Here are my answers to this week’s questions from Cee

Tell us about your first bicycle or car?

I received my first bicycle when I was about eleven years old.  It was the best present ever.  I cycled around our safe neigbourhood with a group of friends and remember having so much fun.   For a while I rode it to school but when I started Grade 8 it no longer worked too well so I gave up and walked.

I received my second bicycle from my husband when I was in my fifties.   He gave it to me so that I could take my grandsons on long, supervised rides.  We had tremendous fun riding to the beach after school and to a nearby suburb that had fun hills to race down.  Of course, I rode sedately while they tore around like hooligans.

I once wrote a rhyme about it

Over the Hill

I am getting older, I’m nearly fifty-five.

Over half a century I have been alive.

I should be slowing down now, and easing up my life.

I should be getting mellow like every older wife.

But here I am a-peddling up this bloody hill.

I hear my grandsons calling, their voices loud and shrill.

You can make it Granny. You’re really doing well.

(I do not want to tell them that I almost fell.)

They think I am their playmate. They think its rather fun

That Granny takes them cycling when their homework’s done.

And as they dash through puddles and do wheelies up the curb

They encourage me to follow; but really that’s absurd!

They fall, and seconds later, they’re back up on their bikes,

A band-aid heals their scrapes but Granny falls, and  yikes –

She needs a month of physio to get her muscles right.

So falling off her bicycle would not be very bright.

Now they’re heading down hill at a break-neck speed.

Those boys are getting all the Adrenalin they need.

With screeching breaks I follow at a calmer pace.

“Go Grandma”, calls a smart ass. Aloof, I turn my face.

I could be baking cookies, I could be knitting socks.

Instead I join my grandsons scrambling over rocks.

I could be watching T.V. or at a ladies’ club.

Instead I join them hiking when they go  with  the cubs.

I’m glad that I, a grandma can still do all these things.

Being active with my grandsons – oh what joy that brings.

We have such fun together out in the cool fresh air.

And if people think it’s funny – I really couldn’t care!

What fictional world or place would you like to visit?

Camelot would be lovely. Why?  Because the law forbids horrible weather!  Here is an extract from the song “Arthur”

If you could have someone follow you around all the time, like a personal assistant, what would you have them do?

Oh wow  – now let me see – I’d live like a princess in Camelot and have a  personal maid to dress me, give me manicure and pedicures, fix my hair and do my makeup.  Yes – that would be the life for 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. 

I do not live in Camelot where the law controls the weather so it’s not surprising that Mother Nature ignored the fact that it’s not supposed to hail in our neck of the woods.  We had a heavy downpour of hail recently and it made me smile to see my lawn covered in icy, white stones.   I also smiled when I heard that the average level of the dams in the Western Cape are at 50%.  Who cares about the cold when the news is as good as that!  The drought is over!

Here is my response the the questions posed by Cee this week

You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what is it? Sushi? Scotch Tape?

Money would be good!   How lovely to think that such a resource would never run out no matter how much you spend.

Teleportation or flying?

I’m not a fan of air travel.  I think we as a species are insane getting into a great big tube of metal that flies through the air with no safety net to catch us if we fall!  However, we are a trusting bunch and in order to travel long distances we believe the stats that say it’s the safest form of travel.
Now teleportation appeals to me because it’s so quick.  How would it work?   Would you go to a teleportation port where there would be hundreds of portals taking you to different destinations?  Would you buy a portal ticket to Timbuktu or The North Pole or wherever you wanted to go?   Would you simply show your passport and pass through your selected portal and hey presto find yourself in some amazing place?   Beam me up, Scottie!

Would you rather live where it only snows or the temperature never falls below 100 degrees?

Where I live the if the temperature drops below 10 degrees C we think we might die!  So permanent cold is not for me.  However, I love snow – it’s so pretty.  It’s fun to visit snowy places – but to live there permanently – NO WAY.  I don’t want to have to shovel my garden path or drive way before I could move from my house.  And I don’t want to have to put on layers and layers of warm clothing just to survive the sub zero temperatures outdoors.

100 degrees Fahrenheit is definitely more my style.  I am often in the African Bush in summer and it can get hotter than that.  It is way easier managing the heat that it is managing the cold!

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. 

Late Saturday afternoon The Earl spotted a white bunny in our garden.  Clearly he was somebody’s lost pet but he wouldn’t allow himself to be caught!  He disappeared under our shed so we left some carrots out and hoped we could get him the next day. Well in the morning we found he’d been joined by another one! They were really cute and my veggie patch provided them with plenty to snack on!

I posted on our local community page on Facebook and printed out a poster to put up at the supermarket.  And on Sunday evening we got a call.   It wasn’t the first time they’d escaped and their human said, “Clearly they want to be free.   I think I should just let them be.”

On Monday there was no sign of them at first but we spotted them in the back neighbour’s garden which is the house right opposite their human’s.  Today one was back in our garden.  So we’re just going to look after them when they’re here.  Hopefully they’re savvy enough to keep out of reach of the neighbourhood dogs!