A Garden is a Many Splendored Thing!

You may have noticed by now that I spend a lot of time in my garden either planting, clearing, planning or cursing. The cursing comes seasonally, due to wind, rain/no rain, moles or.... ants! At the moment we are prisoners in our home because of ants.... large and small but all of them biting ones! So my time is limited to filling bird baths, usually early morning or early evening, so I can dodge the nasty little critters!

But, every now and then I take my chances and actually do something constructive.

The garden in front of my boat (Maggie-May...I wrote about her) was looking extremely sad and tatty. The arctotis that had flowered so bravely for many years, was now time-expired and looking ghastly. There were also nasty thorny things appearing and so.. my next project was born!

The arctotis a few years ago looking really beautiful.

The folks behind us had a Weber standing on their veranda. This was not a new one and the last time it was used.... was in fact the very last time! The bottom had rusted so badly that it literally fell to pieces! The legs fell one way and the top fell the other and it was moved round the corner ready for the Refuse Removal chaps.

Legs one way, bottom the other!!

Goodbye Blighty!

It is exactly 60 years ago... 22 January 1959..... that our family left England's shores for the shores of Darkest Africa! To Africa and adventure, and all I wanted to complete my happiness was a..horse!

My dad was a Detective with the Metropolitan Police in London, his speciality being Fingerprints. At that time, the 'colonies' were recruiting for the Rhodesian forces, and a few of the officers were in the UK looking for men with experience... and my dad was more than ready to head off into the unknown. I am not sure that my mum felt the same spirit of adventure though, but she went along with the whole idea. However, I remember my dad being disappointed that there was no place for him at the time, until a chap called Harry East (I shall never forget his name), pulled out as his wife refused to leave England, so my dad was recruited in his place!

Then came the round of vaccinations, yellow fever injections, visits to doctors and dentists to ready our bodies for the future! We walked around at school with a red ribbon tied round our jersey sleeves to warn people not to bump our small-pox vaccination, and I was terrified that my arm would in fact fall off!
The house was packed up, dad bought trunks and cases from 'Down the Cut' and some of our furniture went off to granny and Aunty Julia who lived in a tiny flat, in  one of the many Guinness Buildings, in Chelsea. I remember that we had some sad goodbyes with dad's parents, and grandad regaled us with some 'interesting' facts as he had been in South Africa with the Boer War! Mum was extremely sad to leave and I think she envied Harry East's wife for a long time.

The final goodbyes, the house was rented out and we were ready!

I remember we caught a taxi on the morning of Thursday the 22 January as we had so much luggage with us, we would have struggled on the tube from Ealing Broadway to Waterloo! I think our trunks had gone before us but I am not positive! I do remember it rained, I think it snowed a bit too, but finally we reached the Southampton docks, the Boat Train pulled right onto the dock itself... I think... and we climbed out.

And there was the beautiful lilac hull of the 'Edinburgh Castle'. Built and launched in 1947, we were the same age!

The Mailship Edinburgh Castle.

Voucher Vexation!

Last week, Wednesday to be precise, we went shopping!

I know this sounds very trite, but to us, shopping is a thing of wonder.... we only go to town once a week and then we fit everything that we need to do into the morning. Things like hair cuts, doctors appointments and visits to the Post Office, and then we happily turn round and head home! Reading this, you would think that we live 60 km from the nearest town, but no, we are only 15 km from not one, but two towns!
Anyway, enough digressing!

Our cats love the Pamper pouches. Only Pamper, they will not touch any other brand, and only the jelly ones! Ex-feral one and all, you would think they would be happy with an old dried up crust, but ha ha to that. So about two weeks ago I bought the usual box and found an extra pouch inside with a Voucher! The pouch was a mince one so I split it three ways for the cats and waited for them to turn away in disgust.

The Happy Box! With a voucher!!

Surprise. They loved it.

So..... last Wednesday (being Shopping Day), I decided to take the voucher and buy a box of Mince Favourites, using the 'R10 off ' voucher. Easy hey?

Read on.