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I landed in Johannesburg, and my sister and her hubby came to pick me up, as I always spend a week with them before my flight home to George. Coming from Scotland where everything was green and a lot of flowers still blooming, and the trees, like the Rowan, sporting its lovely red berries, the grey landscape awaiting in South Africa was quite a shock.
But Lida and Dries were warmly welcoming, and sitting in front of their heater, as it was still bitterly cold, after a hot bath, I soon perked up, and started feeling the love for my country flowing back. In South Africa of course we had no central heating in the houses, and specially on the highveld, where frost is very common during the winter, it gets bitterly cold, and it only really gets warm by the end of November, although our spring starts in September.
Hendrix was extremely glad to see me, and I think Irma and the kids were too! Irma's girls are growing up fast, and they were really two beautiful youngsters, although Kristani was getting to the puberty stage, and bally cheeky! Irma in the meantime had met the man of her dreams, and I was so pleased, as she was quite lonely after her divorce when Kiana, the youngest was quite small. Karel, her prince from Belgium turned out to be the best thing that could ever happen to her, as she was, like in all other things, quite picky! She would meet a nice man, but either his hands were so small it revolted her, and I would roll my eyes, or his brows not bushy enough, at which I rolled my eyes like startled horse, as she always stated that she would not look at a man who was not blessed with black bushy brows, and Karel just had it all, nicely formed big hands and all!
Anyway, my homecoming was extremely traumatic again, as during the seven months that I was away, the whole country's wildlife had decided to take up residence in my wee crofters cottage, and the smell when I opened the door sent me reeling back a few feet! Of course the spiders had taken over the management of the house, and some of them, the leaders of the pack I assumed, just stayed put, glowering down at me with their round black eyes, while the frogs started a heck of a choir, maybe to welcome me home, but I doubted that, as I try, albeit in vain, to get rid of them first thing every year, as they made huge oval poos all over my floors, and if I accidentally stepped in one of those, the smell was just so vile, the fact being that they are carnivores!
I was looking forward to the week-end, as Irma and Beau, accompanied by the two girls were coming, and Hannes and Manda were also coming to welcome me home.
I was aghast at the garden that was so overgrown again by the bally Kikuju? grass, and knew that the little canal in the front, that took away all the rainwater, had to be cleaned speedily, as our rainy season was about to start, and remembering the floods of the previous year, I quaked in my shoes.
But first I had to get my room ready for the night, quite a job, as again hundreds of small centipedes had been falling from the roof, and everything was covered in this dried up little worms, and the cheeky spiders were watching my every move, while the frogs took great exception to the noise of the vacuum cleaner, but refused to leave, and just hopped to another quiet spot, kwaaking angrily.
 The week-end was wonderful with a lot of friends coming over, and Saturday night we had a barbeque, after which we stoked up the fire and sat chatting till dawn.
Hannes's house was coming on so nicely, he had the knack of really making beautiful things out of nothing. He had started on a big mosaic on the front wall outside, and it was such a pleausure watching him going about this, while Manda lay reading, as she felt washed out after a week with her students.
The three girls are my youngest daughter Trienkie, and Irma's two, Kristani middle, and Kiana.