LIKE A SPRING GARDEN

At long last! here are a few previews as promised. My neighbour who lives in Pioneer Lodge with us has very kindly taken these photos so that you can see Widget for the first time. Since birth he has learned many tricks, the first one was walking!

He had a bare under carriage, few feathers on his wings and couple of orange feathers on his head, when he first came to us.

He slept in a shoe box with wood shavings in it to keep him warm due to his lack of covering. He slept on his tummy with his head to the side as he could not stand. During the day he slept between our continental pillows for hours at a time. He is still on baby parrot cereal, what a drama, wings flapping and if he is very hungry he manages to get the spoon out of my hand and I have to wrestle it back! He is pecking a few seeds when the mood gets him!

I play the sounds on the cellphone to him, bullfrog, cackle, you know the sort of thing, and of all the sounds, I now have a bullfrog in my flat!

I will show you a pic of him when he is very young as soon as a friend of mine can have it developed, but I was very fortunate to discover a resident who takes pics and could do this for me.

A PIGEON PAIR

I couldn't resist sharing this photo with you.
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My two youngest grandchildren, they truly are a pigeon pair of cousins!*
Shanni on the right is 2 years old and is the youngest daughter of my 2nd daughter Kerry, and Nathan is the son of my son who is the "baby" of my 4 children, and he is almost 4 months old.
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They do not live far from one another, Shanni lives in Middleburg and Nathan lives in Ermelo, both town are near each other in Mphumhalanga, South Africa. Ermelo is very cold and has had snow in the past and minus 0 temperatures are often the norm in winter. Middleburg is marginally warmer. My hope is that these young cousins will become friends as they are close in age.
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Shanni's older brother and sister are 10 and 12 years.
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In Cape Town, South Africa, 3 cousins growing up with one another are Shirley's two daughters Vicky 12 and Jessie 10, together with Lisa's daughter of 7.
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My 4 children have recently undertaken to see more of each other, and it was brought home to them recently when their dad was tragically killed in a car accident, and we all took stock of our lives and now see the importance of visiting often, call, a short sms or email a week at least, and never forget to say "I love you" as often as they can.
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We can never go back and change things, so lets just do it right the first time round.

... A BLESSING CAME IN THREE'S....

Lets take a peek into a small part of Andy's life. As those of you who follow my blog will know Andy is my second husband, so he, as I, had lives with others and raised children before we met one another. Above he is as he was just over a year ago, fit, healthy and able to work. In july last year he suffered a stroke which changed our lives completely. He is progressing, but whether he will ever be the person he was we do not know, even the doctors cannot tell us.
This little chap is Chrisvien aka Junior. In this picture he is 14 months old, Andy and I took care of him for a large part of his second year and grew very fond of him. He is 5 years old now, small, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in other ways! He is the 3rd child of my stepson Chris.

And here is Megan, the first daughter of Andy's youngest daughter (he has 3 children). She is 10 years old now and unfortunately we do not know her very well, but then all the grandchildren, his and mine, which we refer to as "ours" live far from us.


Things come in 3's! When Megan was 3 years old, Sharon had triplet girls, I would still be running if it were me! they are Leanda, Samantha and Dominique.

Here they are, mom, dad and sister are all holding one!

Four years old! As you see they are now identical but with this little crowd one would have to have eyes at the back of ones head!*

Andy has 8 grandchildren, unfortunately we do not have pictures of half of them. I am working on it so that ALL the grandchildren, 15 in all, will have been properly introduced!

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Love you children so that they learn to love theirs in turn, our children will do what we do not what we say, parents have an enormous responsibility to future generations.