Blog January 7, 2011

I fully intended to blog before the end of the year 2010 but laziness and lack of motivation and being at the beach got in the way!!

So to an update on visitors -Dad arrived on December 15^th and the twins left us on December 17^th and the bikers finally left after 13 nights on December 18^th.

The first lot of bike parts that arrived by DHL were not right and so the contingency plan with parts arriving the following week kicked in. In the meantime Julien detected a problem with the other bike – thought it was gear box and was prepared to strip it to find the problem, BUT with some help it was soon discovered that it was the prop shaft that needed replacing and in the end it was this that held them up. He was able to still keep one bike going during this time period so they were not completely stranded.

Antoine communicated to me that they were feeling bad and felt that they were outstaying their welcome. Having undertaken a long road trip ourselves I realized the precariousness of their situation and was happy to help where I could. For me it was a strange evolution – from strangers arriving the first day and friends leaving 13 days later …. I am JUST old enough to be their Mother – and certainly I felt a level of concern and protection towards them like that of a Mother and I am sure they got fed up with all my questions and nagging !!!

We ended up watching movies together – some choices more prudent than others – White Mischief was not the greatest idea – too much sex and nudity – VERY embarrassing sat watching that with two twenty something’s !!!

Mugabe and The White African was interesting and SO sad … I think their growing up in Africa made the documentary seem more real and likely to them. It was even more poignant that the twins were with us and the movie was set during the time that we lived there. The upshot was that we all felt very depressed by Mugabe’s ‘I will be Hitler 10 fold’ – in fact the bikers asked us to rewind that part as they thought they had misheard!

So when we finally waved ‘au revoir’ NOT ‘Adieu’ (which apparently has the context of forever BUT the English translation is ‘Farewell’) it felt like there was a huge gap in the house especially having seen off the twins the morning before. I don’t think I have ever had so many people around meaning that I had to do a head count at some mealtimes!! I cooked for them a few times and they made a delicious Belgian dinner for us one night and on their last night a Senegalese Chicken dish. Having twittered away in my school girl French for 13 days – I hope my French improved – certainly my tenses did! It was amazing the number of words for which there is no equivalent in French – sometimes we could think of 3 words in English which all had the same meaning in French so the context was not quite right.

So the day they left was Luke’s birthday – I baked a cake and in the afternoon we attended a Christmas party at a friend’s house. The talk was all about the weather in Europe – the delays and cancellations – so many people this side had been affected – flights to Europe and US cancelled and kids coming home from University for the Christmas holidays stranded and delayed all over …. Speculation rife as to whether or not his is the shape of things to come …. The future as we will know it?

The following week I seemed to spend the whole time planning and shopping for food – why oh why do we buy enough food to feed an army or cover a long term siege!! ?? We had Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve at 6PM – turkey and all the trimmings ( I had not cooked such a dinner for 9 years … so enjoyed the planning)

On Christmas Day we went for a walk with 3 other families in the tea estates – plenty resistance from the teens and twenty somethings about having to get up for the event but I think in the end everyone enjoyed the fresh air (it was quite warm actually!) We assembled back at our place for coffee and snacks – Rhodie took exception to all the strange dogs and picked on a male who fought back – very unusual – even more weird was Harry did not bat an eyelid in defence - so maybe Rhodie’s gender neutrality since being spayed has wiped out Harry’s defence mechanisms !!

On Boxing Day we had a house full for – Bring a plate of creatively transformed leftovers for the buffet table …. I was fairly jaded having been up at 2.30AM watching cricket. Life continued like that for a number of days until England won that test to retain The Ashes – what a victory …. We were relieved to get some sleep before the trip to the coast with the test finishing a day early – YES a day early – we really ground those convicts into the ground!!

… so it was then going coastal for a week followed by safari but that’s for another day ……………..