Category: The General stuff

And moving along swiftly..

to a topic I am very passionate about: Leftovers.

I have a friend (who shall remain unnamed, the not-so-innocent must be protected!) that keeps leftovers for ages.  She claims that they can buy a cooked chicken from Woollies on a Sunday and keep it in the fridge until the Thursday and then make Chicken-a-la-King from it.  By choice. To add injury to insult they also eat leftover vegetables. (she knows that I’m writing this post by the way, it’s a bit of a dare)

In our house whatever doesn’t get finished at supper either goes in the fridge for lunch the next day, to the doggies (sniff), the domestic worker, the freezer (rice), the tortoises (salad), the compost heap or the bin.  We hardly ever leave food in the fridge, mostly because we know it will get forgotten and will come crawling out several weeks later.

So, I have cleverly created my first poll ever and would like to know if you eat leftovers.  Please humor me and vote, I have an intense need to know.  Really.

Goodbye Kramer

This is a blog post about our Labby we had for almost 12 years.  If you don’t enjoy soppy stop reading immediately as it could get ugly.

You still here?  Good!

Kramer was a Labby of sorts and he was the very first thing Etienne and I acquired, by default. We had just started dating in 1999 and went for drinks with my dear friend Christy.  She mentioned that this awesome dog had followed one of her staff members to work.  So, off we went the next day to have a look at this dog and fell in love on the spot and took him.  (Etienne was sharing a house with a friend at the time)

We called him Kramer because he used to slide into a room like Kramer from Seinfeld, he sure knew how to make an entrance.

He was the loveliest of lovely dogs, even though he used to fart up a storm, but he has steadily been deteriorating over the last few months.  And Etienne and I operated in denial as we knew what a visit to the vet would mean.

BUT.  I used to house-sit for my BIL and they had this cantankerous old Doberman that they just kept alive for far too long and I promised myself I would never ever do that to one of my animals.

He started losing far too much weight and hair and I just couldn’t take it anymore so my Mom and I took him to the vet today (with Etienne’s permission).  She took a good look at him and started talking about possible treatments, but mentioned that it would probably be best if we put him down.  Which we did, with much crying.  I stayed with him, but my Mom preferred to go outside.

We told Daniel that  he went to doggy heaven, and he promptly asked us if he could have another ‘Kramie’ so we said maybe, if he takes good care of Jack, the puppy we rescued in September.  So he goes up to Jack and says to him ‘Jack, Kramer has gone to the doggy place, but we’ll get another one’.  And Etienne and I were wiping tears like mad people.

There’s probably no use crying into the dishwater and poor Jack is wandering around the house looking for his friend and life will carry on, so this is my ‘moment’ and one day when my kids read this they’ll remember the great dog we had.  And our house is really empty.

Here’s a pic of Kramer and Daniel:

ps When I was walking earlier I saw a couple with exactly the same dog.  Odd.

pps Ironing is like therapy for the unemployed.  I did a LOT of ironing this afternoon.

Why men should not accept party invitations

We have aquaintances that recently moved back to Cape Town.  Etienne got a call last week inviting us to their house-warming party.

Generally I’m always keen for a party, but I got my much anticipated and long awaited iphone late on Friday and we had people over for supper on Friday night, a little trip to the emergency room that night* and a hetic day on Saturday, so needless to say all I wanted to do was stay home and play with my toy (the phone people, minds out the gutter please!)

But alas, the Inlaws were coming to babysit and off we went, me with visions of leaving sneaking out after an hour.  As we drive up to the house (very late) we see only 2 other cars and it dawns on me: this is not a party, it’s an intimate dinner party.  Gulp.  And glare at Husband.

Lovely, lovely people and beautiful house.  They don’t have kids or animals yet and it was quite refreshing to:

  • be able to sit down for longer than 30 seconds
  • without a child on my lap/hanging on my clothes/chewing on the hem of my shirt
  • be able to walk barefoot without stepping on some sharp object or getting stuck to the floor because SOMEONE messed SOMETHING and didn’t TELL anyone.
  • stop and admire their beautiful picture frames, strategically placed at about mid-thigh
  • sit on their couch on a pre-fluffed pillow that isn’t covered in juice/yoghurt/unidentified fruit
  • admire the sheer beauty of unmarked walls/floors/furniture

I felt like cackling like a madwoman when I heard half-way through the evening that ‘they’ are preganant, but I kept it in until we got to the car.  Just.

Luckily the company was great and we all laughed until we cried and our faces and stomachs hurt!

*Isabel was chasing Etienne in the kitchen and ran head-first into the edge of the kitchen cupboard.  I must confess I kind of freaked out at the sight of the blood, but my friend Carmen and I took her to the hospital and they glued her back together.  She was a real trooper, didn’t cry once!

The kids looked like they had been through the wars, because Mignon decided to take a black bike onto the trampoline and promptly did a nose-dive, bike and all.  People are going to start to wonder…

This is the damage:

Beginning at the end

Hello one and all, this is my very first actual post on my all new blog!  It’s like moving into a new house and I’ll furnish it as I go along.  Expect many ramblings about family, food, wine, work and some of the deeper stuff.  You can also expect many photo’s of my beautiful, beautiful children and tales of my spectacular failures as a parent. I also speak a lot about special things and special people and like to spread the word, so watch this space.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what my first post would be about and when I was sitting in church at the funeral of a beautiful little 16 month old girl on Saturday morning I thought it fitting to write about the end at the beginning of this new venture.

When Etienne and I got married we did it on a beautiful wine farm and we didn’t want any singing at the wedding.  I feel the same about funerals.  No singing please.  And do it in beautiful surroundings.  And no big fanfare with coffins and stuff. And ABBA.  Lots of ABBA.  And wine.  If anyone feels the need to cry go right ahead, it is good for the soul, but please celebrate the fact that I was alive and managed to not piss absolutely everyone off.  OK?

Oh, and I sincerely wish I never NEVER have to bury one of my children, it must be the hardest thing anybody could possibly go through.

Right, now that we have the end out of the way, let’s get cracking on the awesome future ahead.  Crap.  I just said awesome.  I was forbidden from saying awesome at home as I say it too much.  Almost like ‘like’.  Ever catch yourself using a really annoying word repeatedly, almost like (see!!) having YMCA stuck in your head?