The School run

On Friday 3rd we moved out of the guest house and into our new next door neighbours accommodation, varyingly called the flat and or the cottage. A two bed single storey block next to their office. Not as pretty or sophisticated as the guest house, but enough room in which to swing a Great Dane . And to Little`s delight, a small kitchen [I haven’t cooked for a month now!] a little more privacy. We are about 2 kilometers from our farm, so that popping over to keep an eye on progress will be easier.
Gerrart and Marika are delightfully eccentric and enormous fun [they of the pair of Namibian giraffe]…very relaxed about her ladyship, in particular her toilet habits!!!!!!!!! She has decided that she is really only comfortable to perform on grass .and there is so very little of it about. Some farmers have had special lawns planted…Gerrart and Marika included…a thick 1 acre of lawn, sprinkled every couple of hours with water diverted from the canal and their table grape crop, in front of their incongruous Palladian villa style farm house and now liberally peppered with Dane poo, which they refuse to allow us to clear telling us quite convincingly, its great fertilizer [I’m going to have to head out with a black bag & a shovel under cover of darkness]


On Sunday, we deposited her ladyship at Magda and Niki Van Zyles farm, a palpable degree of excitement there, as they has never had a House dog before. Bee, of course, knew we were about to leave her and settled onto her little piece of England [an increasingly dusty piece of black vet bed, that urgently needs a good wash now!] giving us evils.

Departed from Marchand at 11.00 am.Looming in the back of the company bakkie [open backed Toyota Hylux!]was Little`s huge suitcase, carefully packed with all his new school uni, a paltry, 3 sets of civvies: i.e. three T shirts and three pairs of shorts [all that is allowed for termly boarders], and various bathroom fitting that needed to be exchanged in C.T.
Our drive down to the Cape was stunning, the dry stony landscape from Marchand to Kenhardt and Calvenia, with its sandy colored flat semi desert landscape either side of the straight tar roads that stretch ahead of you for up to 10 kilometers, was liberally peppered with spring flowers that annually pop up and grow wild in this austere landscape, at this time of year. For those gardeners amongst you, great swathes of Namaquland daisies ,shockingly Day-Glo orange, cerise Lampranthus, and banks of Livingstone daisies ,all rather wonderful…even the boys were impressed.

This drive is something of a marathon school run, app. 850 kilometers from Marchand to C.T. taking between 6/8 hours, depending on how many breaks are taken. Not only do we need to refuel twice but min half hour breaks are essential every couple of hours to break the tedium of the drive. I imagine that perhaps the Wild West looked something like the this..but perhaps this is less green. On a Sunday afternoon, each of the small towns we drove through [and there are very few] resembled ghost towns, all single storey dwellings, clinging like urchins to the sides of the main road, with only the Kirk [church] punctuating the practical architecture of these little settlements, not a soul to be seen or heard, maybe the occasional barking of an unseen dog, disappointingly…… no tumbleweed.
Little and I could not believe how little traffic we met on the roads…maybe only 25 vehicles in both directions for the first 350 Km. Breaking down is really not an option here!
All still in good spirits, Little finished the book that Geordy gave him, and said that although very sad, it was the second best book he had ever read. [Huge thanks to Loops and Geordy].

Cutting across towards the N7 and following the road through to Clanwilliam,and its breathtaking dam, the landscape becomes greener with vast moving plains of grassland, herds of fat black shiny cattle, little white homestead type farms perched on the lower slopes of the mountains that form the backdrop to this greener altogether gentler landscape.



CAPE TOWN : ARRIVALS& DEPARTURES


Finally, at around 6.00` ish hot and dusty and tired, we arrive at the Winchester mansions in CT,. This is where we spent our first night on arrival in Z.A, and where Bee was offered 5 star treatment. With our complimentary fruit and wine in our suite, was a box of complimentary Boneo for her, and a personal note from the manager [addressed to Bee], wishing her a happy stay and a most welcome return!

All too tired to go out to eat at The Waterfront as we had planned, so we dialed 117 and magically club sandwiches arrived with Coca-Cola’s for the boys and a pleasingly large carafe of white stuff for me. As Little was the man of the moment, at his behest, we watched the latest Harry Potter movie…Big fell asleep!!

Crazy Monday, a million things to accomplish, most importantly to find Little 3X pairs of PJ`s, his Bishops ones, being holed up in a bonded warehouse in C.T, with the car & all of our furniture and belongings. The authorities wont release these until our visas are granted or we put up a substantial financial bond pending our residency status being finalized.[I am refusing to twitch about this and have handed over both the emotional and practical responsibility to Big on this front!] The only thing that really irritates is the lack of my extra camera battery, cables and software, to upload photos to the computer.

By 3.00pm [two hours before Little`s school check in time], we found ourselves at Cavendish Square [app. 3 blocks away from the school] a HUGE and rather racy Mall, Little starting to spin now, unable to concentrate on what he wanted for late lunch, what colour PJ`s he wanted, unable to choose reading books in the book shop. So I took over his decision making process for a while, suddenly he was a very small person indeed and Big and my hearts were breaking for him…Chocolate brownie desert and homemade vanilla ice cream went some way towards girding his spirits ,and we departed for Bishops. Greeted by a stooge [what those at Cheam would call a gappy], we were ushered to the dormitories and Matron’s domain.

The dormitory, holds about 12 boys in bunk beds, each has a bed which they have responsibility for making themselves, and a smallish wardrobe, which has to be stacked and hung in military fashion, with clothes following colour coded rules, and inspections each Wednesday. Matron helped Little with his uniform, making quite clear, all the while, what she would expect of him in terms of behavior and performance!!. Other boys started to arrive, greeting Matron as Maam[as in Ham ,and her preferred form of address],showing her conspicuous respect [ verging upon fright] . Edwin clocked it and we both exchanged subtly raised eyebrows. I have to admit to finding her rather fearsome.

After about 40 minutes of meeting and greeting, of complex systems and rules to try and digest, Little was caught in a turmoil of preparing for our departure [clearly wanting to be sick] and racing off to escape Maam [as in ham] into the grounds, to play before supper with his fellow boarders [ far more appealing].I asked him if he wanted us to go and he said YES!......So we did, all three of us smiling tightly and waving fiercely and all three of us wanting to howl, none of us did.
Big and I simply found our way back on the road out of C.T and headed back on the long return run for Marchand, hitting rush hour at 5.40….there was absolutely nothing to say…both caught in our own bubbles of despair and imagining what our little boy must be feeling like. Safe to say…not a journey I wish to relate in any depth, we arrived home at 1.30am and crept into bed feeling very breakable…God only knows how Little, was feeling.

Tuesday simply brought despair, utter misery at being so far away from EVERYONE, great pangs of missing Jessie and Tommy and Finn and Little. Such guilt at having blown this family into little pieces of shrapnel. Avalanches of grief. Big did what Big does and threw himself into a busy working day.
Why is it, that when you feel like this, when others are kind to you, it promotes an immediate precipitation. Spent the day too tired and miserable to stop myself from weeping. Even more guilty for feeling so sorry for myself when my children and family are the ones taking the brunt.
The only thing to cause any relief, was collecting Bee, I have NEVER seen her so enthusiastic and joyful in her greeting…she actually smiled for at least an hour and kept pottering up to me to remind me that she was still there.







STRANGE DAYS


Being without Little, magnifies the absence of all of my children, quite apart from being a delightful person to be around [mostly!], he somehow provided a very physical and emotional link to all my children. I have had to firmly pull myself together, reassure myself that I am visiting him for the weekend of 17th Oct, and call Jessie, Tom and Finn to touch base.
Heartfelt thanks to everyone who sent me emails this week, if I ever needed a demonstration of what lovely friends I have, this weeks emails are testament to it .They meant a great deal to me.XXXXX
For all those who asked here is a brief up date on Jell,Tommy and Finn:
Jessie has just finished a cardio rotation and is moving onwards to radiology, her elective to Ethiopia looms in December, when, at least she will be on the same continent as us, and I will hear her heart beating a little stronger in my soul. I know that she is incredibly busy in her final year of medicine and it’s in her nature to throw herself into work and her love of hockey. So this bird is busy busy busy. It doesn’t stop me from missing her.
Most of you will know, Tommy left for Italy the week before we left for ZA, his contract to play professional rugby for La Vorno, freshly signed. In his first week of training he tripped over an irrigation pipe, left on the playing field and injured his knee. His physio and team doctor insisted on 3 weeks rest and them a slow build up to full fitness again. Last Saturday he was in his first match for his new team…the knee collapsed .After scan, it is revealed he has torn his meniscus and snapped his ACL. His op to repair this damage is on 18th October [Finns birthday!]. This type of injury requires serious rehab and means his season is finished. What a heartbreaker…, when I spoke with him he seemed uncharacteristically upbeat, he was very relieved that he had employed the services of a sports agent before he left, it is this gentleman’s job to make sure the club support Tom ,covering his medical expenses and rehab and continuing to pay him for the term of his contract. Poor, poor Tommy.
As for Finn, he has managed to re install himself back into Newcastle and his Economics studies. He is busy working on his business idea and I hope {!!!] studying hard. Having spent the entire summer in his company, I miss his caustic wit, his banter and his undeniable charm. Huge thanks to Kim, who arranged some work experience for him. He spent a day, on a box at Lloyds, watching how underwriters work, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

**********************************************************************AS soon as some resolution is found to “the possessions in the bonded warehouse situation”.I will be in a position to provide some images with this b