What a week !

Good morning one and all, how is everyone today ? Currently we have a brisk South Easter blowing causing quite a chill in the air, I honestly can say we have really not had any cold weather as yet.  A few cool days and the evenings are cool but nothing requiring winter woolies #sadface, hopefully winter proper is on its way.  Today's Blog is a lot later than usual due to a number of factors - 1. We had a family Zoom meeting today which was awesome, just to see everyone.  It does have some disadvantages though is that obviously not everyone has the same internet speed and so because there can be a delay we end up talking over one another which can be frustrating. 2. I have had 'major' technical challenges since yesterday.  My phone memory is full and so I decided to move ALL my photographs and videos over onto an SD card, all went well and I completed the 'move' in retrospect and for future perhaps I need to copy files over and not move them straight off.  I checked and the memory card showed all the files almost 2000 so, and this is where the problem came in, I deleted everything off my phone and somehow lost the WHOLE LOT.  Now I don't know about you but for me that was an absolute disaster.  As I type this I think what may have
happened is I 'moved' them over. Saw the SD card file and am pretty sure I saw the normal gallery file which I deleted, now I'm thinking I deleted the SD file.  Either way I lost the LOT.  These photographs are a visual story of my daily life here at home and with my family as we exchange happenings.  I feel completely gutted.  After trying a number of things with no results I managed  to download a data retrieval app and have somehow been able to recapture most, but not all of my pics, which I have copied to the SD card and made sure they are physically there, now I'm too scared to delete anything.   What a way to start my week, Jelly Bean was such a help and her calmness really helped quell my growing 'hysteria', thanks you precious.

We are now well into week 5 of the CoVid 19 hard lockdown and with lots of luck some areas (including us) will be upgraded to Level 4 on Friday. Sadly Cape Town Metropole, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Durban and East London will stay at Level 5 for now.  There is not a huge difference in the change for us personally except that a few more items will be available to purchase although we are still not allowed to travel to other municipal areas.  As you can imagine, and are experiencing this is extremely difficult for most people and worse for others, certainly not an easy time and is stressful all round.  Even though everyone is at home, or supposed to be stress levels remain high.

Last week I did a lot of baking and successfully made a proper Sourdough Bread using my starter, I was extremely proud of the result but will say this, it is hard work.  Hard work in the sense that over a 24 hour period you have to continually turn and stretch the dough, nurture it etc and then only bake the following day. Not having the right bowls to proof it in also made it a little more difficult, but, all in all I did it, my Starter continues to grow and I now know I can make bread at any time with or without yeast.  A couple of days after making my bread I discovered the local superette is selling Sourdough Bread on a daily basis. With a slight hanging of my head I promptly went and bought two loaves which we sliced and froze. I won't  have to bake bread for a wee while 👏🏻.  I find I am baking buttermilk risks almost every  seven to ten days now that we are on lockdown and also have  to top up the doggie biscuit tin, it just never seems to end.  

Another situation we had was since Charlie arrived he has been eating the same food as Max and Sasha - raw dog food with mealie meal.  Almost every night between 3 - 5 am he would be sick, a yellow bile.  I could not figure it out, during the day he is fine and is not unwell in any way.  I spoke to L who fostered him for the two weeks prior to flying down and she had fed him dry kibble with no problems, we brainstormed a bit and I googled his 

'symptoms' and read that it is called 'hunger vomiting', the raw food was not keeping him full enough through the night.  During he day he gets doggie biscuits along with Max and Sasha, so that keeps him going.  I then decided to feed him boiled chicken and white rice with pumpkin and green beans and at night when we go to sleep he gets 2 biscuits and a few dry kibbles, this worked like a charm with no more vomiting until I replaced the chicken with the raw dog food and we were back to square one.  So....... now he gets boiled chicken, rice with veg and a bedtime snack, Max and Sasha get the raw dog food with the rice and veg and a bedtime biscuit, this is not complicated at all.  What is absolutely adorable though is that I am teaching Charlie to sit and when he does it is so funny, because his fur is long he looks chubbier than what he is and when he sits, that little behind just seems to plop down, it is just too cute.

Well folks for someone who had no idea what to share with you, I've gone on long enough and am going to wish you all a good week, I pray you all stay healthy and happy.  Thank you for being an awesome audience.  With love from my house to yours Ciao Ciao.

One of our beautiful sunsets