Nearly November

Strange to think that it is nearly November already. Almost a year since our holiday and 4 months since you arrived in the UK. Amazing how much can change so quickly. It has been a long hard year in many ways and I am getting quite fed up with long hard years. Seems to be so little purpose to it all really at times, especially when I am so far away from you all. I miss you all very very much and cannot wait to see you again. Big hugs and love to you all. xxxxxxx

It has been a while.....

Wow - I have just seen that I have not updated this for nearly a month....
Well, I have been awake most of the night after my flight... I gave up trying to sleep in the end and have been working for the last two hours - next I will shower and then go have breakfast - I will probably need to go to bed then but will have a days work to do.....
It was absolutley fantastic to see you all this past week. You are all looking great.
I know that the last two months have been a bit unsettling as you have not had your own stuff around you and so on, but that is nearly at an end.
I am delighted that you have all got in to school and astonished as to how much you are all looking forward to actually going to school.... Amazing - I wish that when I was your age I looked forward to school the way you do. I suspect that yesterday you went out and got your uniforms from a comment Mummy made to me on the phone last night. That bit I did used to enjoy every year - new shirts, trousers, shoes - yummy.
I hope that your first days will be OK and that you settle in quickly and make good new friends. Remember what I said on Saturday - most people are shy when they meet new people so don't worry if the boys and girls in your class are not immediatley friendly.
They will warm to you soon enough.
I experienced this a few times when I was younger.
Remember that you do not have to pretend to be anything other than yourselves to make friends. Just be yourselves - you all have remarkable stories to tell that most of the kids that you will meet will never experience.
We are very lucky people to travel the way we do and to see and experience some of the things that we have experienced.
Use that to your advantage, but nicely - never brag or show off.
To the kids in your new classes, it is YOU that is the exotic and exciting person. So just know that in the back of your head when you feel a bit shy and worried about how strange all the new experiences are.
You will all be GREAT!! And you will all make great friends too.
Let me know how it goes my loves!!
I love you beyond anything imaginable. With all my heart and soul.
xxxx

Hello my gorgeous children

It's been a while since I updated my blog with lots having happened since the last entry.
I hope you are all OK - when I spoke to you yesterday I was not too sure whether you are OK, or not, to be honest.
I hope to be in the UK from 25 August or so, assuming all goes according to plan in the next few days here in KL.
I cannot wait to see you, hold you, spend time with you and generally hang out, you know.
I think Mummy needs to encourage you all to use email a bit more regularly so that we can stay in touch more regularly than just the telephone conversations which always seem so rushed to me.
Love you all - miss you as always.

Surreal Moments

A mundane taxi ride turned magically surreal.....
Sitting in the back of a taxi this morning, listeninng to the national broadcaster news service followed by the opening bars of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Sweet Home Alabama'....
The 60+ Indian Sikh driver, turban, jewellery and all, cranks up the volume saying "One of the best songs ever written".
As Skynyrd get well and truly in to the best of it, the driver starts talking about the importance of educating children properly in this world, teaching them to understand differences and to tolerate them all, whilst muttering that every couny in the world is "the bloody same" when it comes to discrimination issues and the unjustness of it all in realtion to simple people just trying to survive.
The irony of this, as we drive past Kuala Lumpur's mosques and western embassies next door to each other, all set to the foot stomping guitars and lyrics of a song about place called Alabama, once the world's focus on basic human rights issues, was not lost on me....
Bloody marvellous moment in life.... Sweet Home Alabama......

Boo!!!

How are you all doing? It has been three days now since you arrived in England.....
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and that it was not too hot for you.
How are Tom, Anna, Sandy and Lou?
How was your lunch with Niall yesterday?
Missing you all terribly and am hoping to be able to get over to see you quite soon.
xxxxx

Welcome to England.

At least the weather will be good when you arrive - Sandy tells me that Sunday is forecast for 30 degrees. That is a lot hotter than SA is at the moment.
I hope you all had a good flight and that you are not too tired when your journey finally ends.
Have a wonderful weekend and remember that I love you all very very much.

Today is the day!!

Wow..... hard to believe that today has actually come. You must all be very excited about getting on the plane tonight and waking up in England in the morning....
I am quite sure that Tom and Anna are very excited to see you too, so that will be fun when you get there tomorrow. Not te mention your cousins of course and everyone else that is looking forward to seeing you including Mama Lou and Daddy O.
I love you all more than I can ever ever express.
xxxx

Father's Day

My darling darling children....
I have just received your 4 beautiful cards and the wonderful envelope that Mummy decorated so typically "mummy" style!!
Thank you for the love and the messages written by each of you in each card. To say "I miss you" would be a complete and utter understatement.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.....

The Boer - Arthur Conan Doyle

"Take a community of Dutchmen, the type who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be one ofthe most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive, place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider. Then, finally, put a finer temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine these qualities and all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer - the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain...."

2 weeks to go...

Wow - the final countdown has begun....
2 weeks from today is your last day in South Africa and the next day you will wake up just before you land in England..... Are you excited?
I am sure that the few days between now and then will be fraught with all sorts of issues and worries, but all will be OK. Please help and support Mummy as much as you can in this time as the job that she has between now and then to sort everything out is nothing short of MAMMOTH.
I love you - and am thinking of you every minute of every day.

Dolly Parton once said....

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain......

African bush fires

Every winter in South Africa the landscape is cleansed by these naturally occuring bush fires. Not a great picture but then again I was not hanging around as it was 20 feet from the car with flames 8 feet high....

Jesse....

You said that I look "tired and funny" in your comment about the picture of me and Daniella - your cousin. Well, it was almost a year ago. I was tired, but I look "funny" because i had shaved my beard off..... and I so know how much you hate that........ I won't do it again. OK?

Goodbye South Africa

Nine years to the day since Mummy, Megan and Jesse arrived in South Africa, I left SA as my home.
And you will all leave soon to be in the UK.
Change is a good thing. It comes with great sadness at times, but one should never look back. Only forward. Nothing of the past can be changed, but everything of the future is there to be made the way we want it to be.
I will see you all "on the other side".
Love you without end.
Daddy

Pic of the day

Another Sunday

Well, another week passes by. This has been a particularly frustrating week work wise with very little forward movement in what we are trying to do here in Malaysia. Frankly it is annoying.
The only consolation is that I will be back in South Africa this time next week for my birthday and I cannot wait to see you all when I get there.
Mummy and I have all our fingers and toes crossed and double crossed that everything will now go smoothly for the move to England.
I am sorry that I have not updated for 2 whole weeks. Have not really had too much to say.

Sunday Sunday.......

I wonder how you all are?
The last two times that we have spoken, you have all been very distracted. So distracted in fact that I have not really felt that we had a conversation. It has been hard to catch up with you properly.
Mummy seems to think that I am being a "drama queen" about it, which is a bit unfair. By now I would have thought that we all understand how difficult it is that I am so far away, and that we should be compensating for it somehow.
I hear that you are all very excited (perhaps over excited) to get to the UK and also now very disappointed that the sale of the house seems to be dragging on forever.
Unfortunately that is the nature of house buying and selling. It takes time and effort and above all patience.
Sooner or later you will all be in the UK.
Try not to rush through your last days in South Africa. Regardless of how good or bad you think South Africa is, please try to enjoy your last days there.
Megan, you have lived there since you were 4, and Jesse, you have lived there since you were not even 2 years old.....
Jake and Wendy - you were both BORN there.
I was born there, and I am South African before I am anything else. Even before I am a drama queen!
When you are all older, the fact that you lived there and 2 of you were born there will mean more to you than it does right now. It really will.
So please try to be patient and above all help Mummy and nana Yia Yia as this is a very hard time for them, as all they want is for you all to be settled safe and sound in England as soon as possible. You will be.
It will happen when it is meant to happen.
Love you all.

The sky above the South China Sea

In the wilds.... of Borneo...

.... I came across this young man.
"Orang Utang" means "man of the forest" - he is about 4 years old and an orphan, as a result of deforestation in Malaysia and on the island of Borneo specifically....
He is looked after by some absolutely amazing people who, in time, will rehabilitate him to the wild.
Normally a baby Orang Utang would stay with its parents until around 7 or 8 years old, which I suppose is about the same as people being 16, 17 or 18 by the time parents may think their children might just survive on their own...

The most amazing thing about today was this: just as the group was about to set off up the mountain, an old man joined us. he must have been about 70, and very frail - he was walking with a zimmer frame that had little wheels on it. Shuffling really - not walking. I thought to myself that he would potter around the nature reservation garden as there would be no way that he would make it up the hill, on what turned out to be a very steep jungle trail going up about 50 metres from the start point to where the viewing platform was for the young orphaned Orang Utangs.

About 10 minutes after I got to the viewing platform, the old man was there. He had been carried up on the back of one of the game rangers!! CARRIED. And then he was carried down. 35 degree heat - 80% humidity. CARRIED.

I said to the ranger that he had done an amazing thing and he said simply, "It is my job sir."

There are some amazing people in this world. It is good to find them and remind oneself that there are these amazing people going about their daily business.

Wonderful.

Gezellig

“Gezellig” is a fantastic word.
It is a Dutch word that cannot really be translated….
It means togetherness, coziness, fun, satisfaction, love and warmth - all rolled in to one.
It is a feeling more than a meaning, or a meaning with feeling.
“Gezellig” is about people.
“Gezellig” can happen over a cup of coffee, it can be over dinner, it can be around a camp fire, a Christmas tree, in a car or at a bar.
It can be a group of people laughing and chatting on a train, it can be a couple walking in the rain.
It is a feeling to be looked forward to, a feeling that you will know when you experience it. And you will miss when not experiencing it.
It is a good feeling, a comfortable feeling, a warm cozy and loving feeling. A trusting feeling, a place in your heart reserved for family and special friends of whom you are a part.