Retiring Adventurously – Getting used to all this free time!

2015-02-22 | puppy1952

Back to the question of “What do you do all day now that you’re retired?” I could answer that fairly easily in the past few weeks as I have been busy tying up things to do with Bird Club, the Caravan and the house. Earl is hyperactive and makes sure he has one project or another on the go and so doing things together has taken a bit of a back seat for now. He did comment that I was spending too much time reading and indulging in other useless occupations so I said “I could get some relief work at one of the schools.” which sent him into a panic and shut him up completely. While I was teaching he was doing all the shopping and cooking but I have reclaimed those duties and even bring him cups of tea and snacks while he industriously labours on the boat he has been commissioned to fit out. Once this is done there is no knowing what he will take on next. I am of course most grateful to him for taking on these jobs as it does add to the ‘not so full anymore’ coffers! And I am a lady used to her little luxuries.

On Thursday we were both up bright and early – Earl to go fishing and I to join a midweek bird club outing! The venue was one of my favourite spots – The False Bay Ecology Park – which Earl and I often visit on our own- but to go with other like-minded friends and an expert guide makes it extra special.

Dave, our leader explained the importance of this birding area

The False Bay Ecology Park’s man-made wetland system is amongst one of the top five bird watching areas in Southern Africa. It is an IBA (Important Birding Area) because of the number of species that it attracts. Many birds from across the seas use it as a stop off spot or destination as they traverse the world’s migratory flight paths. One hundred and sixty eight species of bird have been recorded in the park. Seventy-six of these are freshwater wetland species. Eighteen are are coastal species that visit the area to roost or breed.

Checking out one of the ponds with binoculars

The stilt is a common resident.

We delighted to find a grey-headed gull among the usual Hartlaub’s gulls

There were many swift terns fraternising with the gulls too

In the shallow waters we found a wood sandpiper

And there were plenty of stints in the water and in the air

The barn swallows visit us every year

It is truly a beautiful spot right here on our doorstep

For us here in the Deep South, it is an adventure just to go ‘over the mountain’ for any kind of excursion or outing. Visiting the V&A Waterfront is as good as going to a foreign city. And heading to the theatre in the very cosmopolitan Camps Bay is just as much fun. On Thursday night we went to Theatre on the Bay with Heather and Peter and were wonderfully entertained by Pieter-Dirk Uys. He has been presenting satire since the sixties and is still as amazing as ever. This show was called ‘An Audience with Pieter-Dirk Eish’ On the stage were rows of numbered boxes – reminiscent of the old Pick a Box radio show of the sixties – Various members of the audience were invited to pick a number and then Pieter Dirk dressed up in the contents and did one of his famous characters. My personal favourite is Nowell Fine – a Kugel from Constantia one of the first he ever created. She is older now but still has Dora her maid who has her own car in which she takes the grandchildren out for dinner. No more cooking for her! We were in fits of laughter watching Uys take on one persona after another and perform them perfectly! If you live here in Cape Town I highly recommend you attend the show.

So nothing too adventurous happened this week. We ended it with a lovely family steak braai and we shall see what next week brings!

Grandpa doing what he does best

Retiring Adventurously – Downtimes and Uptimes

2015-02-16 | puppy1952

I don’t do sick and I don’t do old. Give me a crying baby or a mischievous child or even a whole crowd of them and I will cope with the greatest of ease. I say I don’t do the former but that’s not quite true – of course I will deal with whatever I have to at any particular moment – but it’s way out of my comfort zone. So when the beloved awoke with a shivering fever and a rebellious tummy on Monday morning I was not well pleased. There was no escaping to the classroom with the words take yourself off to the doctor and drink plenty of fluids. Just as well because there was no way he was going to cope with this one on his own. I was all dressed and ready for gym but had to abandon that plan and drive the invalid shaking almost to convulsions to the doctors – why don’t they do house calls anymore? He was hurriedly ushered into a treatment room where he lay in his gown wrapped in a blue blanket which he insisted I tuck firmly under his freezing feet. It was a hot day but he was shivering as if he were at the South Pole. I feel so helpless in these situations. My ministrations limited as they are seem not to help and all I can do is just stand there and wait for the worst. The young doctor – they get younger as I get older- I’m sure this one was still in his teens – came in after what seemed hours but was only 10 minutes. After asking all the right questions and pressing in all the right places he put Earl on a drip and instructed him to lie there for the next hour. It was 9 o’clock. “I’ll just make it to gym then,” I said “I’ll pick you up when I’m done?” “Don’t leave me,” he wailed. So that put paid to that escape plan.
Much to my relief the drip worked and the shivering stopped and my ailing man fell asleep. I sat ‘monitoring’ him while checking Facebook and emails on my iPhone. I’m a woman I can multitask!
The hour dragged by and then he was released with a script for a pharmacy of drugs. I made sure he was comfortable, showered and changed – I had to get out of my gym clothes – then headed to the mall to get the script filled out. Then back to the invalid, dosed him with 4 different drugs, made sure he was comfortable and asleep then escaped to have tea with Carol. He was much better on my return but still slept most of the day and all that night. On Tuesday he got up for part of the day, did some things that needed doing then collapsed into bed exhausted and wondered why! I am pleased to report that by Wednesday all was back to normal!

On Tuesday I was up before the crack of dawn and out of the house before 6:00 am. My destination? – Home Affairs. I was determined to be in the front of the queue as I had to get a new I.D. Document – the old one went Awol somewhere between the Vodocom Shop at our local mall and The Kruger National Park in June last year. My passport although valid gives problems at border posts by refusing to scan. It happened in Australia and then again in Namibia so I thought it best if I was to be crossing African borders to get a new one in order to avoid delays and an excuse to arrest me! Home Affairs is notorious for its long queues and it is not uncommon to spent an entire day waiting to be processed. Their offices open at 7:30 am and I arrived at Maynard Mall parking at 6:20 am delighted that I would be very near the front. But oh no – the parking was closed – and I was fourth in that queue. There was much hooting and tooting until somebody came to explain that the rules had changed. The parking garage and the mall would only be opened at 7. There was nothing to be done so I switched up the radio and sat an waited knowing that there would also be a queue on the pavement and at the other parking garage over the road! By the time I had parked and raced for the escalator I was number 61 in queue to get into the offices! Admittedly the queue did move quite quickly and it was 8:30 when I finally made it in. Then there another number issued, a wait in the pay desk queue – R400 for the passport – ID – Free for over 60s! From there to the photobooth and a grumpy photographer barking unfriendly commands – take off your glasses – don’t smile! From there you had to wait for your number to be called. I found it all quite amusing. The queue consisted of rows of chairs and you had to move up every minute or so as you came closer to your turn. It was like being on a conveyer belt. I didn’t dare take photographs in case I was expelled! Finally, I reached the front row and then my number was called. This time a friendly and efficient assistant. My fingerprints were taken digitally and I had to sign on a digital device too. It was all done and dusted by quarter to ten – only three and a half hours. The good news is that on Friday afternoon I received an SMS to say my ID is ready for collection! Wow! But I shall wait for the Passport to be ready and collect them together. The estimated time is between 2 and 6 weeks. Maybe I will be lucky!

On the bright side, Earl recovered quickly and on Wednesday dropped the Fortuner off at Gus’s house and he and Andrew went to Stellenbosch to fetch the Land Rover Discovery 4! Earl is very pleased with the new vehicle. Before he drove it away, Martin spent two hours teaching him all the amazing features of the car. What wonderful service. Such a difference to the experience we had with the Volkswagen Caravelle. Fifteen years ago there were very few of them in the country. We researched it thoroughly and decided that it was the car we wanted and went off to a showroom in town to have a look. Nobody appeared to help us. I clapped my hands and yelled – Please come and sell me this car! A bored young man appeared and when I asked him to show me all the features he shrugged his shoulders and made a half-hearted effort at showing me a few things. He had no idea how to move the seats and was clearly ignorant of anything about the vehicle. If I hadn’t wanted it so badly I would not have bought it. We walked out and went to another dealership and asked them to contact that one to get the car for us. For all these fifteen years we have never been completely satisfied with Volkswagen’s service. Hopefully we will continue to have a better experience with Land Rover!

The Caravan ready for action

The new vehicle

From behind

Test Drive

My turn to drive

On Friday Earl heard that the yellow-fin tuna were in the bay and biting so he rushed to finish some stuff he was doing on the caravan and he and Yassin dashed off to see what they could catch! They were well pleased with the results and returned just in time for Earl and me to meet our friends for a dinner date at Brasserie in Tokai! We had a stunning evening.

Yassin with one of the yellow-fin tuna

Celebrating Heather’s birthday

Saturday was Valentine’s Day but because we’d been out the evening before we decided to not to go out on a romantic date. In any case we had lovely fresh fish for sashimi. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry as did ours when we were informed after waking from an afternoon nap that the teens were having a Valentine’s Braai that evening. We decided therefore to go off for a sunset picnic with our fish and salad but this plan too was thwarted when I discovered that the 6 teens were alone, had no braai wood and nobody had brought meat! No – I could not leave them alone with their chips and Coke – so we found ourselves entertaining 5 boys and a girl with an impromptu sashimi evening. Now some of those kids are used to our strange tastes and love to eat our weird food. But the girl and one lad looked horrified at the fare before them. “Don’t panic,” I said. ‘Just have one taste and if you really don’t like it, Grandpa will give sear some tuna for you”. The young lady agreed that it did not taste bad at all but she really would prefer it cooked. The lad had tried in our home previously and just said – cooked for me please! The rest of them tucked in and cleaned the platters.

Jay the handsome host

Tucking in

Seared to perfection

A relief not to have to eat raw fish!

Earl worked on the caravan on Sunday and I went off to a bird club outing with my friend Priscilla. We thought we had plenty of time to get to Stellenbosch but found that we could not get to Baden Powell Drive because of a marathon of some sort blocking the route. So we had to detour over the freeway and onto the N2 which made us a few minutes late. The rest of the group were nowhere in sight but a quick phone got Simon returning to find us and soon we were enjoying th walk along with the other. The birding wasn’t great but the walk in Assegaibos is wonderful.

Simon rescued us

The group looking at something in the trees

The majestic mountains

A beautiful setting

Our leader and his wife relaxing at the picnic site Thanks for leading on your birthday, John!

We ended the week with a braai at Heather and Peter’s and forgot all about the early disasters of the week!

Our hostess with host in the background

So what do you do now that you’re retired?

2015-02-08 | puppy1952

I thought that once school began and the house was empty of guests, the daughter back at work and the teens at school I would miss my old routine and go rushing back to help as a ‘room parent’ or classroom assistant. But – no – that hasn’t happened! I am afraid it has been the last thought in my head! I am not bored and I don’t know where the time goes! My colleagues I miss, and I do think of those little lambs I once taught but they have all moved on and so must I!

The thing is that life happens. Now there is time to enjoy it and cruise through the day at a leisurely pace. All my adult life I have had no trouble waking up at the rudest of hours. But now 7 o’clock seems terribly early! The only dutiful thing that I do is make my grandson’s lunch. So that gets me up briefly and then I get back into bed, check my emails/Facebook while my perfect husband makes breakfast. Life couldn’t be better!

This week has flown. On Sunday last week we dropped in at False Bay Ecology Park to see how the feathered friends were doing – this is alway a pleasure.

Yellow-billed ducks

Spotted Eagle Own – he moved his spot!

Every pond was full of flamingos

False Bay in the Background

Even the hadeda is beautiful in the sunlight

More flamingos fraternising with Cape Shovellers and Cape Teal

In my last post I related the drama of organising finance for our vehicle. That all went through finally on Wednesday! We now have the caravan safely in our driveway but the Land Rover will only be ready on Tuesday.

The Imagine Comfort Van in towing mode

We have had so much fun shopping for accessories and now have a kettle that goes on the gas burner, petrol and diesel jerry cans, gas bottles, batteries and various electrical attachments, a blow-up mattress for when we take the kids with us and various other odds and ends. I won’t bore you with the details! But how amazing it has been to be able to shop at a whim and not have to wait for the weekend! Sometimes breakfast or lunch out is included!

Having late nights is not such an issue anymore either. I had a bird club committee meeting that went on forever on Monday night, book club on Tuesday night and went to a friend’s birthday celebration on Thursday night – without a worry in the world about coping the next day at school! My bird club colleagues seemed somewhat surprised when I told them that I would not be living in Cape Town anymore. I had told them this but they thought I’d come home at least once a month. No so I’m afraid. I will continue with my three portfolios but I won’t be at committee meetings, chaps! I reluctantly resigned from Book Club too – but they kindly invited me to come as a guest when I was in town! Yes – life is changing in a big way!

My friend Priscilla and her twin sister Hilary had their birthday celebration at Cape Point Vineyards on Thursday evening. What an idyllic place! We sat out on the lawns looking over the valley and The Atlantic Ocean and ate food we got from their weekly food market and watched the sun setting gloriously into the sea.

The Greek Stall Menu from which Heather and I chose our meal.

Priscilla in the foreground

The guests – It’s not Priscilla at the back but her twin!

Like a flaming ball

People watching the sunset from the deck over the dam

Such a beautiful setting

On Friday Earl had a fishing charter and spent a beautiful day at sea. He came home with some Hottentot which we served deep fried to our guests that evening. My friend, Niru from Durban , was also visiting her parents to celebrate her 40th birthday and they popped in to see me on their way to a sushi dinner.

Niru and Me

Earl cooking before the Load Shedding

A headlamp helps when the lights go out

Our guests enjoying their fried Hottentot

Josh dishing dessert

On Saturday night the Cape Boat and Ski-boat club had their annual prizegiving. Earl mentors the youth at this club and we were so proud to see them getting prizes. He also participates himself and skippers his boat in competitions although he is not as active as in the past.

Appropriate table decor

Third in the Club Championships

Best Skipper

And those are the highlights of our week! We will continue to get the caravan organised with everything it needs next week and we are in the processing of planning a big trip in March! Watch this space!