May 2009

Ann and her daughter Rebecca visited us for a weekend while they were in Oz. We did a tour of the Barossa and visited the Gorge Wildlife Park. It looked like they enjoyed their visit and it was great to have them and talk about South Africa and my previous workplace.

One of our SAFFER (South African living in Oz) friends sent me an SMS one Sunday to say they will miss me on their 4x4 outing. I had to do some garden work as they didn’t approve Filemon’s visa. A few hours late Pieter phoned me and I was sort of annoyed that he had to rub it in. Alas, they were stuck in a mangrove swamp and needed a snatch rope and some assistance. Fortunately my neighbour had one that we could borrow. When I got there the Toyota was lying on it’s chassis in stinking clay. I helped as much I could and left at sundown just as a new towrope arrived. They eventually got him out but he was stuck from 11h00 till 18h30!

We had our first outing with Breakaways 4WD club to Deep Creek. It was wet cold but very nice. Made my first outdoor fire and had a proper braai on wood coals in a year. We could see Kangaroo Island. Check the photos on Picasa.

I also bamboozled Carina into not complaining too much when I bought a 1975 VW Beetle from Wagga Wagga. Yes there is such a town here. Wagga is a crow and the repeated word means place of many crows. I will be picking her up when we return from New South Wales from a snow ski holiday in July. I cant wait. My first two cars were Beetles and I also had a Beach Buggy and Baja Bug in the middle stint somewhere. I am planning to turn it into a Beetle Cabrio “Muscle Car” when the engine expires one day.

Carina had a successful interview and will hopefully be starting contract work caring for kids in the near future. It will be good for her to do be involved with kids again after the Moms&Tots experience and it will also give us opportunity to meet some more Ozzies and maybe make some friends.

Michael had a school camp on a farm for a few days where they experienced cows being milked, made butter, did horse riding and other educational stuff. From his babbling and pictures it looks like they had a great time on the farm. School otherwise is just a boring experience for him and he regularly has some pain to prevent him from going to school.

People really congest our road by parking on both sides of the road, leaving a single lane for traffic (I suppose because they still can here without it or parts of it being stolen). I suppose it was just a matter of time before an accident and last Friday night at midnight it was time for a major crash of a drunk, unlicensed woman to plough into the neighbour,s cars. It was a commotion of Police, Fire Truck and tow truck till the early hours of the morning. Tasha got her first car a few months ago and it obviously her pride and joy and this was the second time someone hit it while it was parked.

We had Alex for a one day visit and it went extremely well. He and Michael get along well and we will be organising a sleepover for the middle of the month.