My Life's Winding Roads: Happy New Year and Hello 2024

My Life's Winding Roads: Happy New Year and Hello 2024: Good morning all and  Happy New Year to each of you.  Can you believe it ? We are living in a time that 50 years ago was only in the Jetson&...

Happy New Year and Hello 2024

Good morning all and  Happy New Year to each of you.  Can you believe it ? We are living in a time that 50 years ago was only in the Jetson's TV Show.  Gosh how much we have seen and lived through and how privileged we are to still be here to tell our stories and pass down history.

It was a quiet, very weird, Christmas and a lovely quiet week since then.  We had our Express Christmas with the Bears and Poppet and did a live video link with Big Guy and Princess.  What a special day and so many memories were made, these family gatherings leave my heart full and comforted.

December of course had all it own types of fun as usual.  Big Bear took me out for the most incredible dinner of fine dining and an evening of sharing dreams and hopes and general catching up.  In line with my intention to make the most of every day and do new things, I tasted and /or ate everything on the menu.  Baby Bear was away for a work function and it was actually the first time ever that he and I got to go out for a meal, being just the two of us.  What an incredible evening 😍.  JB and I slept over at Poppet's house so as not to have to drive over the Pass, all in all a very special time. 

Talking about the 'long way around ' as it became known we must give a hand to City of Cape Town for their incredible work on repairing the three roads which had cut us off in September.  They finished the Hermanus Road, then the bridge to Kleinmond. Their aim was to have everything open or at least driveable by mid December.  They outdid themselves and our beloved Clarence Drive was re-opened to traffic a week before the middle of the month.  There are 6 Stop and Go areas which are being managed extremely well. We have never waited for more than a minute or so.  Between the Stop and Go's it is down to one lane only, one direction at a time.  To see the utter devastation of the road and the mountain is hard to put into words.  In one area the entire road collapsed and cars now drive through the actual rest stop area.  The scars are going to be on our mountains for a very long time, but oh what a joy to drive that road again.

Work wise it was a very busy month with me working right up to the 22nd.  My most interesting project was ... to shorten length and height, a tennis court net to fit a Pickle Ball court. Pickle Ball and Paddle have taken the Cape by storm.  I had to cut off 3 metres of the original net restitch the side band back on.  Then my my brief was to shorten the height of the net to  " the length of the inner leg of this pair of trousers plus one inch" 🤣🤣🤣.  Out came Google for the proper dimensions and can you believe that the length of the leg and one inch was exactly as stated in the rules?  Well, it took me a couple of days and some very raw fingers but I did it successfully and was able to pat my humble little sewing machine on doing so well. 😂  the client was absolutely delighted and the net is now in daily use in Kleinmond.  The trousers received a new zip and two holes repaired haha.  

We have had the most wonderful weather, cool and wet or windy for the last week which is not necessarily what the holiday makers want but has certainly kept many children from drowning. For the first time since we've been here, our main beach was closed twice this week due to two sharks 🦈  swimming around.  Last week as I was walking around the yard trying to find Tilly (the tortoise) I came across a snake 🥴 at first i didn't realise what it was and came back past it to see it had moved. Hmmmm. Call Hubby and grab a broom stick.  Tell Hubby to bring a container AND lid.  I tried picking up said snake with the broom stick which did not work.  By this time it had wriggled closer to the house. Eeeeek. I did not think of closing the door, I was too busy watching it. 😂 Hubby eventually grabbed a pair of braai tongs and gently picked it up and put it in the container with lid firmly in place.  My instructions were to please go and release it across the road far into the fynbos.  Sheesh.  It wasn't big, about 30cm long and we aren't sure what type of snake just that it was flipping fast.  Always an adventure here without fail.

On that note folks, family and friends my prayer for each one of you this year is for a good year, a year of answered prayers, dreams achieved, goals attained, new adventures, love, good health, God's peace and provision.  Please stay safe on the roads wherever you may be.  Ciao Ciao 

Our fine dining dessert ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clarence Drive.

Once a tennis net now a pickle ball net.

                      

                                 

My Life's Winding Roads: November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone

My Life's Winding Roads: November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone: Hi folks, here I am albeit a week late if I'm going month by month, this Blog will cover November as well as wishes for Christmas. Shees...

November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone

Hi folks, here I am albeit a week late if I'm going month by month, this Blog will cover November as well as wishes for Christmas.

Sheesh where are the weeks going ?  This year has literally flown by and the last couple of months even more so, since I started my mending business.  It has been wonderfully busy as well as a learning curve all at once.  I still find it hard  to believe that I can earn money by sewing and mending.  If anyone had ever asked me where sewing was on my list of 'career objectives' it would have rated right down at the very bottom if at all, my Father God has a sense of humour. 🙂  I have had some unusual sewing 'jobs' but each one has stretched me and taught me something.  This past  week, among other things, I made and inserted pockets into three skirts, mended holes (some tiny and some enormous) in seven plush, fleece blankets - one blanket had twenty holes. And my favourite was removing a polo neck  on a brand new jersey, unwinding it to about 2 cm and reattaching a part of it onto the back neck of the jersey.  That one was fun.  A friend in the Village reminded me that I also mend and fix stuffed toys. I've had loads of experience with Princess and her Flopsy. The best part of all this is that I enjoy each item as a challenge.

Weather wise, we have gone straight from winter to a scorching summer - extreme temperatures and either a gale or not a breath of air.  Definitely not my favourite weather as most of you will know.  JB and I even put the Christmas tree up early in the vain hope of cooler weather 😂😂.  We figured that seeing as it has been yet another crazy year, why not start the Christmas season early and really get into the swing of the Season.  I am happy to say that apart from one stocking filler gift I have completed all my Christmas shopping. Yaaay 🙌.  I still  have some baking to do, my christmas cake amongst other things. 

Village news is that we are still mostly restricted from getting into Somerset West and Cape Town because we still have to go around the mountain and over the Pass.  Truly it now feels like a picnic basket and a flask of coffee is required for any trip in that direction, the result of that being, when we do go in I tak a detailed list for every stop.  The one thing I keep forgetting is Christmas Mince Pies 😭, only one of my most favourite things.

This past month did not pass without incident, and by would it ? Haha.  Over the time I have had my generic FatSak,  Jasper (BIG, fat, lazy tuxedo cat), has periodically peed on it to my immense frustration.  Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get it clean. Then the piddle of all piddles and I tried everything I knew, all to no effect.  I was desperate and made a snap decision to cut off the offending section of the inner bag, wash it and then restitch it back in place.  I planned to remove any soiled foam at the same time.  Well ... The deeper I reached in the more smelly foam I pulled out. 🤦🏻‍♀️. This bag was originally 25 kgs of foam.  Washing the cover and the piece of the inner bag in the machine had worked perfectly, so that let me with only one solution - wash the inner cover and  the foam.  OMW do you know how many little pieces of foam make up 25 kg.  Hubby had the idea of pouring the foam into a queen size bed and base,  thick plastic, enormous bag.  Hmmm trying to lift that heavy a bag and pour the foam out did not work so we resorted to pulling out arm fulls and smelling it.  If it was not smelly it went into the bag, if it smelt it went into the bath.  We had a three quarter of a bath full of foam, soap, vinegar and bicarbonate.  My next job was to get it from the bath and spun and dried.  I tried a duvet cover it did not work.  Pillow cases did not work. Eventually I found the zip up inner cover from one of our couch cushions.  This worked like a charm, I half filled it in the bath dragged it into the machine, rinsed and spun, then hung the bag on the line.  I wore a path to the washing line with the uncountable  trips it took. Load after load after load.  All dry foam was then put in the big plastic bag which eventually split. Therefore there were two growing piles of foam 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️.  The inner bag got washed, the missing piece stitched back into place and refilling begun.  Good grief there was foam everywhere you looked, inside, outside, all over us and the animals.  We resorted to using plastic bowls to scoop foam back into the inner, together with liberal amounts of essential peppermint oil and citronella oil.  After much sweat, frustration and exhaustion we got it all back in, minus about 5kgs of foam  which I just tossed out because of total the exhaustion.  Despite the drama and hard work I now have a fresh, clean smelling FatSak.  This week one of my clients gave me a packet of linen savers  which I taped together and liberally sprinkled with citronella oil and I now drape it over the FatSak at night. 🙏🤞🏻 Please God that is the end of the story.

We also had a wonderful two day visit with Miss Muffet who did a flying trip back home.  It was really good to spend time with her and just reconnect and catch up.  Poppet also surprised us with a visit last weekend and we picked up on an old family tradition, which had slipped through the cracks the last few years.  We made yummy salad rolls and settled down to watch Dirty Dancing for the umpteenth time.  Our annual Christmas movie - my heart was warmed and full.

The rest of the family are all well and busy ahead of the holidays.  It is going to be a very strange Christmas this year because for the first time ever Princess will not be here (we will see her a few days later), Poppet will be with friends, the Bears will be away and Big Guy just cannot get down this year.  So for the first time since 1977 all but one of the kids, JB, will not spend the day with us. We are doing a mini Christmas with the CT based family on the 22nd with a video link up to Princess and Big Guy.  I am planning on cooking a big Christmas Eve dinner and then, on Christmas day the three of us will literally veg out and watch movies etc., no cooking just plenty of left overs.

This was a lot of news about a busy month, I will put the next Blog up before the New Year.  To all of you I want to say thank you for taking the time each month to stay connected to my crazy life. Thank you for your encouragement and comments.  From my family to yours I wish you all a truly blessed Christmas and wonderful holidays.  Please stay safe on the roads and wherever you may be. Ciao Ciao.

The jersey make over, before and after.

A glimpse of foam insanity

My Life's Winding Roads: What a month

My Life's Winding Roads: What a month:   Good morning to everyone wherever you are. Well ... What a month in just about every respect including  ending it off by winning the 2023 ...

What a month

 Good morning to everyone wherever you are. Well ... What a month in just about every respect including  ending it off by winning the 2023 Rugby World Cup, well done to our Bokke, you are the best, it really came down to the wire , nail biting from start to finish.  As you may remember, we entered the month almost cut off from everything - that actually hasn't changed much.  We can get through to Kleinmond, our closest town with a stop / go at the bridge, which allows only one lane of vehicles through at a time.  From there we can get to Hermanus also with a stop / go at the turn off to Hermanus, which is actually a 3 way stop /go as it is a T junction and turning left is our only way to Cape Town via Sir Lowry's Pass. Despite being a national highway it is not a pleasant drive as well as being quite dangerous on the Pass, it also takes an extra thirty minutes. As a result ,  trips to Somerset West are now down to only the most necessary.  We are actually very blessed to be in the Western Cape because out of 154 roads which were closed we are now down to 37. In other Provinces in SA most of these roads would still be closed.  Our beloved Clarence Drive is being worked on from both sides as there were so many areas affected, there is hopeful talk of it being opened on a stop / go system possibly before the end of the year 🙏.   Our weather remains completely upside down with no two days being the same.

I had my reconstruction done on the 3rd and it is not quite the full stop I had hoped for; it is a comma as the Dr feels there should be one more next year some time.  Despite having really had no issues with the first reconstruction, this one knocked me flat and exacerbated a bad flare which is still plaguing me.  I actually made contact with the Anaesthetist to find out exactly what drugs she used, because the nausea was so bad and lasted well over two weeks. Never mind the pain and bruising, shucks.  Having said all  that I could not be happier with the results and am loving my somewhat flatter tummy 😁.  I am in no hurry for the next one, and after seeing my Oncologist last week I am now officially cancer free for 2 years and 12 days) I am now on a six monthly check up with her, whoop whoop.  It has been a very long road but one that has taught me a huge amount about myself, compassion and life.  For all who pray and support me, I thank you. I can't imagine having done it without your love.

Work wise things are going well, it was a bit quiet in the middle of the month so which worked out perfectly. Then last week someone called and asked if I can alter curtains. Not my favourite thing to do but I said yes and she duly dropped them off.  Oh my goodness 😳 those curtains tested every reserve I had and then some. Apart from a fairly complicated alteration they were 2.72 m long, made out of expensive block out fabric with another thick block out  lining.  There were some areas that I could not even get the material into my sewing machine (I did those by hand).  It took me the entire week where the dining room table looked like a tornado had struck.  I eventually finished them at 17.00 on Friday afternoon and she happily collected them on Saturday.  That one goes down in my history book 🤣.  Late Friday another client brought in a pile of clothing which needs repairing and small alterations and I was so excited to see what needs to be done. As for Dragon Drizzle the oils went onto the shelf in the Coffee Shop on about the 18th, I haven't been in to see what's happening there.  But I do know I am gong to have to rethink my labels.  Unless there is light behind the bottles the label gets lost completely.

Hubby has a steady flow of clocks and has just rebuilt one for one of our local charities, after being given just  a box of loose parts.  He certainly has  a talent for them.  On a different note I am still trying to get my head around the fact  that my precious little Princess leaves home next Sunday to fly up to Gauteng and prepare herself for Varsity next year.  What happened to the tiny bundle that captured my heart the minute she opened her eyes in the delivery room?  We are having a joint belated birthday and going away lunch for her and Poppet and Hubby this coming Saturday.  I am going to miss her beyond all words.😥😥 as is her Mommy.

On Saturday we went along to Stony Point, our penguin colony to watch the release of rehabilitated penguins. Jelly Bean and I have wanted to go for so long and always miss it.  So braving the cold wind we stood in place and waited. It is always so very soul refreshing to be able to just look at the ocean and not hear anything but the pounding if the waves and call of the gulls .. At the end it was well worth the wait when they released twelve penguins and we  watched them trying to orientate themselves and slowly, slowly approach the water. Eventually one brave guy jumped in and the rest followed almost as one.  We were on a complete high after that, a bucket list item  -  ✔️.  Yesterday we went to a craft market just up the road and it was actually really lovely, lots of unusual things, local crafts and some yummy edibles.  I did not take Charlie as I had read that dogs were not allowed, I had to come home and apologise to him because there were two dogs  there 🤦🏻‍♀️ oops.

Well folks I think that about covers the past month without going into too many details hahaha.  Now the trot up to Christmas starts and I for one want to try and get as much done, as early as possible. I also want to send out a virtual hug to all of you that are battling with pressure, stress, depression, illness or sorrow.  Take a deep breath and just take life day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute where you need to.  If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night in a panic about something, write it down and hand it over to God.   Keep a pen and paper by your bed.  That way you can let it go and deal with it in the morning with fresh eyes.

Stay safe and stay healthy folks.  Ciao Ciao.

Shipwreck from 1926 at Stony Point.

Penguin Release.

My Life's Winding Roads: And it rained and rained and rained

My Life's Winding Roads: And it rained and rained and rained: Good morning folks from a somewhat soggy village on the Cape Coast.  October has arrived and who knows what is in store for us. I am so grat...