Cees Share your World Challenge

If you had a shelf for your three most special possessions (not including photos, electronic devices and things stored on them, people or animals), what would you put on it?

This is a tough one because my photographs and electronic devices are the first things that I’d grab if my house were on fire!  My favourite pieces of art hang on the wall so they wouldn’t go on the shelf – I have a painting of a house that hung in my grandmother’s house that I really treasure. The artist was 11 years old when he painted it.  He grew up to become a successful and  very well-know artist in this country and is now about 70 years old.  

Another painting was done specially for me by my Aussie friend Wendy – I love Rainbow lorikeets and she painted the most beautiful picture of them for me.  

There are others – too many to mention so I’ll save them for another time.  Other things I treasure are my jewellery – specially a gold and diamond necklace given to me by my darling husband.   Then there are all the cards our kids have given us over the years.   I keep those in a file.   I have a little memory year book made for me by a class I taught a few years back – well it was organised by  Ashleigh’s mum – but it has a message and a drawing from each child – and that is probably my most prized possession of all.

If you had a box labelled ‘happiness’, what would you put in it?

Lots of things make me feel happy – the view from the top of Sir Lowry’s Pass, arriving in Kruger National Park on the first day of a holiday there, plunging into the sea early on a summer morning.  But I can’t put these things in a box – I would have to put photographs or a poem about them inside the box instead.

What do you want more of in your life?

Not much, actually.   I have pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted.  However, I would love to travel to Australia again.  I’d also like to go to some places I’ve never been to before -India, USA, Italy and Holland.  Also another trip to the Greek Isles wouldn’t be shunned.

Daily Life List: What do you do on an average day? Make a list of your usual activities you do each day.

Now that I’m retired I’m asked this question quite often. It’s not easy to answer as I don’t have a routine and we’re not always in the same place for long so what we do differs from week to week.  But when I’m at “home” my day would go something like this.

• Wake up any time between 7 and 8:30 – Check my emails and Facebook in bed – sometimes, not always.  Get up and do 45 minutes of gym ( I have a space set up for this)  After this run (slowly) to the beach and have a swim in the sea.  This is the best part of my day.
• Hubby brings my towel to the beach and drives me home. He then cooks me breakfast which we enjoy at a leisurely pace.  
• While he is cooking I make the sugar water solution for the birds so that we can enjoy the sugar birds, sun birds and witogies who partake of this treat while the seed eaters enjoy the seed we put out for them.

• After breakfast anything can happen.  I try to do all the necessary household chores first.  Monday and Thursday are my house cleaning days when the house gets a thorough doing but on other days it’s usually just the kitchen and bathroom that has a proper cleaning.  Then there is washing ironing which might get done in the afternoon.  (Boring I know – but it has to be done!)
• We sometimes take a trip to watch birds or to shop in our nearest big town – Bredasdorp.  Sometimes we’ll even take a longer drive just to explore other places in the Overberg.  
• The computer consumes quite a bit of time – I organise functions for The Bird Club so emails have to be sent and dates organised.   Hubby does a lot of business on his computer and often yells for me to help him with this and that.  I blog and check facebook.   I sort out and edit photographs. 
• Then there’s my new hobby – crochet.  I am busy on a blanket at the moment.   I also read a lot.
• Most afternoons I head to the beach for an afternoon swim and/or surf on my boogie board.   
• Then there’s shopping and dinner to be cooked.   
• I’ve left out socialising.  We don’t have a huge circle of friends in Struisbaai but we often have people to stay.  Having said that friends of ours have moved to Struisbaai now and we’ve seen quite a lot of them!
• After dinner we usually watch television – we have a media player and have just finished watching the entire series of Downton Abbey which we loved.  We’re now on Suits and White Collar.  We seldom watch SABC television and we don’t have DSTV.
• Sometimes I read before going to sleep – this includes reading Blogs.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for the great weekend we had with friends and I’m looking forward to spending this weekend in Cape Town.