GO WELL, BOKKIE

Yesterday afternoon, we lost our beloved Bokkie.

She was sitting on top of the window rail and simply dropped like a rock, hitting her head on the way down.

A light went out for us, our ray of sunshine. Our funny, lovable, territorial, and often bad tempered little parrot was dead.

The four eggs she had laid, see 2nd last blog, still in the soup bowl.

Andy, my husband came to me (I was working downstairs) with tears in his eyes and said "we will have to bury Bokkie". But I had shared my toast with her only that morning, she was on the eggs not two hours prior to this, it was not possible.

Whether she had a heart attack we will never know, but all we have left of her now are these feathers and we have kept 1 egg.

I will save slowly for another parakeet, as they are wonderful pets to have, but it will be a while to do that, and although we cannot ever replace Bokkie and her strange little ways that always made us laugh so, hopefully we will find joy one day sharing our lives with another little creature such as she.

We so missed the morning routine this morning.

PRESSIES, BALLOONS, SWEETS AND GAMES

128. Yes, that is the official number of birthdays my children have had, combined that is, and the number of parties I have prepared, baked for and games I have organised during my childrens' growing up years. The tot in the picture above is Lisa, my third and youngest daughter on her 1st birthday in Salisbury, Rhodesia as it was known then.
Lisa sent me photos of HER daughter Natalia's 7th birthday party. They look as though they are well pleased with their efforts, don't they, lets look at a couple more...

Here is the cake, all about the sea and mermaids. Did you make this Lisa?
Here is the table all set to catch the eyes of excited children who are drawn to sparkling and edible things!

All these photos stirred my memory and she dragged me with her long fingers once again, out of my comfortable place in front the the computer and took me on a journey back into the past to another lifetime that seems so long ago and yet at the same time only yesterday.

Dad is appointed the job of blowing up the balloons, fathers are very good at this I discovered as they are normally full of hot air! (joke) Couldn't resist that one, sorry!

The little celebrity has chosen her cake from the "book of children's birthday cakes" and with my sleeves rolled up I attack it and pray that it will turn out to look just a little like the one in the photo. I always took a photo of the cakes, and look at them now and can't help but marvel at my genius! (another joke).

GAMES. Oh dear. What an exhausting task. We had pin the tail on the donkey, oranges and lemons, blind mans buff, musical chairs (a favourite always), ring 'o roses, this was grans favourite, she participated in all the games and kept order as well. The girls would wait for her to come and then they would all run out and leap on her at once! Many years later Brian did the same thing but I bet she was glad there was only one then!

THE MOMS mmmmmmmmmm. They had to be there as the children were very young.

THE DADS - well, no surprises there, they were all out the back with their beers and talking about their jobs, some things don't change.

Their dad was in the police force and all the children were the offspring of policemen, it was a very close community, were a clan to be sure. We did Moses and the children of Israel proud back then!

AT LAST it was 5pm and everyone started drifting of. There were always some die hards who would stay half the night, but that seemed to be the way of things in Rhodesia. Lunch braais would end at midnight after everyone had eaten every morsel of food that was left, danced all night to 60's and 70's music....it was great!!!

I took my little tribe of sticky, dirty and tired little girls to bath them. And the the best part. After they got their second wind and we were all on our own, they went through the presents one by one again, examining them all more closely, any new books, always a hit, would be the bedtime story for that night.

And as another party came to an end, I inspected the 'damage' to the house, but those were the times when I reflected back on the day, and the happiness many little children had had, and it lightened the chore by far!!!

BOKKIE HAS 4 EGGS IN THE SOUP DISH!!!

It is that time of the year again! The parrot above is not our Bokkie. Bokkie (who has featured in this space before under pets) our bokkie - I need you to use your imagination here, is bright yellow, has a very long tail, a ring around her neck and her beak is, apart from being extremely sharp, bright yellow, and her claws are the longest I have ever seen. We cut her nails twice a year.

She dominates our little flat and thinks we are hers to command. Unfortunately we have made a rod for our own backs and she does command us!

Once a year she lays 4 perfect little white eggs. It takes her a week to finish this exercise. Before the first one is laid, there are signs, and we know that we are in for a month of trying to protect our wooden furniture as, for some reason - anything wooden must be chewed to shreds. So everything is covered or taped down. However, there is none as stubborn as a parrot who is on a mission and I am left to repair some handles of an old chest of drawers I have!

She also chews her calcium block often, particularly at night. I think she does this to keep us awake, not only to harden the shells of her perfect eggs!

The last egg was laid last night - and now that they are all laid for the season, she will sit on them, not, we have noticed, before then. She has a special soup bowl, burgundy in colour and just the right shape that we use every year, and for one month we have relative peace as she tends these eggs and lovingly enfolds them with her wings. After a month, because they have not been fertilized, her instinct is to give up on them and one by one she puts them into her food bowl for us to throw away.

Last year she only nursed 3 eggs because she was sitting on the curtain rail when she laid the first of her 4 eggs and it came to a messy and untimely end on the tray of her stand, she has no cage, and probably no clue of gravity!

I have been encouraged to let a man into her life so that she will have the opportunity of caring for young and not only eggs. There are a number of reasons I have not done this. It would mean parting with her, something she is not used to, or bringing in a male which she may not like, into her space. There is also the problem that I have no idea as to the mating habits of parrots or when she would need to be with her man.

The noise would probably be unbearable as she herself can be heard throughout our complex which is vast. So I still have not come to any decision on that one but am leaning towards just leaving things as they are and letting her have the pleasure of coddling her eggs for a month and be done with it. No decision was made this year.

However, I will buy a book on the mating habits of parrots and see if it is even possible that she would accept a man as her life is so cushy. She may not want all the complications a man would bring into her life after all!

If anyone has any comments on my dilemma, I would be pleased to hear them.

As for Crunchie the tortouise, "He links my worlds" has once again gone into hibernation and I have not seen him for a month. I will let you know around October when he comes out from his "place" to rejoin the world of the animal kingdom!

May you all enjoy your pets as much as we do!

DRAGONS, TEARS AND GENTLE HEARTS

"That is so sad," wept the small boy as tears ran down his cheeks, "sing it again."

So for the 3rd time that hour and almost every day for the past month, I picked up my guitar and launched into my rendition of "puff the magic dragon" - knowing it would bring distress once again to the small boy who was my son. But there was never any talking him out of it, he was adamant.

It was the last verse that did it. Tearfully my child told me how SAD (with great emphasis) that the little boy had grown up and the dragon had lost his best friend, as he did not need the little boy any more in his dreams. How the dragon must have missed his friend.

My small son had learned of loss, and he had learned to feel someone else's pain.

I knew then with my mothers heart that he would have his heart broken many times in his lifetime, and I would not be able to protect him against it. He was on his own. And he grew into a sensitive young man who asked for little but hurt much.

And I watched as the years went by as his gentle heart often bled for others, and for animals who were mistreated and, even insects that were stomped on. My eldest daughter, Shirley, invented "pet heaven" and to lessen the pain, that is where all our pets went. That helped. It even helped me sometimes with our make believe "pet heaven"!

I thought back to a story I told entitled "It's in the eyes" - where I observed that the eyes were truly the windows to the soul, and when looking into the eyes of pictures of my 4 children, I could see there the people they would become. And they became those people.

Now I remember personalities of little children before they learned to bluff, but were natural and knew to be no other way but themselves. I realised that in my humaness God was giving me a head start!

I knew who my children were going to be from their earliest days.

I just needed to pay attention.

AND THEN ALONG CAME NATHAN

My 7th grandchild and 2nd grandson came into the world at 3pm on Tuesday 15th June, 2010, weighing 3,5kgs, with a yell measuring 10 on the richter scale. (what a beautiful sound it was) I know this because Kerry, my second daughter and one of Nathan's aunts was ready and waiting to take photos (see above) and record the yells within 15 minutes of his birth with her phone! She played it for me over the phone I LOVE technology! He gave his mother a very long and hard run for her money, poor girl, nothing was as she had planned it and he was born by c section after 36 hours of labour. You in a hurry to do that again Louiza?! However, we have a good God and we have been so designed as mothers to quickly forget the bad and instantly love the little bundles that we are blessed with. Brian, my son and Nathan's dad could not take his eyes off him and I will always remember the pride in his voice when all he could say to me on the phone was "he's beautiful mom!"

Kerry was with them for both days and Brian was very grateful as he really needed the support when Louisa cried in pain and he was powerless to do anything about it.

They took him away and cleaned him up, and is he not gorgeous?

I scratched through my many many photos and found these of Nathan's dad. He was 3 days old in the top one. The second one is proud dad celebrating with his gran at 3am. You look great for 3am mom, I just love this picture!

Before Brian was born, I remember telling my gynae that I wanted an epidural. I wanted no part of an a la naturale birth. "No" came the reply, "this is your 4th so you should be an old hand at this." "I know" I said "that is exactly why I want an epidural! Didn't get it, I was cured, he was the last especially when I discovered that babies of the 80's did not come with volume controls and on/off buttons!

And the last picture? After work one day with food to prepare for the rest of the family, (this was the best part of have a late lamb) there was always someone who wanted to get to know him. In this case he is getting to know dad.

Brian and Louiza, may Nathan bring you many years of joy, it is humbling to know that this special child was given to you to take care of in every way, it is the most important job you will ever have.

It is awesome.

FATHERS DAY Hmmmmmmm....

Fathers day. There are 3 men who come to my mind.

I am 58 and am the owner of no less than 3 fathers. But I want you to see them as I do.

The first, which would be my PATERNAL father and not photogrphed here, was mostly an "idea" to my young mind. In fact he was an atrocious womanising man who had no qualms when it came to signing me away when I was 3 years old, once he discovered he would not have to pay my mom child support if I was someone else's kid. I met him once when I became an adult and felt no bond whatsoever with this man or my half brothers and sister. In fact, I decided my mom had been lucky to dodge THAT bullet. I had always wanted to satisfy myself though as to where some of my attributes had come from.

My mom married the man who was to become my ADOPTIVE father, and he is photographed above, younger than he is now! He is with my son Brian when he was a toddler. This man never treated me any different to the 2 daughters he and my mom had' 5 and 7 years after me. Not that I noticed anyway. He always seemed fair and I was secure. Thats a medal right there! I say this as I was really not an easy child to raise, and was way ahead of my time in imagination and doing that which was wrong and frowned upon. It guaranteed me a place in the minds of the residents of Thornhill's Airforce Married Quaters in Gwelo, Rhodesia for decades after I grew up (I kid you not).

He cared when I got low grades, brought home undesirable boyfriends, our constants fights about fashion "should it be below the knee or or below the pants", my plastered on make up and long fringe - it was the sixties after all - magical time for me that was.

He also gave me away on my wedding day to the man I was with for more than 30 years.

As happens in life, my mom and dad had problems of their own which manifested over time, and my mom married again, by this time I had 2 of my 4 children.

Above you will see my STEPFATHER with my mom. He was the one who became the grandfather to my 4 children and my sisters 2 children, and, how lucky can a man get, the greatgrandfather to my 7 grandchildren. He passed with flying colours! My children adore him and especially Tessni, JP, and Shanni (who call him grandpa too!) see them often as they live near one another. He has made them wooden puzzles which fascinate them, apart from having made desks and other things for my children before them.

I have known him almost as long as I knew my adoptive father as he too was in the Rhodesian Air Force and lived over the road from us at Thornhill's Married Quarters.

Now, fathers's day is upon us again, and it is time for me to reflect upon what these men have meant to me in my lifetime.

Who do you think are in my heart on this day? I will give you a hint.

It is not my PATERNAL father.

Take a bow Dad and Chris, for me, blood has not been thicker than water, you are to me what my own father never wanted to be.

SOCCER FEVAH!!!!!!!!

Personally, rugby is my game, but when I walk through the streets of South Beach, I cannot help but be bitten by the soccer bug. People are joyful, laughing, their arms are flung around one another and there is a sense of goodwill among men out there. This would not be the first time that sport has brought a nation together.

I walk along the pavements the find pictures of large orange footballs stuck to the sidewalks and wonder where they lead! Out of nowhere we have huge green and white busses on the streets with "people mover" written in bold black lettering on the side. They are everywhere.

The pavements that were being being dug up as part of the improvement to Durban's South Beach area have miraculously mended and we no longer trip over uneven pavements.

Wherever I look I see flags of all nations blowing in the wind, taxis and private vehicles are proudly displaying the South African flag, and rear view mirrors are covered in the flag colours too.

There is so much suffering and hardship in our third world countries, that my heart lifts when I see so many people of so many races and cultures all striving for the same thing, to unite in a common cause, and I do not care who wins or loses, but our efforts to get there TOGETHER and all the joy it has brought to millions of people around the world would have made all the hard work that has gone into this world cup very well worth while.

So yes, today, I have SOCCER FEVAH!!!!!