A good day

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's nice to have a good day.

To church this a.m. for the first of three 'Bible School' lectures from 9-noon by Dr. Bennie Mostert. I was thoroughly prepared to disagree with everything he said and found that he didn't say anything I feared/expected. Instead he was quietly thoughtful on the subject of Prayer and I learned a lot. I also get to edit/proof his draft booklet on Prayer - his Afrikaans is fine but the English translation needs help (and I finished it an hour ago).

On the way into church I was delighted to see two African Mynah birds (they are not on strike) squabbling in the road and managed not run over either one. Truth of course is that they avoided my bakkie.

I enjoyed a nice plate of egg and chips at Wimpy along with their excellent Mega-Coffee - nom nom as some say - and killed time reading The Citizen newspaper until just before 2 pm when I drove to Calculus school to fetch Meike and Vusi to bring them to Bolokanang. I spent some time greeting all the kids - who like to call me 'grandfather' but never in Sesotho (ntate moholo). They call me other things in Sesotho and it's a good job I don't know what!

Then it was the backroad home and a halt to watch a very large leopard tortoise stonking down the big dip down to the veldte run-off. Further along the road I came upon three children to whom I have previously given rides home and they waved and smiled, showing me that they too had a leopard tortoise, though much smaller, which they were carrying home. Partly because they were almost at their house and partly because those animals can crap up a storm, I waved and motored on.

Arriving at home, I took the crushed mealie meal out to feed the birds (Masked Weavers, Cape Sparrow, Grey Headeed Sparrow, Bulbuls and some unidentfied warblers (they all look the same to me). As I sat on the stoep watching them I was treated to a good yelling from an Amethyst (or Black) Sunbird which hovered about ten feet from my face and went on at length - a first sighting - usually we get the Whitebellied Sunbirds. These are sap-sucking equivalents to U.S. hummingbirds but larger.

Then I found that my own "pet" (no not really) tortoise is still in the back yard - it's been over a week. He is very large and ancient (and perhaps not a he) with an old dent in the side rear of his carapace - looks as if someone threw a stone at him (her). He wheezes and snorts and doesn't mind me as long as I don't get too close. I've tried to give him (her) lettuce, bits of carrot and apple and water (they drink a lot) but the tortoise just walks over them.

We had some rain Monday and a little more today which is all to the good. The grasses and trees at once react to moisture and the flowering of some shrubs is what brought the Amethyst Sunbird as well as those awful millipede things that look like elongated potato bugs (wood lice) which seem to have only two habitats - crushed on the roads and skulking around in people's houses. The ants are out and about again and obviously the tortoises have come out of hibernation.

Later today (about 4 hours from 6:33 as I write) my lovely lady will board a plane in Cleveland and start the trek home, arriving on Friday at 2:30 pm our time (8:30 a.m. in the USA). She's not been here since leaving on June 2 on our "family crisis" mission. That by the way is not resolved but it appears certain that my daughter and husband will now dissolve their marriage. We have resolved to stay here in SA and remove ourselves from that situation except by email.

Today is a great day. It is also the 15th anniversary of our son Jesse's death from the bone marrow transplant that was attempted to cure his leukemia. He would have enjoyed my day very much. Except for the Bible School part

Meade

[Gob]

Me too!

[oldr_n_wsr]

Sorry about your son Meade. My thoughts are with you and your wife.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Tku oldr

OK so after 3+ years I finally bothered to find out that these millipedes are doratogonus - 3 to 8 inches long say the descriptions but of course the baby ones have to grow up to that



Lynn and I call them "worms" for short. You have to get used to living with them. But in the spring, just as they are waking up, one also has to move the washing machine etc. and sweep out all the cold, hard, dead ones. Quite a heap sometimes

Meade

[oldr_n_wsr]

dinner

[Lord Jim]

Very sorry to learn about your son Meade...

Parents should never have to bury their children....It's not the order of things....

[MajGenl.Meade]

I was a bit worried about outliving my granddaughter. She's in Senegal and as soon as I saw the football riot when Cote D'Ivoire went up 2-0 against Senegal I had that feeling she was there. Today another good thing - received a lovely email from her which in part said

As a matter of fact, I WAS at that game...it was the most shocking experience I've had to date. Luckily I was with two very capable and calming friends of mine that I've made here, Tom (he's English, like yourself, and has a similar sense of humor...so naturally I enjoy his company very much) and Adam (he's perfectly bilingual as he was raised in Paris by American parents, so he's been really helpful language-wise. Also quite a funny guy.) We all managed to stay calm and assess the situation rationally, and ended up moving as high up into our section as we could, where we waited it out until we felt it safe to leave. If it was that bad inside the stadium, we couldn't imagine the craziness that was occurring outside...we were sitting in a slightly more expensive section, so the fires and fights and tear gas didn't get too near to us. But they were happening everywhere else, and once the Cote D'Ivoirians started making the 5-meter jump over the stadium wall to run to safety, I started getting a little freaked out...

What scared me most, though, was seeing first-hand how terrifying mob mentality can be- how quickly people can abandon their sense of right and wrong over something as simplistic as football. Even though I've been assured by many people here that football riots are commonplace, I can't help but believe you don't get that kind of violence and aggression unless there are other tensions boiling just under society's surface...tensions that I already know Senegal has more than its fair share of. Anyways, it was very scary, but I made it out fine, and I have a lot more to think about in regards to Senegalese society and society in general, which I guess you could say is good for my studies.

She really is my second favourite girl

Meade

[oldr_n_wsr]

Very sorry to learn about your son Meade...

Parents should never have to bury their children....It's not the order of things....

My father said that to me before I stopped drinking. It was a big factor in my decision to quit.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And the hits just keep on comin'

I'm cleaning the house right now (given that my wife arrives tomorrow) and was out on the stoep vacuuming the leaves and dirt from under the tables and chairs. I moved a roll of rubber "grip" material that my wife left out there a year ago (to be fair I think she did ask me to bring it in eleven months and 29 days ago). There behind it, clinging to the wall was a Common Barking Gekko. It was in the living room the other night but I didn't pay much attention to it way up on the ceiling in the darker areas.



Common they may be but not usually sighted and even less so here than in the Namib. Easily recognizable by the sandy "pebble" appearance (and the word Shutterstock stamped on the back)

Meade

[Rick]

Glad you had a great day hope you have many more.

Fable? The richest man in the world when close to death counted the "Great" days he had and had fingers left over...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I like lizards.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Into every life.....

OK so the stinking airlines who publish false arrival times (so they can arrive "early" and often to counterbalance their late departures) got the poor wife into Heathrow 45 minutes ahead of schedule. Which gave her 12 hours and40 minutes to wait for the connection to Jo'burg.

Now the SAA flight is delayed (so far) by one hour and 30 mins - meaning she's been 14 hrs 10 mins at the airport and there's no guarantee the flight will depart when they say. I just hope she's not in the metal tube waiting at the gate with the air off and no-one allowed to serve masses of cocktails.

But on the bright side - if it's an hour or two late taking off, it might arrive when it's supposed to

Meade

[Joe Guy]

There behind it, clinging to the wall was a Common Barking Gekko.

Did he try to sell you car insurance?

[Gob]

I've said it before, I'll say it again; Meade get a blog mate, your stories and insights are far better than 99.999999999999999999999% of the crap which is posted as blogs* and deserves a wider audience than this board!!


*My own blog included.

[Rick]

Uh Oh 2 it's and a she's...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Both used correctly (note). Although my junior school headmaster punished me severely when I wrote a story describing my friend Lofty, a porter at Wickford railway station, as saying "She'll be along in a minute" and "I'll watch him Mrs., don't you worry".

Oddly I recall that I was in Miss Page's classroom when someone came in to say that the headmaster wished to see me at once. Being certain that I was to be commended upon my work, I smartly placed my books in my desk, closed the top and found that the boy next to me had placed his ruler judiciously so that as I closed my desk top, his ruler flew up into the air.

I have been nervous of apostrophes ever since

Meade

PS ah, thanks Gob. I am on most days rather dull. Including this one and several others yet to be identified by independent wet nurses.

[Guinevere]

All used correctly (there were three, not two). But other than that, I hope she gets home safely and smoothly. Although I am not sure that even lots of drinks can make up for 14+ hours in any airport in the world.

As for the rest, it sounds like a perfectly lovely day. I would have enjoyed it too, maybe even the church-y part.

[MajGenl.Meade]

...both types of contraction, there being two (it's for it is and she's for she is)..... I just watched "Prometheus" and had two thoughts. One, Ms. Theron's hinder was shown to perfection in that slinky black space-suit (why do science fiction women not wear anything sensible, thank goodness?) and (b) that other lady sure got up and bounced around a lot immediately after her contractions were ended and her abdomen stapled shut by the surgical machine.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's been a month and Terry seemed to me to be pretty thirsty. So I built him his own pool and boy was he quick to stick that face in and suck up the H2O.

Lately he's been (I though) so happy to see the apple bits I put down for him that he's charged recklessly right over the top of the pile. I was dodging behind him and picking up the pieces to put back in front of him which he then ran over.

Today I figured it out. He's associated my white takkies which have a vanilla fudge (!) coloured toe cap with the food - he thinks the toe cap looks just like a piece of apple - and he's trying to catch and eat my feet. Today I let him storm up to me without my jumping aside and he started to munch on my (securely covered) left toes.

Problem solved. Wear different shoes. Or put the apple bits further away and then jump over him once he's on his way toward it.

Meade

[Gob]

Today I figured it out. He's associated my white takkies which have a vanilla fudge (!) coloured toe cap with the food -

Heyyyyyy maaaaan, food!!