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
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
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!
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!
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!
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.
Man and Fish
Boy and Puppy
Wattled Starling and Lilac-breasted Roller – both birds but different species!
Great-great Aunt and Great-great Niece
Here is my contribution to this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge
Lines on a water plant – Lake Panic, Kruger National Park
Lines on elephants – Addo Elephant Park
Lines on Zebra – Addo Elephant Park
Lines of the sun hanging on my garden wall
Here is my contribution to this week’s Fun Photo Challenge from Cee
My Great-Nephew- busy in the garden
Thai Chef – Busy making me a delicious omelette
My grandson busy? on the computer
Busy in the Kitchen
Busy in the garden
Busy building a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle
There are some interesting questions on Cee’s Share Your World this week. Here are my answers
If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
There are a few I would like to have to hand at any given moment.
– for those who are far from our shores this can be likened to jerky but is a thousand times nicer. It’s a snack most South Africans can’t live withoutThe last four items are my favorite food. Any dish with these ingredients will make me happy.
List at least five movies or books that cheer you up.
I’ve never thought of a book as cheering me up – grabbing my attention and fascinating me yes – but cheering me up I’m not so sure. But here goes.
If you were a mouse in your house in the evening, what would you see your family doing?
If I were a mouse in my house that I live in now with my husband and it’s just the two of us, the scene would not be all that interesting. However, if I were a mouse in the house of my family when we were altogether it would be far more fun.
I would scurry into the kitchen to see if I could grab a morsel of whatever Grandpa or Grandma were cooking and probably see them both discussing the evening meal for the gang. I’d hear Gran call – Josh, please come set the table – and he would obediently get down to the task.
I’d scurry off down the passage into Lisa’s room and find her reading or watching a soapie.
In Jay’s room I’d want to scurry right out again as there would be a pile of stuff lying around while the young man was staring at a screen playing some sort of horrible war game. I would hear him yell out in delight when he managed to conquer his mortal enemy.
Then I’d move on to Lolz and find her checking emails or texting her friends.
Finally they’d all gather around the dinner table and the conversation would be most interesting to listen to and I’d roll around on my mousy back laughing at the quips Jay made, and the retorts from Josh while the adults tried to give them worldly advice about Life. It would be fun listening to reports on everyone’s day. Gran would tell the latest funny things the kids in her class had done. Gramps would lecture about the virtues of working hard. The daughters would tell about their work day at the bank and everybody would mention their plans for the weekend. I might have to scurry off in a hurry though because the cats might see me and that would be the end of me.
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.
On our way home Addo Elephant Park we stopped at Jeffrey’s Bay to meet up with our dear friends Jim and Maureen. We met for breakfast at a lovely little restaurant and then went to enjoy the view over the bay. Being with good friends always makes me smile.
Meeting up with Jim and Maureen at Jeffrey’s Bay
I saw this on the road travelling on the Garden Route last week.
A novel signpost indicating the road to Stilbaai – Western Cape, South Africa
“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “spoke.” Use it somewhere, in some form, in your post. “
Here is my contribution to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Prompt
In a stream of consciousness exercise one has to just let the fingers do the typing and write anything that comes into one’s head after being given a word as a prompt.
I think to myself – Spoke – what can I write about spoke. I spoke to my daughter on the phone yesterday. We usually keep in touch with text messages. I like to speak but not on the phone. I don’t know why this is. It’s not that I won’t speak over the phone but I prefer to see the person to whom I am speaking. This is odd because I’m quite happy to text long and involved messages. Most of my friends prefer to chat and they’re the ones who end up saying – enough of this texting I am going to ring you. And they do and I end up being fine with a long verbal chat.
But texting is still my preferred method of distance communication. As I write now the reasons for this are flooding my head. I think it might be that texting is slower, giving one more time to think about the words to choose and being able to delete when you see what one’s saying is not quite right. Also one can multitask while texting – check on the dinner, talk to one’s husband without saying – not now I’m on the phone!
But back to the daughter with whom I spoke yesterday. We’d had a lovely text conversation and then the topic of the long weekend came up – and that required verbal interaction. Yes – there are times when speaking one to one is the only way to make arrangements. Although texting them also gives one a reference especially when one is of a certain forgetful age!
So I spoke to my daughter and I look forward to seeing her in the flesh next weekend and having a proper one to one conversation where I can see her face, and read her feelings and get the full pleasure of proper chat
!
Here is my contribution to this week’s black and white challenge from Cee
Kirstenbosch Bench
Seating in a self catering cottage
Coffee Shop Seating
Deck seating – Agulhas Rest Camp
Old Bench on Good Hope Olive Farm
Coffee Shop outdoor seating
Keurboom Beach
Bench in my garden
Diary of an Adventurous Retiree 