CELEBRATING WITH THE NEXT GENERATION!!

Last year I scanned photos of my children all decorating the christmas tree, and remembered the excitement of decorating the tree, the excitement of going to bed the night before Christmas day, and the excitement that belongs only to children when celebrating the birth of Christ.
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Above we see Kerry's children, JP, Tessni and baby Shanni decorating the tree in their home in Middleburg, and under that Shanni with some shiney balls for the tree.


We travel half across Africa to Cape Town where we find Natalia, Lisa's daughter, (above) who is decorating the tree with her cousins. They have always celebrated Christmas together and the cousins have decorated the tree.

Above is Dad Trevor, Shirley,and Jessie with cousin Natalia, and below are Vicky {right} and Jessie {left}

This is a bitter sweet christmas for this little group of cousins and sisters as it will be the last time that they decorate the tree and celebrate the day together. Trevor and Shirley are leaving Africa for England in January.

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I will be in Middleburg with my daughter Kerry, Johan her husband and children Tessnie, JP, and Shanni featured at the top of this page, for Christmas. I will also meet my son Brian's son, Nathan for the first time. He is already 6 months old!

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Thank you girls for posting these pics on your blogs for me to steal for my blog!

WHAT BIG EARS THEY HAVE!!!!

"PHONES RINGING!" Ever noticed that the moment the telephone rings, no matter where the children are, they will appear from no where, whether they have been playing indoors or out, near or far, they stop dead in their tracks and make a bee line for the phone! Have you also noticed that when you speak they study you in silence without interrupting, almost as though they do not want to miss a word!

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"Stop counting teeth while I am on the phone" I hiss to them, as my mom in her turn hissed to me all those years ago, and I remember clearly doing the exact same thing to her! It is a universal phenomena and proves if nothing else, that gossip is irresistable and most humans are drawn to listen to that which is forbidden!

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Above is Natalia when she lived with her mom and dad in London. She is living with her mom in Cape Town now and she is 7 years old. Seen here is a telephone she received for her first birthday and she is speaking to "me"!

There are those who can conquer the world, they are invincible, or think they are, they have no fear, they are DRAWN to danger. They are the ones who give mothers grey hairs and ulcers, they are terrifying to live with at times. Here is Brian at 6, he climbed a tree which had branches the size of twigs, and when he reached the top, he lost his balance and slid down the tree, snapping all the twigs on his journey to planet earth! Hence the plaster of paris on his left arm!

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"For my birthday I want SUPERMAN clothes!" aaaaahhhhh no........here we go again. With a very bad feeling we buy him the superman clothes, they were designed by a man who had no children of that I am sure as I found my son on the roof with complete faith in his cape to enable him to fly off and not drop like a rock.

Children are playing, out of my way, perfect time to get out the vacuum cleaner and give the lounge a good clean. Well, you can see how well that turned out. As soon as the vacuum cleaner was turned on, my three daughters all bound into the lounge and, of course, the only place to tackle one another was on the carpet. Oh well, at least the thought was there, I DID get the vacuum cleaner out with good intentions, I'll just get the cord out of the way so this bundle of humanity can carry on. yes..... there ARE 3 children in there!


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''DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT BRIAN!"

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Despite all the exasperating moments that were mine during the years I raised my children, they were far outweighed by joy and happiness, of loving and being loved.
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I now watch my daughters and son raise their children and see them experience the same exasperation and joy that I did, and so it will go on and on.......

ALEX

This is ALEX. isn't he super gorgeous. He belongs to Shirley my eldest daughter and her family and I became very fond of him during my visits to Cape Town.

He has an enormous capacity to love and bound!

As Shirley, Trevor, Vicky and Jessie leave South African shores soon, they have to find homes for their pets, and dear Alex needs a home too. My daughter is heartsore to be leaving him behind but there is a possibility of a home for him.

They will be lucky to have him, he truly is mans best friend!

Thanks for the picture Shirley love, I have wanted one for the longest time - he is SUCH a comical character!

DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER!!!

They came in all colours, shapes and sizes, the dogs that my children grew up with. But one particular dog, Jess, comes to mind for many reasons.
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My first husband had always been particularly fond of bull terriers, but I had heard all the horror stories against them, they are vicious, unpredictable, their jaws lock when they bite, the whole 9 yards of reasons for not getting one. The girls were young but not babies and Jess was 3 months old. I jumped in and made the decision, and Jess came home with us. I never regretted it. In true bull fashion, she tore in to the house having no regard for anything, it appeared that all she was was muscle. As a pup she shredded all foam rubber, she was
OBSESSED with foam rubber, she even sniffed it out of the settee. Jess was hard work. She brought us many gifts, the most memorable were our neighbours prize chickens, I looked out of the window and there, to my horror, were chickens and feathers from one side of the garden to the other. We were not asked to replace the chickens but to control our dog. The fence was made higher.
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She adored children, a trait of this breed I learned, and was very protective of our children. When I gave them birthday parties I would have to ensure that Jess was locked away as she would chase and bite onto the clothes of the children chasing my children! Read below why we did this!


It was during one of these parties that a guest of ours who was staying with us, came into the house covered in grass and sand, it was a frightening sight, I thought he had met with some awful accident. "Why didn't you tell me that your dog is vicious" he asked,"were you playing catches with the children" I asked, "yes" came the reply, "I was crawling around chasing the children and your dog attacked me". "Oh," I told him, "NEVER chase the children, she thinks you will do them harm and is only protecting them!" He stayed indoors after that. As I said, that was the end of Jess's party days.

Then we found out one day we were to have a new addition to the family (human) and I worried all over again as Jess had never known babies, and babies are too inquisitive for their own goods some times, and while I knew that Jess would not purposely hurt the baby, the baby might not purposely hurt her, but she would retaliate - I knew I could not take the risk.

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The baby arrived, Jess showed little interest, and while he was still in his pram he was safe, then he started to roll and crawl. I left him on a blanket on the floor one day and Jess was asleep some distance away. When I returned to the lounge, Brian had had rolled to Jess, his finger so far in her eye, the finger could not be seen, Jess did not budge, open her eyes, jump away, growl or eat my baby! I did however, run over and snatch him up, but it gave me food for thought, I watched closely after that, and the two became firm friends.

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Brian is 18 months old in the 3 pics above, the first one he climbed on top of her and lay down, the second he slowly starts sliding off, and the third one he has come to a sitting position. What fun he had.

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Look at Jess, she did not bat an eyelid, and today Brian is as fond of bullterriers as his father was before him.

PRIMA BALLERINA!

Many little girls have dreams of becoming prima ballerinas', my three were no different.

My initiation into the wonderful, exhausting and expensive world of ballet was when Shirley, my eldest daughter, was 3 years old and still in nursery school.

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"I want to do ballet, ALL the girls in my class are doing ballet". I think "You have just learned to walk" , but say nothing." Have you noticed that your child is ALWAYS the ONLY child not doing something great and are therefore deprived children?

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I duly met with her teacher who referred me to the ballet teacher.

That was the first of many years filled with ballet exams, concerts and practice runs which involved all three of my girls at once.

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As the years went by, each was at a different stage and doing different things in different studios, and this also involved many different colourful and exotic outfits!

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To keep up with their times and places I made a list of who had to be where when!

However, this was my first ballerina. And in the picture she was a chocolate sweet. The leotard was a stretch material, the icing is thin foam rubber cut to look like icing and the red ball on top of the hat is polystyrene and is a CHERRY.

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The outfit was carefully brought home and put in a safe place, we thought. My second baby girl was crawling, saw the cherry ....."WOW, she must have thought (baby thoughts of course!) " WHATS TO EAT!" As babies do, she put it in her mouth and took a bite.

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Shirley had a major melt down, this was a CRISES, and was hysterical with grief at the sight of her bitten cherry. Kerry cried because Shirley was crying.

Paint, I need paint, I will flatten the bite and paint over it. Good idea.

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Bad idea.

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As soon as the paint touched the polystyrene, a huge hole appeared. There must have been an ingredient in the paint that ate certain things, like polystyrene. I should have left the bite. There were no more cherries.

The day of the concert arrived. The dance was of a little group of chocolates dancing out of a box (seen in the background) around the stage in a circle and then back into the box.

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The lady on the left was to keep the chocolates dancing in the same direction and in something resembling a circle and executing a successful entrance back into the chocolate box!

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I don't remember what happened to the cherry.

THERE ONCE WAS AN UGLY DUCKLING

A few weeks ago I posted some pics of Widget at 2 and a half months. Well, here you will see what he looked like when I picked him up at the pet shop. I thought he was GORGUSS!
His undercarriage was bare and his neck was pencil thin and also bare, with feathers on his wings and a little orange on his head. He could not walk well and slept on his tummy with his head turned to the side.

The back drop here are my neighbours (who took these pics) plants outside her flat. Note his stubby little blue tail. It is much longer now and the blue is only on the ends of it.

Oh my Widg., I am so glad that you are now a swan, with your sonic schriek and all!

He was so dependant and only 3 weeks old, I fed him baby parrot cereal from a bent spoon. I now cannot get him off cereal and eat seeds as he should do, he gets hysterically excited when he sees his dish and bent spoon, the pet shop folk have told me he is spoilt.

Any ideas on how to wean him properly without him having tantrums? There must be some experts out there somewhere!

He is a real joy and is very comical, a lovely pet to have!

THIS LAND IS MY LAND! DURBAN, KWA ZULU NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA!

Durban is noisy, colourful, cosmopolitan, a colour blind nation where black, white, coloured Indian, Moslem and any other person of any nationality is welcome and all work together, play together, and yes, argue and sometimes fight together. But I would live no where else.

I am speaking of the here and now, memories of my past at least are all that they are now, memories.

Above you will see a pic of revellers at the world during the Soccer World Cup. Note the vuvuzela bottom right, it is green in case you


are unfamiliar with them.

A gentleman was quoted as saying that he had been to many Soccer World Cups and this had been the noisiest!


Here is a picture of our local policemen and women, patroling on horseback along the beach front. a common sight.

I will post more sights of Durban over the next few weeks, and you will see that we work together, play together, pray together and stay together.