I received a blogging award. Thanks to Caroline over at http://migrationdiary.blogspot.com/

You know the drill, rules rules and more rules: Pick 5 bloggers that you consider as your best blogging buddies and deserves this award for their contribution towards the blogging community, no matter what language.State the name of the author of each blog as well as a link to each one's blogs. Each blogger (upon acceptance) of this award should do a post and show the award on their blog and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award. Show these rules.

These are my fav 5:

Mel I am a little biased as she is one of my best friends (I have a few) even so I LOVE her blog and so will you, everyone does including my hubby.

Ali Always has something important or relevant to say. I really admire her and value her opinions.

Kirsty New blogging buddy. I am really looking forward to getting to know you.

Kim KJ's new blog and more about Kim and less about scrapbooking (her scrapbooking is absolutely fabulous)

Michele Best for last, seriously amazing lady and an brilliant blog.

Bomb

Yes I am going to drop one. I leave for the UK on Sunday!

I am going to work as a 'carer' something I do for 3 people at home everyday and now I am going to do it for someone who is much older but with a difference, I will be PAID. Okay, so I am sounding really flippant and all yeah well no big deal. Not really, I know this is going to be the biggest challenge I have EVER faced. Being away from my hubby and kids for 12 weeks. I will miss Christmas, New Year which is also Paul's birthday and he turns 50!!!!, a friends wedding and very importantly Erin's 13th!!!!! . But at the same time the bulk of the time is during the school holidays (7 weeks). So I am busy having a pity party which starts right now until I leave. I am of course also very excited, I love the idea of not knowing what lies ahead.

I will be working for an agency that supplies 400 'carers' a day privately, the clients were labeled, upmarket, all over England and even Ireland (I am hoping for one of those). Each assignment will be 2 weeks, hey not so bad, you can do anything for 2 weeks, right? Bonus, if you are really happy with your 'client' and they with you, you can opt to stay with them. I will be doing 'light' work, eg. companionship, cooking, assisting with dressing, driving, shopping. I have been amazed at the amount of people I have spoken to about this job that know me really well that reckon I will be so good at this. I never realised people see that side of me.

So I have 3 really good reasons to go: I get to see my Mum and importantly check on her as she isn't that well at the moment. I get paid well by SA standards and 3rdly I get myself into the system in England and can start to contribute to a pension.

Sketch 27

This is my take on this weeks sketch no. 27 for the little shop of sketches. Scott took the pic last week when we were having dinner around the pool, just one of the many pros of living in Cape Town, balmy nights that are light until 9.00.

Tokai Life

Had to share this!

Yesterday I popped into my new local police station, Kirstenhof (very impressive) in order to get a "police clearance certificate" (I wont go into why I need that just yet, but nothing sinister). I hadn't realised that you need to book an appointment to fill out the forms so I smiled really nicely at the officer (a female) and she said okay okay come with me and off we went to her office. Filled out the forms and she sent me off for finger prints. Because I had not booked an appointment they didn't have all the finger print 'stuff' ready so I was asked to wait in the courtyard outside - this is the funny part - with a prisoner, yes a real one, dressed in the orange overall and floppy hat with black writing all over it in circles (no arrows). I must be honest and tell you that I didn't actually feel threatened, clearly he was not in prison for anything too serious as he was 'working' at the police station. So I look at him, he looks at me and I couldn't help but smile at him. He immediately knows whats going through my head and puts me at ease. So here I am chatting with a prisoner, didn't take him 2 seconds and he asked me for some money for sugar! So I said to him "where are you going to buy sugar" and he says "when the cops take me back to prison we can stop at the Spar" So I gave him 5 bucks. I was tempted to whip out my cell phone and take a pic of him for my blog but I thought that was a bit obsessive.

Girls Weekend Away

I spent the weekend up in Johannesburg and I couldn't mention it before I left because it was to be a 'surprise' for my God child Candice for her stork party on Sunday, National Geographic style pic above of the soon to be bundle of joy. ( In case you read this blog regularly and are slightly confused, I have 3 God children, they are sisters). The 3 girls on the left, Celeste, Candice and Natalie. This is a one of Candices wedding pics, I love the fact that all bridemaids are also in white. In fact everyone was wearing white including the men.

I arrived in Jo burg on Friday morning at 8.15 and I didn't stop till I got back last night. It was frantic! The pace up there is way faster than here. I had a fantastic time I was thoroughly spoiled, dinners out, theatre, shopping, we even did a 5km walk for a charity at 7.30 on Saturday morning "Sisters with blisters." I have a medal to prove it. The photos I took during the walk are on my cell and I don't know how to upload them, I need a teenager for that, but there are some goodies. I took one of a press photographer as he was the spitting image of Brad Pitt, and he knew it, the balls you grow when you are 46 and have 4 friends with you!

Because I was there for a stork party I got to see loads and loads of old friends and acquaintances that I haven't seen since I moved to Cape Town which was 5 years ago. What a blast, all this was of course coupled with copious amounts of fine wine, I don't think I even got a hangover as I didn't get any time for it to develop between offerings. I also made 2 new friends from Malawi. Don't you just love it when you meet someone and just know that you will always be friends from then on? Mary and I did some serious belly laughing within hours of meeting each other, and I can clearly see her and I spending some time in her holiday home in Ireland together in the near future. Time for some pics.

Irish Mary from Malawi!

Celeste, myself and a bottle of wine later

Moving House Part 2

I am starting to get settled now, we are in our 3rd week in this house but still have a good few boxes to unpack. We have moved to an area called Tokai, door to door maybe 5kms from old house to new house. But what a difference. Tokai is much prettier I think than where we were before, loads and loads of old trees (and houses). Tokai is well known, famous in fact for a couple of things

1. Pollsmoor Prison, Nelson Mandela spent a few years in our neighbourhood.

2. Steenberg Wine Farm and now also a very upmarket Golf Course and Housing Estate.

3. Not so famous - Tokai Forest/Plantation, some people even have stickers on their cars that say "a plantation is not a forest" the sticker is directed at people like me who get all upset when the powers that be cut the trees down.

What an interesting area to live in. Steenberg Golf Estate is across the road from the entrance to Pollsmoor Prison, and people pay an easy 20 million to live there. Marketing genius whoever thought of turning land in front of a prison into an upmarket housing estate. We are now living close to the prison on the same side as the prison but on the opposite side to the upmarket housing estate. My DH grew up in this area and whenever asked about the prison he said it never worried anyone, it had always just been there. In the first week we moved in the neighbours all came over to welcome us to the neighbourhood (WOW) this is a first, much friendly people than we are used to. I said to the one neighbour, it is so lovely and quiet down in this cul-de-sac, and she said yes just a pity about the prisoners at night!!! Alarm bells, what do you mean I said? Oh haven't you heard the screaming at night!! NO I HAD NOT. As soon as DH got home from work I mentioned it to him and he says, oh yes haven't you heard them? OMG, I was out there on the front lawn listening. LOL, the people across the road have been building a pool and using manual labour to dig the hole so all the noise during the day I had attributed to the 'small workforce' not so, ITS THE PRISONERS!!!!!

I decided to investigate all this and when walking the dogs next to the prison I spied a hold in the wall. More alarm bells, this wall does not look slightly intimidating to me, its about 7foot and has a bit of barbed wire on the top. Average family home in South Africa I might add. Anyway, so I checked out the hole, first checking that no-one was watching me, people in that street were probably thinking, oh we have a new recruit!!. It was amazing, really scary in fact. The actual maximum security part was quite a way further in and was certainly keeping the guys in!. So all this noise travels so far? Fascinating, really is fascinating that come lock down time you can actually hear the guys shouting and arguing etc. certain voices seem to rise above others and stand out from the 'white' noise. But the worst part has to be the women screaming at night! Horrible!

21 Today!

Happy Birthday Danielle! My sons other half is 21 today. Hope you have a fabulous day and that all your dreams come true.

The BIG Move Part 1

The last time I wrote about the move, I was moving to a friends house that was not too far from where we were presently living and things were all honky dory! 48 HOURS before that moving day - she sold the house! So 48 hours to find somewhere to go. 48 hours to find something on a budget (that was the whole idea behind moving). It would have to have a decent size garden for the dogs and be available immediately. The being available immediately comes with a 'price' tag. If its available immediately its crap. I hit the web and found 5 places that were available. So I went from one to the other and quickly saw the obvious common denominator - they were CRAP! and all had been standing empty for months. Paul and I have never rented a house so this was all new to us. When I, we in fact look at a house, and we have moved around abit, we can see straight away what could be done to improve it or make it liveable. Paul was having serious difficulties getting his head around these places. The smells, the 'what the %$*& were they thinking pink/peach' walls next to yellow (the house we finally took), stained carpets with fleas in them the list is endless. So to get to the point, we settled on this little flea pit in Tokai. I said to the agent that was showing us the property.

"I suppose if I paint the walls it would a whole lot better" he says "I will ask the owner they may allow you to do that"! You are kidding me right?

This is the front door alcove light fitting - truly a find! Actually this pic doesn't do it justice.

So I left this

For this.. where on earth did they get these numbers from?

Okay, it looks quite sweet, its a very misleading little cutie.

Long Overdue

I still do not have any Internet access so i am blogging from DH's plug in goodie. That means I am using his computer which I hate using, see it evens changes my type!!!!! I should have Internet tomorrow and then I will be back with a vengeance.

Obama

Just a quickie.
This has been bugging me for ages and clearly it is bugging Soli Philander (a capetalk radio show host that happens to be 'coloured').

He said on the radio yesterday and I quote "Obama is not black he is coloured", my point exactly. His father was a black Kenyan and his mother a white American. Soli of course is allowed to say this because he is "coloured" and proud of it. So really is Obama black, white or really coloured. Living in South Africa we are pretty good at this colour thing we have had endless experience in the past and still to some extent the present on what colour somebody is.