Saturday Stream of Consciousness 19 May 2018

2018-05-20 | puppy1952

Here is my contribution to Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Prompt Empty/Hollow

Empty is the space next to Meghan Markle as she walks down the aisle toward her Prince. But the hollow feeling in her tummy is filled with joy when Prince Charles meets her and walks her toward her Harry. Tears pricked as I saw this austere prince look at her and reassure her that all will be well. And Harry undid me as he whispered – Thanks Pa. What a charming prince he is!

There’s a lot said about the fact that Meghan’s Mom was the only one of her family members present. My heart went out to her – she looked so proud of her only daughter. Certainly her heart was full of love and pride and nothing could take that joy away from her. From here on the knowledge that her child has married the love of her life will be enough for her.

The streets of Windsor were certainly not empty on Saturday 19 May 2018. They were filled with well-wishers from all over the world. History was made when the chapel was full of representatives of many diverse cultures. There were no hollow feelings when the the happy couple joined their cultures in a most uplifting ceremony.

Congratulations Harry and Meghan. Long may you live in married bliss filling the world with all the love and care you have to share.

My ‘High Society’ friends and I remotely attended the wedding and dressed for the occasion! The Baroness of The Emporium, The Shipwrecked Princess, The Duchess of Goose Hall, The Countess of Southbound.

The Lady of Milkwood Manor!

Cee’s Black and White Challenge – Words ending in -OCK

2018-05-18 | puppy1952

Here is my contribution to this week’s Black and White Challenge from Cee

Fishy Rock

Rock Drive

GTC Colege Block

Peacock

Back View of Peacock

A Week in Cape Town

2018-05-14 | puppy1952

I have not posted for a week as I have been away from home – not that this usually stops me – but I had a full program of activities to attend to so my usual blogging took a back seat!

I avoid returning to The City as much as possible but when you have to apply for travel documents to Cape Town you must go! Although that was the main reason for going we also used the opportunity to catch up with friends and family. As luck would have it there were a few things that I could attend that I otherwise would have missed! And as much as we love living away from The City we really miss our friends and family. Leaving the place that was home all of your life is like emigrating to another country so catching up with everybody was awesome. I got to bond with Chantal and Jeremy, Tony and Sharon, Aunt Violetta and Aunt Dottie, Mary, Hanny, Pat and Tony, Heather and Peter, my brother Michael and his wife, Moira, Earl’ s sister Carol and her hubby, Vere as well as his nephew Greg and of course our daughters and grandsons.

Our grandsons, Jay and Josh, really love sashimi so on the evening we slept over at their house we purchased some fresh yellow-tail, Earl prepared it and I made their favourite salad. It was a beautiful evening so Josh set the table outdoors and we had a very special evening with our boys.

Beautifully set table by Josh

Sashimi with our boys – Jay, The Earl, Josh

Bonding with friends is always special. On Friday we went to see where one of my very dearest friends has settled after many years of house hopping. I love her new location at West Beach. After enjoying our visit with her she took us to lunch where we enjoyed the views of our beautiful bay and mountain.

Hanny’s Deck

Hanny’s flair for decor shows.

Our stunning Table Mountain on a bad day!

Our lovely friends, Pat and Tony, accommodated us in their spare room for most of our week in Cape Town and treated us to Sushi on Friday night.

Yummy Sushi with the friends with whom we have so many common interests

Pat and Tony cooked us Mother’s Day Breakfast too!

Many years ago some friends and I formed a breakfast club which met more or less monthly to ensure we did not lose touch. What a stunning group it turned out to be. It’s probably the thing I miss most about not living in Cape Town. I was touched that when I communicated that I would be in town for the weekend everybody made the effort to attend breakfast club in my honour. I had my youngest daughter join us and we had an amazing catch up.

Anti-clockwise – Sandy, Margie, Lorraine, Cheryl, Chris, Me, Melody, Dot

As luck would have it the The Cape Town branch of the Old Girls’ Guild of my college, Grahamstown Training College, met on for tea on Saturday afternoon. Even though the college was closed down in 1975 (I graduated in 1973) the OGG continues. GTC was the best teaching training institution in the country, founded by Mother Cecil and run by the St Peter’s Community for many years. Teachers from this college were the very best and whenever any of us meet another no matter from which year there is an instant bond! We now range in age from 63 to well in the nineties. It was therefore not surprising to have a pretty good turnout to the tea at Veronica’s house on Saturday.

Heather and Beryl – from the fifties

Our whole group

The Seventies Gang

Sunday was Mother’s Day! We all met at The Earl’s sister for a lunch time braai. My daughters and grandsons spoiled me with lovey gifts and we invited Jeff and Annaline, the girls’ god parents and boys’ extra set of grandparents to join us.

The Earl enjoying a beer

Josh bonding with his great-uncle Vere

Looking like a rock star with his new hair cut

Jay – No dress sense but lots of charm and personality

Our nephew – Greg doing the braai

Slender Mongoose hoping for get a titbit

And so after a wonderful Cape Town catch-up we left on Sunday afternoon and arrived back in Struisbaai at around 6 o’ clock. It was good to be home!

Stream of Consciousness – Letter

2018-05-05 | puppy1952

Today’s Stream of Consciousness Promp t is Letter

As a teacher I tend to think of “letter” as a member of the alphabet. And you can’t even think of using the other meaning of the word until you begin with ABC. From there we start to understand that each letter has a phoneme or more associated with it.

I like the last method of teaching Reading and Writing that my school uses. It is called THRASS – Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills. It is a fun and thorough approach which takes the child through the Foundation Phase and beyond. It involves rapping the alphabet and the phonics chart daily as she learns the intricacies of literacy. The bright reference pictures, posters and work books are invaluable. It makes learning a new letter every few days a great adventure.

The most exciting part of teaching is when the little learner finally breaks through and actually reads and writes on her own! All those letter combinations finally make sense and all of a sudden she is reading. Every time it happens, it amazes me because I don’t teach a child to read. I simply present the tools and she catches Reading like she catches Chicken Pox!

child reading

Just as exciting is when she writes those first sentences. She learns to use the words from the chart, words posted around the classroom, words from her reading book and words in her dictionary to make up her very own sentences. Sometimes her spellings are not perfect but they make sense and are the cutest thing to read.

Finally she can start writing her own letters to the teacher. I have many of these which I will always treasure. And it all started with a simple alphabet letter!

Black and White – Close Ups

2018-05-05 | puppy1952

Here is my contribution to This week’s black and white challenge from Cee

Elephants getting close and personal

So photogenic for black and white

Rose – Springfield Wine Estate, Robertson, Western Cape

Picnic Table and Chairs

Hub Cap

Hibiscus – Springfield Wine Estate

Nancy Merril’s Photo a Week Challenge – Transport

2018-05-03 | puppy1952

Here is my contribution to this week’s Challenge from Nancy Merril

Passenger Train coming into Cardiff Station, New South Wales, Australia

Sydney Harbour Ferry

Passenger Jet flying over Sydney

Transport at Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia

Italian Passenger Train

Ferry on the Amalfi Coast, Italy

Fun Photo Challenge – Up or Down

2018-05-02 | puppy1952

Here is my contribution to this week’s Fun Photo Challenge

This week’s challenge calls for ways to go up or down in the outdoors.

Climbing up the jungle gym

Down from the train station

Table Mountain Cable Car goes up and down

The London Eye

Funicular at Cape Point – Going Up

My friend Heather is up in the Hot Air Balloon!

Share Your World 30 April 2018

2018-05-01 | puppy1952

Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World from Cee

Do you use paper money? If so is your money organized sequentially according to denomination?

Paper money? What’s that? Ha ha – Yes of course I do sometimes have some real money in my wallet but I am very much a credit card or EFT kind of girl. In my country you would be pretty foolish to wander around the street with too much cash or anything else that’s worth stealing on your person. Crime is at a premium in our cities.

But I live in a small, relatively safe town and there are a few places where cash only transactions are necessary. When I have cash, I certainly do have it in organized according to denomination.

You are comfortable doing nothing? For long stretches of time?

In my past life I very seldom had a chance to do nothing. I’m making up for it now! the Earl gets very antsy when there’s nothing urgent to do and is also bothered when he thinks I’m wasting time. “What have you achieved today?” is a favourite query of his.

Well in the past 50 years – quite a lot actually – but today? Nothing – How cool is that! I’m catching up on all the nothings I should have done when I was too busy to do nothing. I love filling a few hours a day with nothing – it’s good for the mind and the soul. And you know what? I still manage to do everything that I’m supposed to do in a day!

And don’t worry about The Earl – he is able to do nothing although it makes him feel guilty – I’ve caught him on Facebook, staring out the window watching the birds, reading a fishing magazine and napping from time to time. He really needs to catch up on some nothings!

What is your greatest strength?

I have a very positive outlook on life. Very little gets me down. When things go wrong I tend to say – This too will pass and just deal with whatever I need to. I suppose I have Faith. I believe that things will get better and that there is more good than evil in the world. Maybe I’m naive but it beats being negative.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.

For a while I’ve had a secret dream to travel to England and Europe with my daughter. This weekend I suggested to my hubby that she and I do a trip together and without hesitation he agreed. THAT made me smile and I really appreciate that he is prepared to be separated from me for four whole weeks!

We’ve made our plans and just need to make the bookings. If everything falls into place we leave on 6 August and return 3 September. London – Bruges – Amsterdam – Prague – Berlin – Dresden – Vienna – Venice – Rome – Barcelona – Brace yourselves – here we come!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Why

2018-04-29 | puppy1952

My contribution to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Why

Why am I responding to a prompt so late on a Sunday night? Well the answer is simple. Friday 27 April was a public holiday, Freedom Day, which commemorates the first Free and Fair, Democratic Elections in our country. We are also celebrating Workers’ Day on Tuesday 1 May so the school have been given Monday off too so that a nice long 5-day weekend can be enjoyed. Our daughter took came up for the weekend and her friends, Cara and Sandy and their parents Doug and Bridgette joined us on Saturday too.

Of course Struisbaai is brimming over with visitors who are making the most of what remains of the Summer before Autumn says, “Enough already, it’s my turn to herald the Winter.” We’ve made sure our guests get the most of what the Southern Point has to offer too and have done the usual touristy things, walked on the beach and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

Our Guests at the Southern Tip of Africa

The Gorgeous Girls on the Struisbaai Board Walk

But back to Why I am sitting at my computer this late. My guests have retired to bed. The daughters have gone off to the Irish Pub down the road and although they are well and truly adult, someone needs to wait up for them to return home safely. No that’s not the whole truth. I had an after dinner coffee – and that’s never a good thing. If I try to go to sleep now, I will just toss and turn for the next three hours so why not write a blog instead!

Why did I drink coffee after dinner when I know that it’s going to prevent me from sleeping! Because I love coffee that’s why. And I really enjoy a cup with a small piece of dark chocolate after an excellent dinner with good conversation and lovely company. Losing some sleep is a small price to pay for the pleasure that indulgence gives me. Just hang on a sec. I’m going to pour myself a second cup!

Essential Foods for Teachers

Ah that’s better. Now where was I – Oh yes – why I drink coffee. Coffee is an essential food for teachers. Without coffee and chocolate teachers cannot do their jobs properly. It has these magical properties that raise the levels of serotonin which make female teacher calm and happy and able to cope with the stresses of their job. So I got a taste for it in my past life as a teacher of very young children and now I can’t give it up – nor do I want to. Please do not google the truth of the previous claim – trust me – it’s true.

I had no intention of writing about coffee today but this was the result of stream of consciousness responding to the prompt of WHY!

Cee’s Black and White Challenge – Two

2018-04-27 | puppy1952

This week the challenge is to post two very different things in one photograph. This did indeed present a challenge as I really wanted to post a photo or six with two elephants, two zebra, two giraffe etc ‘cos I’ve got lots of those. But here is what I did manage to find.