Hartenbos.. last visit for a while ...

We finally received our PR visa for Aus last month and are due to fly out on the 30 August.. Suddenly the months of waiting are past and the impeding "deadline" is looming!

My brother and his wife left on the 3 August for Sydney and seem to already have settled quite nicely. He starts his job tomorrow and his wife will continue her job hunting, this time from within Aus.

Life seems to be flying by and so much needs to be done in such a little time. I will be working up to the day before we fly, so I'm lucky to have a very efficient PA ;-) to organise everything!



As a last get away with our friends C&M, we decided to visit Hartenbos for the last time for a while.. We took a drive to the Cango Wildlife Ranch and I have posted some pics I took..

Barton Le Clay, 650km on....

We arrived in Barton Le Clay last night at around 9pm, after driving from Amsterdam through Belgium, France and the Euro tunnel.. The campervan tops out at about 120km/h, doesn't exactly handle like a Quattro, so it's built for comfort not for speed!

more details here.. http://www.fromthetipofafrica.com

Time goes by..

It’s been almost 10 months since my niece passed away and about the same since I have blogged, partly due to time constraints, but more so due to not being in the right frame of mind to blog.

Over the last few months so much has happened I don’t where to start. The bad: my 27 year cousin has been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. A friends eight year old child with Marfan’s syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome ) passed away last week. She has suffered badly over the past six months and things like these just don’t make sense to me. It just seems so pointless and cruel to the parents and families.. What can you say to the parents to even attempt to console them?

The good: we have been assigned a case officer for our immigration into Australia and have completed our medicals. The only thing left is our police clearance certificate from the UK, so things after 9 months of waiting, things are finally moving along..

On a happy note my brother, his wife, my wife and I are off to Europe later tonight for a campervan holiday and I thought I'd use the opportunity to restart my blogging, so I will attempt to post a short blog and photo daily, for duration of the trip – i.e. the next two weeks. My brother will post some somewhat deeper, more meaningful blogs via his one at http://fromthetipofafrica.blogspot.com and I will try and take some half descent photo's.. Hopefully somewhat better than these old ones in this post taken with my old digital. My new baby is a Canon 450D :-).. We leave from Johannesburg tonight and arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow morning, we then drive to Calais, cross the channel via the Eurotunnel and head up to my wife’s family in Barton Le Clay. We then go from the UK -> Brussels -> Paris -> Lyon -> Rome -> Venice -> Zurich -> Munich -> Stuttgart and finally back to Amsterdam! We’re generally not people who rough it on holiday’s, so we begin this trip with some scepticism! It should be interesting staying in a campervan having to clean the chemical loo (still looking for volunteers ;-) )...I especially look forward to the German autobahns ..not

The one photo is a shot of Table Mountain from Robben Island taken in December and the other one is of Russ with our passports – one day I will explain his inclusion in the trip... it’s complicated ;-)

Today Johannesburg... tomorrow Amsterdam..

Kirstin - my dearest niece...

When something lousy happened to me, my dad always said:"What's the worst thing that could happen - you could die - you're alive so let's take it from there!"... That has always put things into perspective for me and I often draw comfort from this, but I now believe that the worst thing that can happen is losing someone close to you.

On the 5 July my 18 year old niece was tragically killed in a car accident. I have a void in my life that will never be filled. Somehow life seems to be so empty. Until now, I had never lost someone truly close, but almost three weeks later, I still feel a sadness so deep I cannot put it into words. I watched her grow from a newborn baby into a beautiful articulate (stubborn ;-) ) woman..

Suddenly, my job, gadgets and worldly crap seem even more insignificant, and God, my wife and family so vitally important. I am not an overly holier than though person and can't stand overpowering "holier than thou" people, but if I didn't believe in God, I would have jumped over my balcony by now.. I cannot begin to think how people who do not believe in God survive things like this - it must be unbearable.

Kirsty's funeral was on the 11 July and I never experienced such a moving experience in my life - somehow so healing, a view shared by so many other people I spoke to. The support of Kirstin's friends and people who knew her has been overwhelming and of great comfort to all of us. They created two groups for her on Facebook within hours of her passing and her funeral was testament to her short but amazing life. I have always been cynical of Facebook, but this was one time I craved it; just reading the comments left by her friends and people who knew her gave me such a sense of comfort. I have learnt about aspects of her life I had little or no knowledge of; her passion for photography, the intimate deep friendships she had and her ability to write so well.

I think everyone believes there child/grandchild/niece/nephew to be the brightest around, but from a the age of five she was reading time magazine and anything else she could get her hands on. She had a gift of hunger for knowledge second to none and questioned everything. As my brother said - she searched for truth, brutal as it may be.. Complacency or indifference had no place in her life.

I still cannot get the image of her fine limp body lying on the ground out of my mind. The feeling of utter helplessness to protect and comfort her.. I would have and would still trade anything including my life for hers. It's just not right.

If touching people's lives and leaving a legacy is what life is about then she has done her duty.

I will never forget you Kirst, I loved you then and I love you even more now. I will do my best to live a good and full life, but I cannot wait until my life is done here, so that I can see you again.

Back for good?... not quite..

We've been back in South Africa for just on two months and have come to the realisation that something’s aren't going to change here in SA. To be honest they're just getting worse.

The blatant arrogance of the ANC government including the disbanding of the scorpions (independent crime fighting unit), as well as a 50% increase in emigration in the last six months says it's time to leave for good.. The hijackings, literally down the road from us, murders and senseless violence... if you can't see the writing on the wall, you'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb...and I'm deaf (some would say dumb too ;-) ).. My feeling is of utter hopelessness, but how do you curb the endless cycle of poverty with a bunch of arrogant, self-serving, corrupt morons in control..

We are in some ways shattered - we have always dreamed of building our home and our life here in South Africa, but our family's safety is of utmost importance. We have applied for a skilled visa for Australia and failing that, will return to the UK.. As much as the UK's weather and attitude of the youth bug us, it's not the worst place to be, and the quality of life is good along with the opportunity to travel!

It is quite ironic - in my previous blog, I expressed my concerns with the fact the twelve year olds could get the pill in the UK, without any parental consent.. They just passed the same law here - need I say more.

All I want to do is put down roots and settle somewhere - I have a taproot hanging out of my backside, but even with that I still think this needs to be done.. We have my brother and his wife, her brother and wife and my folks on board with the move.. Even my father-in-law and my sister are also considering the move.. I just want to make sure we get the family out as soon as possible and (African) nature can take it's course here, just like it has in Zim.. The people I feel most for are the poor - they have no options..

Anyway, let me end on that happy note..

Moving on...

So much has happened since I last blogged - we have sold and completed on our house. We have been to and returned from the Caribbean where we did a 10 day cruise and I am on the way back to Cape Town and my wife and family.

Our house was basically a miracle sale - buyers offered, we accepted and put tight deadlines in place and they held up their part of the deal nicely. We completed bang on time and we couldn't be happier!

On the holiday side - we had the most amazing holiday.. that is seriously "the life". We had no real expectations before going on it, but it was just awesome. We saw Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados, St Kitts, St Thomas and Princess Cays. What a relaxing holiday - just what we wanted and needed! We went with http://www.princess.com and can't fault them - I'm sure experienced cruisers could but as far as we were concerned it was near perfect! I repeated said to my wife - it really doesn't get any better than this. What a life! We met some lovely people - two elderly sisters from Florida that had left their husbands at home and were clearly having a ball, Bruce(the barber) with his lovely wife Shirley, and four female friends from Toronto - Carol, Val, Barbs and I can't remember...

My wife returned to Cape Town on Monday, so I am alone here, the weather is crap and cold and I am missing her badly.. Just one week tomorrow until I climb on the plane and kick the salt of the sidewalk from my shoes :-).. counting sleeps.. 7 to go tomorrow..

We are ready to have another holiday for ~three weeks before I start my new(old) job! We will also start planning and building our house which has been in the "plan" for years..

Today, I heard on the radio that they are going to start giving the pill to twelve year old girls should they ask for it. It will be freely available from any pharmacy without the parents consent.. So now you have your local pharmacist deciding what's best for your kid.. What bullshit.. No wonder the youth in this country are in the state they're in.

On a really sad note - our friends dad is taking strain with cancer. It's just not fair and I battle to see what lesson comes from situations like this. It feels so helpless and we cannot do anything to help. My wife saw him last night and all she could say what - "it's heart-breaking".. We are praying for a miracle.

And there's a glimmer of hope...

So, we have sold our house - yet again.. well in theory anyway. We have yet to exchange contracts and until the money's in the bank I am Mr Eeyore...

We have literally two weeks before we go on holiday now and we've taken a leap of faith and are moving our stuff back home one day before we exchange! Hopefully it all goes through and we can relax on this holiday.

Work is just unbelievable - I am leaving soon, but it's just not easing up.. working tonight and then part of the rest of the weekend.. Hopefully this will be the last. I really shouldn't care but if no-one else besides my direct boss seems to!

A few days ago we heard that a close friends father's cancer has returned. It really puts things in perspective. We worry about the biggest load of shit under the sun, but when all is said and done, not much of it matters does it? Apparently it's operable, so we're praying and holding thumbs for him.

Speaking to another friend, a friend of hers is in hospital with bleeding ulcers.. is it really worth it? His pushing seventy, still runs his own company and works like a Trojan.. I suppose the question is, what are the options - to sit in an old age home drooling and muttering to yourself? Maybe he's chosen the lesser of two evils.. ;-).. They're going to see how he goes and operate if the bleeding stops.

I know it's an age-old clichéd question, but I still can't understand why bad things happen to good people. It would be great if those conniving bastard criminals got there due, but they don't or at least not in this life anyway.. My friends Dad has only done good and helped people when and wherever possible. Maybe my boet will blog the reason for this?.. hint hint - like - I want to know why my mother-in-law is still around?..oops did I say that out loud.

Anyway.. enough happiness for one night - I need to get back to work. On the bright side - hey, hey, it's Friday!