We had quite a bit of rain, and as the dam was overfull, the sluices had to be opened a bit, with the result that the river was running strongly, and the children was enjoying the kajaking whenever they wanted to, as otherwise we had to drive quite far to Under Kouga, the only place close by to kajak.We spent a lot of time down at the river, as the little ones were not able to go alone, but it was so nice on the little beach, or, when the sun got too much for comfort, to move into the mysterious cool shadow of the tall Poplars.
Jan had built himself a bread oven, and it did very well as a pizza oven as well, and we made some awesome pizzas in there. He started off wrongly, and after struggling for ages to get the first oven to a state where he could try and bake some bread, he one day just got fed-up and broke the whole thing down.
For the second oven he went on the internet and found some wonderful information, and this time all went well, and voila, within no time we were baking away!
I was at this stage collecting white and brown stones of a certain kind, and also a certain size, as I was going to do some mosaic at my back door, the little stoep there looking a bitty worse for wear. I had seen some beautiful animals done with small round stones, and have decided to make a tortoise with brown stones, and the outside with the white river stones.
In the meantime I was extremely sad, as Irma and Family have gone to live in Belgium, and as I spent a lot of time with them at their house in Krakeel ,I was walking around feeling a bitty sorry for myself.But as Irma's work had decreased so much since the credit crunch, they had no other option. Karel is a scuptor, and as he is not known in South Africa, and there not much money around anyway for expensive artworks,
it was the only thing they could do.
All too soon we had to say goodbye to Trienkie and Stephan, and life went on again, but could never be the same again.
Early in the new year we had a terrible storm, and huge trees were blown over all over Haarlem. One of the alien Black Wattles on my place blew over, and fell across my gate, damaging the fence, but luckily the gate was intact.
Just across the road from Jan, a couple had pulled a caravan, and they were going to live in this for the duration of them building their house. Luckily they were away during this storm, as a huge Pine tree was dislodged, and fell across the caravan, smashing it almost to the ground. If the people were in there at that moment, they would have been killed, and I think they thanked their guardian angel for her or his protection!
I just had to publish the photo's of my almost four year old grandson Kian, when Xmas Father arrived! He was absolutely stunned.