck and kind face. A bit of downer is the rather straight shoulder and very long and angled pasterns....fortunately he is not a very big horse and he has a very kind and generous disposition with more than enough ability to give me back my confidence and teach me how to ride properly again.

He is a really well banlanced little horse with a lovely soft mouth and even though he is not really well developed as yet, he is an easy and supple ride
Working on that dreaded seat my girl - get those legs longer and chin UP for Pete's sake! Shilogh is engaging really well here and you can start to see his paces coming out in this photo. Now imagine what he will look like in about three or four months time with proper food and exercise!
A really well engaged little horse paying attention to my every move, he really is a lovely soft and responsive ride and I am scared that I might just fall in love with this gorgeous little boy!
And hate me if you must, but these photos were taken today, in the MIDDLE of winter, we are really enjoying lovely mild daytime temperatures at the moment.

Boardroom blunders

My nerves kept me up for most the night, not to talk about the sulky John creaking at the other side of my bed. His lower lip was so big it nearly got stuck in the bedroom door, but that is another story all together. By the time 4:30 am rolled by it was nearly a relief to extract myself from the warmth of my bed and just as I started to stir, J was out the bed and ready to rush of to his house and leave me to the misery of working in the cold early morning air. But my timing was on target and by 7:30 I was done and ready to roll out of the house. To a demo I had to lead at a very big mining house to implement our product across all their operations. To say I was slightly nervous is an understatement.

Preparation required some power dressing, only to remember I clean forgot to get our company profiles printed. Oh well, too late to do anything about that now and better get that ass moving as traffic is a challenge and the 25 odd km's to their head office can take at least an hour. But just in case, I gave myself an hour and half to get there. Alas, half way down the road and the first reports start to come over the radio of a Taxi that rolled on the highway, on the side I want to travel and all motorists are recommend to take alternative roads. All of a sudden the destination seems to be situated on a different continent. But we shall preservere and not loose our carefully made up composure to the mad dash of taxi's driving from all sides and into all directions, the proverbial broken ant hill.

With exactly 3 minutes to spare I walked into the boardroom accompanied by Phil (looking for all the world like a converted muslim) and our much younger partner Des. To be greeted enthusiastically by a group of no less than 10 experts ranging from social develop to systems development and data integrity. All ready to bombard us with questions.

The first half of the presentation went beautifully then I tried to access the server and I could not connect to the internet. All waited patiently untill Biscuit saved the day and gave me his laptop which was connected through the wireless network at the office. I took a deep breath and prepared to plunge into the meat of the discussion, only to discover that our server is down and none of the buttons work.

It was a serious anti climax let me tell you.

Moonstruck

Last night as John stopped at my cottage he came rushing through the door excitedly.

'Baby come quickly, grab your camera and come see the moon'.

So we locked up, jumped into his little car and raced down the road to admire a blood red moon slowly rising from behind one of the many hills around town. The castle etched out in front of it.

I love that about him. His childlike enthusiasm about the magic of life

Halfway through winter and still running

June has been a really hectic month and I am still trying to slow down, consolidate and process all that has happened in thirty short days. And short these days were, being in the middle of winter and freezing cold. But this is just how it is for me, if I do not pack my winters full of goodie bags, I get depressed and then it is a mission to get me from under the duvet. But not this June, Oh no, our month started with a wonderful weekend of offroad fun, for which I rented a little trailer and took E and myself off to join our offroad club in a weekend of camping at the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary.

The convoy of about six vehicles travelled together to Swaziland and just before lunch time we went through one of the lessor known border posts.
The scenary at the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary where we stayed were absolutely magnificent and I managed to capture this nostalgic scene at the local weir.
It was a lot of fun staying in our little tent and I was very proud of the way in which E managed to help me around the camp. Setting up the tent, helping mom around the camp site and his personal favourite - farting as loud and as much as possible in the clear mountain air.
The Nyalas were really tame and provided us with hours of entertainment. That is if they did not manage to steal everything edible available at your camp.

Some boulder bashing on top of a mountain, believe it or not, but thanks to some good guidance and nerves of steel, we all made it through here without a scratch to any of the vehicles.
After that rather tight squeeze I needed some relieve and this I must say, was the best wee view in the world ;-)
Followed by a lovely picnic and a well deserved rest on top of the mountain

We visited Swazi Candles the next day and I was amazed at the skill of the artists who, seemingly without effort, created the most the beautiful candles I have ever seen. This gentleman made an elephant candle in about 10 or so minutes whilst E and me stood watching him. Needless to say, I spend a fortune right there in gifts and little things for my home.
As I came back from my Swazi trip, John and I renewed our discussions around property, our different needs and how we could possibly accommodate a city sleeker and country bumpkin in one house. This resulted in some serious thinking and the purchase of a stand where we plan to build a city home in a country estate, just a couple of km's north of E's school.

The next weekend I was off to Porterville to share experiences with beautiful women in a function which was co sponsored by Jacobs Quest and the Diva Africa Programme. I felt privileged to be invited as a speaker at the gala dinner and got to dance the night away with all the lovely local ladies.
And just to top it all off, I bought myself a lovely new digital camera with all the functionality I have been drooling about for years but could never quite muster the courage to splash out on. Now I just need to figure out how to download the photos from the camera to my computer and we should be ready for some serious playing and sharing ;-)