Hi all

Thanks to all who send updates, it is great to hear all your news! The rest of you are lazy snails – I feel as if I am e-mailing into the void of asteroids and dust particles.

Luckily for those of you who dread the arrival of the Cleminson debacles, this will be a really short one.

Firstly we start off with the weekly Wednesday baking. Boy is M pleased with this invention. It all started with Cavan bringing over a box of monkey faces with all the decorations etc to our house. M loved the box and was even more delighted with the goodies inside (jelly tots for eyes and bananas for the mouth being the favourite)! We set about making Wednesday our baking day and M loves to get the flour out the bowl and onto the floor, the sugar in her mouth, the hundreds and thousands to be more wide spread than the Arabian nights and lately as much stuff into her mouth as possible. She has learnt to lick the bowl, a fast dying out habit in South African children. This also means that she grabs the spatula and shovels in mouthfuls of butter/flour or any substance that is in the bowl at the time. Vanilla essence is also the source of much intrigue with her spending minutes trying to take the top off – heaven help us when she succeeds (we still have the green food colouring stains on our only carpet in the house!)

I hope you all got the e-mails of miss M and the lion cups at the getaway show. After not really wanting to go I landed up going twice. Sue came with us on the Friday and spent time with M in the lion cub cage. She was really intrigued and spent and hour playing with them while they played catch with her sleeve, nibbled her fingers and generally were loved by her. Being M sized they did not mind the M love pat like the cats do. Sue and I also did some research on a GPS (etrex legend got the vote) and on a compressor driven freezer for the Namibia trip in December (cold anything would be nice). I then took M with Vaughn the next day so that I could get a photo of the intrepid lion tamer with her cubs for the photo album. Knowing the routine it was not long before M was in the cage and marching up to a cub. She looked at him, he looked at her … One plate sized paw landed on the side of her head with a thud! A two second wail was soon replaced by a smiling baby cuddling the lions – hence the pics. But I do wish we had a camera out with the lion ‘attack’ – the look of sheer indignation was too funny for words. (no-one was injured in this incident)

We celebrated Sue’s birthday by all piling off to the Roodepoort botanical gardens for their concert pinic on the 15th of Sep. As we have a child we were at the gardens really early (8.30am) as we thought it would be good for M to bring the place down after a week of being cooped up during the rains. She had a whale of a time running up and down the expansive lawns, throwing stones 2cm into the water under the fountain and running headlong into an algae pond. She spent the rest of the day trying not to sleep so we toddled along the walks, climbed on the rocks on their geological displays and spent hours pulling the petals off the flowers. It was a great day out for all with M passing out at 5pm when we left and waking up
at 8am the next morning!

A couple of days later and we were packing again for a birding weekend with Vaughn’s parents in Buzzard Mt, Louis Trichardt. Lily went to spend a day at the fuel and carbuerator health hydro while the rest of us were sent out to buy goodies and pack. (When do I get to go to a health hydro?) Friday arrived, the packing was soon done and we were eventually on our way. First stop to check tire pressure, wallet left at home, return home to fetch it, return to fetch my mom, traffic jam, fetch Sue – we finally left Johannesburg 2 hours later. Lily cruised along happily and all was well until our dicky fuel gauge (one champagne cork on a piece of wire ala landrover) told us the tank was nearly empty. Stop and giggle as we think it is lying – fill her up and it was telling the truth! The fuel consumption was worse than ever! Made 20L a hundred km’s look good! Anyway we chugged along happily studying the new GPS all the way until Pietersburg. We took the round town route and Vaughn managed to lose the N1 Highway and started us off on the R521 to Vivo (little 1 leg mining town) this of course took us ages to figure out while Vaughn complained about trucks, large potholes, animals and lack of cats eyes and singles lane’s. (The highway has all of these!). Once the error was discovered we
were too far gone and had to travel along with out complaining (or giggling uncontrollably). Much later we arrived at the 4×4 only camp place – after giving Sue heart failure by stalling on the uphill very steep rise (low range first for 3.5km, all uphill).

The effort was all worth it with the most spectaculars views from the top of the Waterberg? mountains. The first night was full of giggles with Vaughn’s mum fighting off her Cane and cokes, Dad gave into his whiskey while loosing his hat and glasses, my mom fell out of her chair and down the hill with M’s help and no alcohol and Sue and I being in fits of laughter after the lost N1 episode and all the other things added together. A cold sleep and we awoke to see a huge sheer cliff behind us and mist over the valley. It did not take much to convince us all to head to town and the Pep main branch to buy good old wearing blankets for the coming nights sleep. Then it was back to camp and then to 4×4 over the mountain tops. We got a good look at the radar setup to catch Zimbabwean fighter planes trying to attack us – more like pigeons with rockets attached to their legs? It is all still up and running beautifully! A peaceful night and braai, then silence.

I wish I could say that the day started with the omens of forbading but it was a lovely summer’s day, a few walks, a swim in the pond and then into lily for a sundown trek to the very top of the mountain … clack, clack, clack (a new noise reaching above all others). Great, brilliant and charming! Sue went a pale shade of Sue (Mozambique still hangs very near in her mind), my mom listened carefully and I told them they were all overreacting and talking nonsense! When we arrived at the sundown spot I took M for a walk, on my return the bonnet was up and the whole engine was in bits! Don’t you just love those people who suggest the worst and help you take the engine apart so they can cure their curiosity on how it works. Darkness came, tappet nuts were lost, copper screws for the accelorator cable were misplaced, spanners went missing, tempers rose and half a job was done to get back to camp. The next morning saw Vaughn dropping the sump to see if the piston nuts were tight and then it was off to do the long crawl home.

We at least made it to the gate before the clattering and sputtering was so loud that it sounded like the engine was going to explode. The search for a tree was on and then it was the long wait for Mom and Dad C to come and help us home. We were quite surprised when someone came to help us and took Vaughn off to town to find a mechanic, they all then returned and we slowly drove to town to the mechanics house. He was not pleased to have us interrupt his Sunday as he already had the whole neighbourhood lined up in his drive way for their Sunday tune up. We milled around and they set the tappets which resulted in less noise and then we were on our way again – heading slowly towards home. Vaughn’s folks very sweetly followed us while we travelled the 400km home at 80km/h – a long frustrating trip for them no doubt, while much gloominess presided in our car because of Lily’s ill health.

Lily got home and is now at another health spa to have the full treatment before going to Namibia!

On the home note: the ‘cottage’ is coming along great guns with long trench like holes cutting up the garden and causing much confusion in M as her swing is now in the tree and across a trench. It is really starting to look good, hell I would even live their! The new gates also made their entry into our wall this weekend with the Mom and Dad C spending the weekend helping it in, gardening and putting on the finishing touches. It still needs some coats of paint and the corrugated iron put on but they really look great. The new front door is on hold until further notice.

M on the other hand is to be noticed, she is now undressing and using her newly found skills to strip, nappy and all. Looks like this summer is going to be potty based. I bought her some training pants which all had to be put on at the same time (good buy). She is growing in leaps and bounds, she is starting to talk properly. Her longest sentence being led by running outside while the dogs are barking, waving our hands around and going “NO DOGGIE, NAUGHTY!” She has Berries (our parrots) “hello” down pat and seems to learn a new thing each day. She is also becoming helpful now. She can look for things if you ask her too, gives you things like daddys glasses and ask you to open and close energade bottles. There is no grumpiness with sleep time and a cuddle and being put in bed is all it takes for her to quietly play until she goes to sleep. She sleeps all night – YAY! and will sometimes sleep from 7pm until 8am otherwise she is up between 6.30am and 7.30am each morning. She also seems to be gaining weight – YAY!

anyway time to go and fetch the babe

lots of love to all

love
carrie and emma