Today was bread baking day, and I kneaded my dough first thing after my cuppa after getting out of my warm bed. It is very cold at the moment, and the wind was blowing icicles against my window when I woke up, so I just snuggled in deep under my duvet, and dreamt about the best things happening in my life nowadays. But, life being quite unfair to us sometimes, I was whacked out of my state of half conciencness by loud knocking on my front door, so I fell out of bed, giving a few not to nice ladylike snorts and so so on, and made my way up the steep steps to my sittingroom.
It was Bush, wanting the scathe and fork, as he was going to weed the little onion seedlings that was coming on nicely. I find onions very hardy, as that wee seedlings just shake of the frost, and keep on growing, and that while a lot of my big shrubs have been totally ruined! The frost this year is quite heavy, and even my Fuschias and other flowers that I covered every night were just dried-up skeletons, and I hope that they would grow back.
As this is the time when the apples are harvested, I had an abundance of the wonderful stuff, and my freezer is already full of cooked apples, enough to last me through the next  months until the next season. I have found a wonderful way of using the cooked apples, and as I don't put sugar with, I can have a pud every night. This is what I do: Using a piece of puff pastry, about as long as my baking tray, and wide enough to put a good helping of apple in, is what I do. The apple is put lengthwise onto the pastry, which is then folded over, like on my foto, and baked until the pastry is nice and golden. Then I make a nice caramel sauce, and when the pastry is done, I prick it, and pour the sauce over. Delicious with custard or icecream, and very easy!
On my baking day I also have pizza. I save a piece of dough, and when my bread are all done, I bake the pizza, and it is so so nice! As I live so far from a town, take-aways are something I only dream about! Sometimes I would get an overwhelming craving for a Steers burger, or some Kentucky, but with no hope of getting it, I have invented quite a few nice recipies, not with quite the same lure as a take-away, but nevertheless, I try! I think just the idea that I can't get it, makes me want it more than I really lust after it!

My son Jan, had met a woman, a lovely person, that he liked very much, and I hoped and prayed that something would come of it. He was getting thinner by the day, I think the loneliness, worries about the eldest son who was very much addicted to computer games, struggles to come to terms with his lot, and the baby and eight year old Andreas to cope with had a very big impact, and I feared for his well being. It was extremely difficult for me also, as I was in and out of hospital every three months, and when he had to go to Johannesburg for work, and I was away, it was a big problem.
So when I saw his eyes shining again with a lust for life, and his whole being just getting to life again, I was extremely thankful. Erna was just the right person at the right time, as she was kind, and caring, and happy.
So now, almost every second week-end, he and the boys were off to Cape Town, which is almost six hundred kilometers away, but I was one very happy mother, as I could see my child getting out of the dark hole he was in for over a year.
My little Emile was growing up too fast, and was a very busy little boy. It was so cute when Sheila's cows passed, and he would stand a the gate shouting moo, moo! Another wonderful thing that was happening at this stage, was that through Erna's love and care, Andreas was gaining self confidence, something he had very little of before. Altogether just a good time in our lives.
Bush had now made the beds for the onion seeds, and we had sown it, and are waiting now for the day the wee green specks would pop out of the soil. The onions I had sown in the holders are already quite strong, and I think that it won't be too long before Bush can plant them out. he is in high spirits, telling me every day how rich we were going to become, and the first thing he would buy was a 'bakkie', meaning a small truck.
After days and many trips to the municipal offices, oom Vlei, the man responsible for the water affairs, at last came to fix my broken connection. But not before I asked oom Awie, another guy working for Sheila to help me, and he had a look, and shook his head, announcing that he would not be able to do it. He said that he passed oom Vlei, who was basking in the sun sitting in his 'bakkie', and I told him to tell oom Vlei that, if my connection wasn't fix that same day, I would phone the authorities in George. Darn it, I already had to buy the new stuff out of my own pocket, as oom Vlei said there was no money to buy it! But my threat did work, and the connection was fixed!

I had a super week-end, specially Sunday, when my friend Louise and self went to Willowmore for lunch, and the to a farm to look at the woman's collection of fossils collected in the koppies (low mountains) of their farm. I was overawed, and now believe that the scientists'e.s stories that the Karroo, that is this very dry part of South Africa on the other side of the mountains from where I live, and where only the toughest farmers and animals survive, is indeed true! It is then no surprise that sheep and goats are the most important live-stock here-abouts. This woman showed us the most wonderful fossils of small animals and also leaves, but the most wonderful was the fossils of all kinds of sea shells, and mussels. Looking over this dry and desolate countryside, it is indeed hard to believe that thousands of years fish swam around and inbetween the koppies!
I have sown a lot of seeds in holders, and now Bush had made beds for him to sow half of the seeds directly into the ground, so that we can see which will do best.
My connection to the main water supply had gone awry, and whatever I did, it would not close properly, with the result that water is spouting out of the sprinklers all the time, and my newly ploughed land was fast becoming sodden! I went up to the municipality's offices, and asked them to ask Oom Vlei, the general over see-er and maintenance man, to come and have a look. It took him about five days, and only after Berty Emil's nanny visited, and promised to work his gall a bit, did he arrive, complete with two helpers!
The helpers looked, hmm and hahed, the told me what I already knew, and that was that the whole gadget was busted.As this connection is the municipality's baby to keep up, I asked Oom Vlei when he would be able to fix it. He looked around my ploughed land, then fixed his eyes on the far hills, and pronounced that they could do it now, but they did not have such a gadget. I thought that they did not have it with them, but no, he said, if I wanted it done, I will have to buy my own, as he had no money left in the kitty to buy one! I was aghast, as he should have this in stock, as all the small farmers would need new ones from time to time!
I just don't know what our country is coming to! So I had to drive all the way to Misgund, and pay for this thing out of my own pocket. But I am just not leaving this case just there, and would complain to the George municipality, of which we are a part of.
But the above sunset scene from my back door when the sun went down was just amazing, and between that and the little Emil's smile, things that bothered me became much less less important.