The prodigal son returns

I thought I was away for a while - I didn't realise it was so long! Wow, where do I
begin? I have finished all of my Unisa papers and have got to redo the
accounting one (which is no big surprise to me). The others are all ok but due
to my travelling over the time one of my exams was to be written, I am writing
it with the next semester's papers.

Christmas has come and gone and a new year is already waiting in the wings - I really do
not remember time ever having passed by this fast ever before. Maybe the
earthquakes etc over the last while really have sped up the days....

Well it is the 29th of December 2010 and I am sitting in the office at work busy
updating my blog as well as listening to the radio commentary of the cricket
match between South Africa and India in Durban. As I type these words, Jacques
Kallis has just gone out and S.A. are seemingly in trouble, needing
another 170 odd runs to beat India which at this stage is looking like an
uphill task.

Christmas this year was a very "quiet" time and the gifts were all (mostly)
smaller and or homemade. Ruby made the children some really cool gifts and so
we got to spend some (limited) funds on the stockings etc. once we had a look
at all of the gifts, we realised that the children were not getting a bad
Christmas at all which was our fear this year. The worst off among our children
were the little ones (who don't really notice being "short changed" -
as long as they get something they are only too happy. Christmas eve was a
nice, quiet evening together at the Stolp's house. The pool was around 30
degrees Celsius and was perfect for an extended swim. I spent a while in the
pool with the boys and we had a lot of fun.

Just before dinner was going to be eaten, I left to buy some more goodies for Ruby's
stocking and by the time I arrived back everyone was eating and Ruby
had dished up for me. This turned out being perfect as I didn't over eat and
actually enjoyed myself the rest of the evening. After our meal, Wayne Doller
did a reading and we sang some carols while trying to keep the children under
control. After the carol singing was done we had pudding which was homemade ice
cream and meringues.

When we got home the children all went to sleep quickly (except for Kyle) and we were
able to get to sleep at a better hour than usual for a Christmas
eve. Around 2:30 in the morning I heard some movement in the lounge and
some talking among the boys and was thinking they were checking out their
stocking goodies. Ruby eventually got up to check on them and discovered that
Kyle had instigated the opening of the "real" gifts under the tree.

This is DEFINITELY not allowed in our house as the children have to wait until the
whole family is together before we open gifts. This is the reason we have the
stockings for them and they get to open those while waiting until everyone
is up. Needless to say we were not very impressed with our boys but then, what
can you do? Ruby and myself got out of bed at 6am and went into the lounge with
the boys so they could (continue to) open the gifts under the tree).

At 8am we packed and went to the senior Hugo's where all of the cousins get together and
open gifts from each other and the adults get to open our gifts to each other
also. We had a budget of R50.00 to work within this year and we had to do
something homemade which was extremely difficult to do. After the distribution
of gifts everyone started going off to visit family etc for the day and we
ended up going home for a while where the boys played with their gifts and we
passed time to around 1:30 when we packed and headed back to the Stolps for a swim.
We ended up being there for the rest of the day and had a borewors braai and
salad for supper. The temperature of the water on Christmas day was 32 degrees
Celsius - the boys didn't want to get out at all!

Monday we went to the Dickeys and spent the day next to the pool chatting while the
children swam and ran around. The only negative was trying to keep an eye on
Jesse because he has decided that he likes the pool and just runs right up
to it then steps into it. I felt concerned about that as well as the one dog
who for some reason did not like Jesse and would growl and look aggressive if
he cornered it anywhere. All in all we have had a very quiet Christmas and it
has been quite rest full for me (maybe not Ruby).

Yesterday (28th December) I got to go to the temple and stood in for Willem and Martie
Jacobs' son at their sealing. This was a really nice experience and it was also
nice to be able to sit in the sealing room alone while waiting for everyone.
There really is no place as peaceful as sitting alone in the temple...

A nice
finish to the year and I am waiting to see what will be happening in the new
year.

One down, two to go

I have completed the accountancy exam today - the first of four subjects registered for this semester. It is a relief to eventually have this exam done but I feel like it was a total flop! Right now I feel fine about the others but his one was always going to give me a hard time.

It just does not make any sense, the whole accounting thing. Everything is backwards! Anyway, it is now over (for a couple of months...) and hopefully I have scraped enough to get by when the year mark is included. I threw enough of the figurative poop at the wall and hopefully some of it will stick, enough at least to allow a pass...

I have written a letter to the powers that be asking for a deferment on the one exam I am due to write as I will be travelling over that day and will be unable to participate. Hopefully I will hear from them soon so I can concentrate my efforts on the remaining two subjects and ensure I get some decent results.

We are going to splurge this evening and get pizza for supper and have a Family Home Evening with meringues and yoghurt for pudding (Ruby spent some time this evening making the meringues which always go down well in this home) to keep the boys happy. Speaking of the boys, Orin went in for a speech assessment this week and the result is that he has to go in again to have some things checked with his hearing at the audiologist as this may have been having an impact on his speech. He could have some reoccurring middle ear infections which affect his hearing and thus his speech. It was interesting to note that the therapist commented that he is a very smart little guy and has a large vocabulary and it seems that he made it through some test which not many children she has through her doors actually do. Go my Boy!

What can I say - my boys are just the best...

Battle of the bands

Friday evening we had a youth activity at the Bishops house. A braai was going in the back and the PS2 "world tour" was going on in the lounge, they all had fun. Some of the young women got the make up out and "decorated" the young men (rocker style eye makeup and hairdos) so everyone could look official.
By 11pm I was home, having had enough for one night but they carried on until 2am Saturday morning - Makes me feel old all over again.

This weekend was also time for us to have the Zafira repaired (eventually) and get rid of the oil leak. The poor car was literally spraying the oil out and would leave a trail in every driveway we entered, terminating in a big pool where we stopped. It got to where my poor wife was scared to visit anyone because she would make a mess in their yard / driveway and get embarrassed. My parents particularly intimidate her and we have seen sand poured on the oil spill in their driveway which really kills Ruby anytime we stop there. Anyway, we got the offending leak plugged on Saturday and after all of the stress of thinking what it would cost, only set us back R200. A huge thanks to Thinus from Nigel Delta who does all of our repairs and servicing! When I had a look (I am the first to admit my motor mac skills are lacking) I couldn't tell where the leak was coming from (a quick excuse here - the whole bottom part of the engine was covered in oil and nothing was really visible...) but it seemed that it may be the sump gasket. I was thinking of the expense involved in removing the sump and protector plate etc but was happily proved wrong when Thinus lifted the car and got in underneath it to check on things.
It turns out that the oil pressure sensor was at fault and the oil was literally spraying out(see, my description before was accurate) through this sensor. It was kind of like a big water pistol but was spraying oil instead of water....

So I got to study the whole day Saturday (doing accounting exam soon and do not have a clue) and only got home at around four thirty in the afternoon. We all went to the Stolps afterwards for a swim and ended up staying for a braai which was very nice. The evening was perfect - warm with a slight breeze and some rumbling of thunder in the distance. It was nice to sit and chat with no rushing from one thing to the next. As we were leaving, Lara was saying we do not visit often enough. My reply was that the reason was we are not the kind to invite ourselves and are usually very happy just pend time at home. Something we can change I suppose...

Off we go to visit my parents (in an oil squirt free car) and drop off Aidan's cousin Ashley who came to our place for lunch today.

Popcorn Part 2

An overwhelming success! Everybody enjoyed the popcorn (especially Ruby) and Aidan wants a bag to take to school "to keep for second break daddy" even though they are having a bake sale tomorrow. Ruby went back for seconds and after eating that bowl, we were just talking about what Kyle will be taking to school for the bake sale and discovered we had not added the sugar to the caramel mixture. Both Ruby and I were involved in the making of the caramel mixture because things this afternoon were really busy with my sister's children being here also. Anyway, between the two of us we neglected to add the brown sugar and went merrily on our way.

Despite this oversight, we (I use this term to describe my family - I exclude myself for modesty's sake...) enjoyed the stuff very much. Definitely one to make again! Possibly some edible Christmas tree decorations.
Thanks Debbie for a recipe that works even when I leave out a major ingredient!

Time to head for bed so I can be up early to get in a visit at the Temple.

Just as an aside before I go, today we had our first real rainfall since winter ended - it was great! Dark clouds rolling in accompanied by thunder and lightning and then nice fat drops of rain. I think, if it were possible to measure, we would have some of the "heaviest" rain around with some of our summer storms. It really seems like it hits the ground hard.

Caramel Popcorn

I got a recipe for caramelised popcorn the other day and got to try it out tonight. It is in the oven for its final drying / cooking session and everybody is asking "is it ready yet?" every two minutes, even Ruby who is against popcorn as a matter of principle.
I guess I will have to go and check it and at least two of the trays will be ready but no need to advertise that yet!

As the famous composer said,

"I'll be Bach"
(ok - really cheesy)

Dance classes at mutual tonight

I am sitting here looking at the youth attempting some dancing - the young women are running the activity tonight and organised dance instruction. All I can say is I hope I was never like this when I was in their shoes! These guys are absolutely pathetic.

I am being mean. They are not all that bad but the few who are make up for those that aren't (does that even make sense?). They all seem to be enjoying themselves in spite of the earlier attitudes and we probably could do this again in the future to give them a refresher.

The youth from Selcourt Ward are all lining up outside the hall and enjoying the show now also - it seems we have a good activity going here!

Sunday morning session done - off to bed

This session of conference was very nice and even if we were not paying as much attention as we should have, there were still lessons learned. I particularly have had confirmation to follow through with an idea I have been half heartedly playing with for the last few months. We will see how it goes.

Ruby is sitting at her computer playing online - as I say this she has gone onto my blog and is reading the earlier post. She reckons I make us look bad and am too honest... what can I say?

I am off to bed soon (I am getting up early so Wayne van As and myself can go play squash in JHB before work - game starting at 05:45) so I can make an attempt at normal functioning tomorrow but before I can do that I have to remove our little "heaters" from the bed because both Aidan and Orin wanted to sleep in our bed when we sent them off after watching conference. I read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to them and by the end they were both "pulling amps", within two minutes of tucking them in and giving them a goodnight kiss they were fast asleep. This still (as I said earlier) leaves us parents with two very hot little bodies in our bed on a night that is very warm and sticky. I may end up moving them to bed and leaving ours open for thirty minutes or so just to cool down a little. How is it possible that a little body like that can generate so much heat?

Time to encourage my wife to pack up her computer and head off!

General Conference Sunday

Here we sit on the couch watching the general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints live - what a blessing we enjoy now and take for granted so quickly. All of the children have sat through a session already and are being difficult now (I can't really blame them I suppose) just wanting to play and talk etc. Ruby and I are not being the most reverent either I suppose...
Part of the problem is that the Area Presidency have decided that we should watch conference delayed as a whole area at the end of the month so we are not really too strict about things now.

Conference continues and so will I

later...

The old married couple

The first three days of this week were really busy - on Monday we had a bunch of things to do with the annual plan preparations for Brad. Elder Colin Bricknell and myself were at the office until around 8:30 in the evening trying to find all the information we were asked for. We found out the next day that the mad rush to get this information together was not really warranted as there were other people who still had reports outstanding but at least we were free of having to deal with it two days in a row.

When I got home on Monday night the house was in darkness and everyone was asleep already except for Ruby who was waiting up for me. We spoke for a short while then went to sleep like the good old married couple that we are... It is pathetic when I think of how eager we are to get some sleep, it seems our whole existence revolves around it to the (sometimes) exclusion of everything else.

Tuesday was just another day at the office but I went to mutual in the evening where we made catapults. I again got home later on and went right to bed. I think of how it would be to get a good nights sleep without waking up a couple of times and it is like it is an impossibility. At least when I travel I get some form of rest even if it means time away from the family, poor Ruby just has day in and day out and has to deal with it. I struggle and find myself getting short with the rest of the world (including my poor family) and Ruby struggles along trying to be a good mommy and wife. There are priorities for her and some things just do not feature (this is not an excuse for any future inattention on your part my good wife!!!) on her radar because she has only got so much to give.

Wednesday morning I flew out to Cape Town for the day and again got home late that night. I have been feeling really tired at the office around twelve in the afternoon and struggle to concentrate on anything properly because of the lack of sleep. I spent the morning looking at property in Khayelitsha and Langa where we have a lot of members with inadequate church facilities. Hopefully the land we looked at will work out and we will get two purchases complete soon to allow the construction of two new chapels for them.

Once I was done with the property, I was dropped off at the V&A Waterfront and got to spend a couple of hours there, just wish the family were with me though...

The boys would have loved the boats and water as well as the aquarium etc. I will have to arrange a holiday for them sometime soon.

Today (Thursday) my father went in for the final stage of his treatment of prostate cancer and I received an sms saying all is well this afternoon but heard nothing since then. It seems they are able to treat it really well nowadays but we still worry. Just a little bit.

So I have had a pretty good week this far and cannot wait for bed time tonight!

Like I said,

pathetic..

Just another day

As it says above, today was just another day. Nothing extra special happened besides a day at work where we were informed that our legal and accounts departments have been successful in lobbying the government for tax rebates on donations to the church (tithing etc). The thing now is that we are able to claim tithing back at the end of the financial year which we were never able to do before which means a nice payment from the government at year end instead of the other way around.

I went to mutual tonight and we only had four young men there (kyle and the Melton boys are all camping at the church site in Hartebeespoort and the van As boys stayed home because they were tired) I suppose the school holidays are affecting everyone...
We made catapults out of dowel sticks and string which took a lot longer than expected but we had fun (I think the adults had a lot more fun than the youth that were there!)
We eventually completed our catapult but were unable to test anything properly because we ran out of time - I can see the thing being used on Sunday by some young men.

I am getting ready to go to Cape Town tomorrow but it will only be for the day - a quick in and out. I leave at six in the morning and the flight back arrives at eight fifteen, so I should be home at around nine tomorrow night which makes it three out of three nights this week so far that I am not home until late. It feels wrong to be coming into the house when all of the children are asleep already and Ruby is just waiting up for me.

Anyway - I hear Ruby finishing up now so we can get out and on our way to bed...

The work continues

I got home last night around 7:15 and found that the two big boys were sleeping at their cousins' home which left the two little ones at home. What a difference in the noise / peace levels! I was tired and had sore legs and feet, it was good to be home and able to put my feet up after a shower. Ruby even got a tub of cream and rubbed some into my feet which was nice (this kind act had to be reciprocated though...) I then lay down on the couch to relax for a couple of minutes before Ruby came in with a bowl of ice cream and her homemade lemon curd. The lemon curd is really good and actually went quite well with the vanilla ice cream.

I lay on the couch again and watched the last part of "The Other Side of Heaven" which seemed to have way too many sad parts in it - I cried like a little baby. I am not sure what is getting into me at the moment, I find myself tearing up during children's movies and adverts - I must be either really tired or deeply in touch with my feminine side.

The next thing I knew it was after eleven at night and I was lying alone on the couch with the rest of the house in darkness. My wife had deserted me and gone to bed! I got up, went through the house and checked doors and windows then brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. I slept well which seems like the first time in a while. When I got up I had some Milo cereal for breakfast and saw Ruby off to the chapel for the Relief society cleanup. Devra arrived within minutes and dropped her children off so she could also go to the chapel. I had eight children at home and seven of them were under seven years of age. Four of them were under five years old - I got worried when Devra was getting ready to drive off and told me that her youngest was due for a big poo! Luckily he held off until his mom collected him!

I left at around eleven (just after Ruby got back) to go back to the Stolps to assist with the move of their stock. When I arrived I collected my brother Chace and we headed off to the office / factory to help out there. I got home at around five this afternoon and stripped down (nice to get out of the hot, dirty clothes and relax in front of the computer). The boys are all watching a movie in the lounge right now and like little zombies on the couch. I suppose that is not really a good thing...

Ruby is in the kitchen making supper (fruit salad) which is sounding really good at the moment - she has been doing great things in the kitchen lately as can be witnessed by her blog entries).

Money Money Money

It has been a week since the last post - I thought I would be able to update daily but it has not worked out that way. Forgetting that this thing exists and having a lot of other things going on just had the days flying by.

Where to begin...
I suppose that introduction makes it sound like I have a huge amount to say but that is not the case. I have perfected the art of forgetting within fifteen minutes anything I experience, sometimes a useful thing but lately not helping at all.

I have been given an ultimatum of sorts (a threat if you will) regarding my employment. I have been told that I need to purchase another three or four sites this year or my job is on the line. I have four sites that should go through so I am not hugely stressed or threatened but somewhere back in the recesses the thought keeps popping up that things can and do go wrong with properties that seem to be an easy buy. I have one property that I will hopefully finalise next week and have transferred the week after (the one property in Madagascar) and another two which should come through in the next month. There is another one property in South Africa and possibly one more in Mocambique but I will have to push hard on those and see what comes along the way. All I can do is push along and try get things done one at a time.

My manager is not happy with the kind of motivation being discussed here but when the powers that be make a decision he has to follow as well. Anyway, that is where I am at the moment and what I need to get done in a very short space of time...

Today I am going to be helping Lara and Andrew move all of the stock from the warehouse because they are moving out to save on rent. There is a whole pile of stuff and I am sure this will take a long time today - so much for a public holiday!

It seems that the whole family are struggling financially at the moment and we all have some form of trouble to deal with which is not much fun. Ruby and myself are in the best shape at the moment I think and hopefully within next week we will have most of our problem sorted out. We had Ruby's mom move into the other house and had to give notice to the tenants there, they didn't pay their last months rent and with the cleanup costs etc we were left owing a little on the credit card and no real income from the house when my mother in law moved in so we have been sweating a little. The outstanding money should have been paid by the deposit but the agents have taken up until now to release some of the money (after much chasing) and hopefully the rest will get paid next week. This will ease our situation a little (ok, a lot) but not remove it until we are able to sell the house and get rid of that second bond.

It is hard to see the end of the tunnel as far as the family are concerned because it will take a substantial amount of money to help everyone out of their respective situations, something none of us have at the moment...

Time to go to work!

Good to be back home

I got home last night and Ruby was at the door when I got into the gate, it was good to e able to give her a hug and kiss - for all of my thinking I am Happy to be alone, it was really nice to be able to have some physical contact...

Supper was not what I expected, Ruby got stuck at her mom helping her with dyeing her hair and so did not have enough time to get the meal ready as she wanted. Because of this her mom gave us some money which allowed us to go out for supper. We decided to go to the Golden Nugget, this is a restaurant in Springs which has been around forever (I remember going a a child with my family) and still looks like it did from way back when. Ruby commented when we went to sit that it still looks so seventies... The food at this place can match any steakhouse you put it up against though - really good meat and the veggies are a highlight of the meal also. It was good to get some real South African beef and not a stringy Malagasy cow to eat. That sounds worse than it was though.
Ruby and I both had fillet and a large shake and by the end of it were both overfilled (again, I wonder at my incapacity to eat large quantities like I used to) so left without pudding. Ok the smoking had a lot to do with it also.
This is one of if not the only restaurant that caters for smokers first and non smokers second, something that was forgotten when making the table booking. We were surrounded by smokers on three sides and the kitchen on the other. On my left we had a couple move into the booth next to us - he must have been around seventy (we called him the "dirty old man") and had a young "lady" of around twenty five with him. They ordered oysters (one big platter each) and all we heard was ribald comments and jokes between this old guy and the owner of the restaurant from that point on. This woman was happy to participate and I just thought how demeaning it must be for a woman to be stuck having two old "gents" commenting on the activities planned for later.

The group on my right was a few couples having fun together - you know the sort, they all belong to the same club and are drinking, tennis or golf buddies. Not a bad group at all but once they were into the meal and were drinking they were having a lot of loud fun without any worries about tables around them.
When we left, another couple were leaving at the same time as us and the "dirty old man" was checking out the young lady up and down, up and down... Ruby commented on it when we went out to the car.

After our supper we went to collect Jesse from my parents who were at my nephew Curt's 18th birthday party celebration. When we arrived we sort of got involved in visiting for a while and left a little while later. Poor Jesse was so tired he fell asleep within three minutes of us driving off. We got home and went right to bed but I just could not get to sleep. I was tossing and turning until I heard an explosion outside so took the radio and listened in on the CPF (community policing forum) guys on the road to see if anyone knew what was going on. It sounded like it was just around the block but it may have come from the mine - you know how sound travels funny at night. The guys on the road were going all over the place and couldn't find anything so I went back to bed for some more tossing and turning.

I got up this morning all fuzzy and woolly headed from the night before and feeling sorry for myself. even with just the one child at home I still can't seem to get a good nights sleep here. What a pain!

Ruby is off to a baptism now (one of the Braganca children is eight today) so I have Jesse here at home with me because Ruby is playing the piano at the baptism. Jesse is dead tired already so I put him into bed and he is lying right now singing to himself - you know he is ready to sleep when he "sings" like that to himself, he is the cutest little guy around!

It really is good to be back home!!!

Home again home again jiggety jig

Friday 17^th September

Sitting at the airport waiting for the boarding call, just another hour to go and then forty five minutes until we get into the air and then a couple of hours until I am home. Looking forward to it now. I have seated myself in the front row of the airport facing everyone else, I feel like I am up on the stand at church looking down at the congregation. My reason for doing this? I have a wall behind me so nobody can read what I am writing over my shoulder, kind of silly if I am planning on posting most of this on the blog I suppose but the habit of looking for privacy rules my choices.

So far it looks like my flight will not be very full but then there is still another hour to go before boarding and a lot of people can arrive in that time.

There have been a lot of mosquitoes around on this trip which is unusual. I usually don’t see any but this week there has been a definite surplus. My worry is the whole malaria thing, I don’t mind being bitten by a mosquito (ok I do mind but I can survive it ok) but I do worry about Malaria here. I stepped out for a little while this morning to go buy some munchies for my wait in the airport but now I am here I am thinking about the boys and Ruby – they will appreciate some chocolate etc when I get home so I will wait for the food on the plane. Ruby has been speaking about when I get home and it seems she is preparing a meal complete with pudding etc but all of the boys are now sleeping out at their granny so we will be able to have some nice quiet time together this evening. Looking forward to it.

It would make a huge difference if Ruby could come on a trip like this with me, the time in the evenings would be nice and meals would be a chance to talk and have fun instead of just eating and watching others doing the same. Not that I don’t enjoy watching others – it is one of the things I like doing, but every meal gets a bit much (read I am lonely and miss my wife...).

Captain announced just a short while ago that we are flying over the coast at Maputo, by my calculations we should be flying over springs area now on the way down. Again I wish I could jump from the plane with a parachute and land in the back yard without all of the hassle of going into the airport and driving back on the highway. Pilot just announced we are descending now and have passed over Witbank – so much for my calculations although, to get to Springs from Witbank will only take a couple of minutes flying at seven hundred odd kilometres per hour....

Temperature in JHB: 21 degrees Celsius and guess what, visibility is relatively poor because of all of the haze caused by the many fires around – good old Gauteng/ South Africa. If I flew in from Maputo / Madagascar and didn’t see fires burning below when the grass was dry I would think something was wrong. How messed up is that?

My meal today was the chicken version of Monday’s meal except the salad was Potato today and not pasta. I had two tomato cocktails and took another two appletisers so I could give Ruby something. Considering how hungry I was before getting on the plane, that small meal was enough to satisfy me – something must be wrong with me because there was no way that would have been enough just a couple of months ago. Out of habit I was looking to get more food and was going to ask the stewardess for another meal but self control won out in the end and here I am now having not had the meal yet feeling ok. Makes me wonder about myself and a whole lot of other things also. Do I really need all of the things I feel I do need or am I convincing myself I need them? Do I really need to replace the cars and keep them “up to date” (I can show myself really convincing evidence to back that one up though). Do I need to buy houses right now to make more money? I don’t know.

I do know that I want to be able to stay at home with my family regularly and not have to go to work etc. Time to pack away for landing...

Just one more sleep!!!!

Thursday 16^th September

No set appointments today – depend on the Stake, Mission and Marcellin to get me arranged for everything. Elder Mkhabela has asked me to meet the Stake President and collect some paperwork from him and the Mission President has arranged to have me carry some place mats? Back for Elder and sister Koeliker. So today I wait on everyone else for the paperwork and try to get some studying done. Motivation is a problem. Any time I get the text books out and start to work in them I get really tired and my eyes start closing. I wonder about the process going on in my head, it is like some sort of mental block against school books. I really need to study, I want to study... but I struggle to get anything productive accomplished. Of all things I think this is one of my greatest failings – it affects everything I do.

I can’t wait to get home and see the family. It seems that the boys will all be out when I get home though – it will be just Ruby and myself at home. Some quiet time alone together will be a novelty. It seems that the boys all want to go and spend the night at their granny in Edenvale so When I get home it will be really quiet, not quite as bad as the hotel room but much quieter than usual for our house – these boys can really keep the noise levels going. I suppose that is what makes a home a home and not just a house. Thank Heaven for families and specifically, my family.

I am sitting in reception waiting for Marcellin to collect me for my meeting with the Stake President. I thought I was late but he is not here yet so here we go again...

Just one more sleep until I get home – I am looking forward to that very much, more so than usual so can’t wait for this meeting to get done to allow me back to my room and to sleep this evening. I suppose tomorrow is going to be a long day so I shouldn’t look forward to it too much. The flight only arrives in JHB at 5pm tomorrow so I will only arrive home at 6:30 if I am lucky. Thinking about that, I will go for a walk tomorrow morning to buy some sweets etc to keep me going the rest of the day (there is just about nothing for sale in the airport and what is for sale is expensive). The only problem is that I am going to have to get someone to change the USD I have into Ariary.

I just had the thought that Christmas is on its way and I have no idea of a gift for Ruby or for ????? (the name I pulled out of the hat – sshhh, it is a secret). I am supposed to make something by hand as a gift and I am not sure what to do yet. Ruby’s birthday gift is taken care of already (I hope, I must just make sure of that) but Christmas is still a problem. I hate being broke.

The reason for coming to Madagascar

Wednesday 15^th September

First appointment at 11am Mada time so I am waiting for a couple of hours for a lift. Living in a hotel room is really not my favourite thing in the world.

Meeting went ok. I think we have agreed on a price for the land and I just need the ok from the office on the amount agreed on. If this one does come through, we will celebrate – this is the first property in Toamasina so this is the beginning of a new stage in the development / growth of the church in this part of the world.

Approval granted by the big shots! I now need to send the word to the Mission President and our office here. I can try for one last stab at a saving on the purchase price then give the go ahead for the purchase to move forward. We will see what the sellers have to say when I send the information through.

All finalised with local Priesthood and the sellers. Now we wait to get the agreement together and send it to the sellers – we should own the property within a few weeks now, a historic moment in the Church’s history in Mada and good to be a part of it.

Day two in Madagascar

Tuesday 14^th September

Woke up after a good couple of hours sleep – no baby in bed kicking or hitting me etc and no other noises from children, an aircon cooling the room and no other hotel guests making a noise in the passage. This is what it feels like...

Spoke with Ruby on Skype this morning and she had a bad night at home. It seems Jesse slept ok but Ruby is now suffering with a head cold so didn’t sleep well at all. Life as a mother I suppose. Poor Ruby doesn’t get to go away like me every once in a while and must really get tired of having a house full of boys at all times. But then like all mothers Ruby will miss even one of the boys if they are gone for a night and are away from her, can’t live with them can’t live without them.... Hang in there Ruby, only another twenty odd years to go until they are all “growed up”.

Today I have one fixed appointment with a seller which will hopefully give us a site for our members in Ambohibao (one of the little towns / suburbs of the greater Antananarivo city area. Once this appointment is done, I will be travelling around with my Facilitator to see some other alternatives around the city – we are looking for three other pieces of land in this city and two outside (in other cities).

Wish me luck.

I have been waiting for Marcellin to arrive for 45 minutes now and am now half asleep in the reception area. I thought I had seen him drive past earlier but I must have been mistaken. Sitting in the reception area here I see all of the cars and bikes going past on the road and again I am reminded of the basic human thing of always wanting bigger and better. Most of these people have no transport and rely on their legs or taxis to get around (I suppose it is the same as in South Africa but seems a lot more general here). These people have nothing and yet when I speak with anybody or just watch, they all seem to be happy. On an aside, I was told that this is not rainy season yet as I thought it may be, that only starts in November. There is a chilly wind blowing outside but the sun is shining and the sky is clear blue without a patch of cloud or the gray / yellow of pollution in the air I am so used to seeing.

My appointment is in 20 minutes now and still no sign of Marcellin or Georges, it seems that time means something different here than what it does at home, but I suppose I did know that already. Just seen news headlines showing that Rafael Nadal has won the US Open making him a winner of the “grand slam”, only the seventh guy to accomplish it or something like that. I never liked him because I was a Roger Federer fan and this was the only guy who would stand in Rogers way at the French open – just like Ivan Lendl and Wimbledon, always someone there to beat him on that court. Seeing more and more of Nadal showed he is actually a decent guy (from what we are shown as the public) and that he is actually a worthy successor to the “Federer crown”.

I feel like I am typing here just to stay awake – like talking rubbish at 02:30 in the morning with a bunch of friends.

1pm Mada time and sitting in the office of our Facilities Management Group in ‘Tana sending emails to South Africa. I met with the sellers of the Ambohibao property and they are asking quite a steep price for their land. We negotiated a bit and eventually agreed that the price would depend on the valuations we get on the property. Time will tell if they actually will negotiate on price I suppose. I am now getting all of the documents for this property scanned in to send them off to Shawn in JHB.

The Mission President (Sean Donnelly) has invited myself and Marcellin to lunch to discuss work in the area, we are off. Lunch was interesting, a couple of pices of fish on a kebab / sosatie stick with a smoked fish sauce in a cup on the side. The taste was good but the little pieces of charcoal on the fish were not the best tasting... but like I said to President Donnelly, you eat the charcoal and it will absorb all of the nasties in the meal (wishful thinking?) and hopefully prevent any bugs getting a hold. After lunch I went back to the office with Marcellin for a while then back to the hotel room for a long evening.

The trip to Madagascar begins

10:15 – just passed over Springs on the way out to Madagascar. Wish I could be jumping out via parachute and landing in the back yard to shout “surprise!” The plane I am on is a BA146. The wing is above the fuselage and it has four small jet engines (which sit right next to me and block out most of the view from the window). I have the whole row to myself because the guy who was sharing the row got up before takeoff and went to sit at the back of the plane. This means I can type here without any worries and can “stretch out”. All of my things are spread over a couple of chairs now instead of the one I was put in originally. A good start to the trip.

Don’t know why but really not looking forward to this trip, usually I have some varying degree of excitation but nothing for this week’s trip. Just don’t want to be leaving Ruby and the boys behind... I suppose it is getting soft in my old age.

Lunch served on the plane is a choice of beef or vegetarian. I choose beef which consists of a small plastic container which holds a few spoonfuls of a pasta salad with cayenne pepper in the dressing with four small meatballs next to it. There is also a Melrose cheese block, a packet containing three savoury biscuits and a serving of cheesecake. The cheesecake is very good. Time for a small sleep.

Been flying for two hours now and still a while to go. I look out of the window and it is just sea everywhere, if the plane goes down now I am going to be fish food. Pretty colours in the water though – not just the steely grey/black look but patches of lighter blue also. Really pretty when the little patches of sand are just under the surface or make it above and there are little islands in the middle of nowhere. Looks like a little tropical paradise from up here. If I were down there instead of up here I suppose I would be saying the plane was a little bit of paradise and the bare sun bleached little patch of sand was hell (unless there was a couple of sharks swimming close by then it would probably still be paradise).

Land Ho! I see the shoreline of Madagascar which means the trip is almost over (just 45 minutes or so to go). Weather in Antananarivo, the pilot tells us, is pleasant and fair. I seem to remember reading sometime that this is the rainy season? Just worrying about the amount of clothes I brought with me I suppose.

Just looking at the beach along the Western edge of the Island and realised that it is huge. The beach must be at least 100 to 200 meters long / wide from sea to vegetation in some places.

The place looks very dry from up here, river beds are just sandy paths snaking through the landscape with a narrow, darker ribbon of water imprisoned between the banks. It reminds me of the movies I used to watch when I was in primary school which were made in the Kalahari – the look of the rivers I mean, not the land itself.

1pm South Africa time – 2pm Madagascar. I am on the road to ‘Tana with Georges Harrison and Marcellin Andriamassy from the airport. Will take a little while to get used to the smells of the people and stalls along the road again. All the sights and smells of city living in Madagascar...

It is good to get here again and have a reminder of how little a person actually needs to get by.

In the hotel now and trying to get set up in my room and now realise how little I brought along in the way of clothes. The hotel is right next to a Toyota dealership and my first thought was that they shared a reception and what have the office gotten me into? The place is nowhere I would have expected to find a hotel and the look from outside did nothing to ally my first impression. The inside is a different story though – the whole judging a book by its cover I suppose. My room is quite small but neat and has a view of the pool below my balcony – way different from the expectation seeing the place from the outside.

My first appointment tomorrow is at ten so I will be wasting time until then – nowhere to go in the area and no common language either. I did bring some study material with me so I guess I will be doing a lot of studying this week while waiting for things to happen. (or sleeping).

A Good Evening

We had supper tonight sitting in the back yard. Ruby and I went to the pathologists for blood tests for the insurance today as soon as I got home from work and were there for around an hour. On the way home we were about to go past McDonalds and were debating whether we should go in or not. Eventually our "budget brain" won out (McDonalds does not fit into the budget this month at all) and we went past. We still felt like something easy though so we decided on some "slap chips" and collected them and a half dozen rolls.
It was nice to sit in the back and have everybody happily eating together (and the meal cost about as much as one Mcmeal would have) in the Spring evening. The grass is still brown but does have green coming through and blossoms on the trees, Jasmin and birds all contributed to a nice meal.

As Ruby says - we are blessed with a great many things!

All of the boys have now had their baths and the two oldest are sitting in front of me playing on the playstation.

Without fighting! Miracle of miracles.

I need to start the studying for the exams next month but I just cannot do it tonight. I am sitting here typing with my eyes getting heavier and heavier and my mind wondering - Time to go and have a shower then climb into bed.

Young Men

Tonight was our mutual (youth) night and the activity was combined young men and young women. We had a bunch of rubbish as props and had them divide into two teams to make a short movie to be filmed and screened for the whole group at the end of the night. The movies were so to say "interesting" and will not be winning any awards anytime soon, but they did have some fun when they eventually forgot the embarrassment thing and just participated.
One of the young men has a problem with one of his leaders and I spent most of the evening with him trying to talk with him about the issues. I worry about what the youth are exposed to and their attitudes as a result - it seems that the way to deal with problems is to belittle, ignore and demean those you have a problem with. No such thing as rational thinking here. I think I may have gotten through (just a little) and he will try a challenge out for a short period - we will see how things develope.
Anyways, time for bed so I can get up early and be ready for work.

Yippeeee.....

Lunchtime!

I am sitting in my office trying to catch up with all of the work from last week as well as preparing for the work I see lying in my future. Such fun!
I have spent a lot of time just trying to clear out emails and leave only those I need to work on but as I clear them out others keep arriving, it is like someone is watching me and as I lean back in the chair they push the send button.
My work for The Church is in the Physical Facilities Department and I am responsible for the purchasing of Real Estate in our area. My specefic area of responsibility includes the Indian Ocean Islands (Reunion, Madagascar etc), Mocambique, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Right now I am working on some properties in Madagascar trying to get paperwork sorted out as well as negotiating with sellers to finalise pricing.

I REALLY dislike paperwork.

Possibly this has to do with the fact that I have no real working system for everything that comes in. I do try to store all of my information electronically (a little easier for me) so I can access it easily as well as find old docs etc. but I also need to keep hard copies in a file of everything which comes in so others have access to it. This is the harder part for me - knowing what of all my electronic information I need to print and file. This means sorting through every project for all papers received, emails / correspondence etc and compiling it together in seperate prject files. Anyone who bothers to read this post may be going "Duh! How easy is that?" but it is something I seem to struggle with.
Anyway, moving on. It seems my mother in law is indeed moving back in with her estranged husband which means Ruby and I have to do some work on our house to prepare it for sale. We have had tennants in the house for a while with the house on the market but had to move them out to give my mother in law a place for a while. The place has been getting some much needed attention with her there but with her now leaving we are going to have to get things stepped up a notch to allow us to sell quickly. We are trying to get out of debt and feel the best way right now is to continue with the selling of the house and using that money to settle a big chunk of our bond. That way we will be able to fit some food storage into the budget and once that is complete, plough any surplus into the reduced bond. Oh to be debt free...

Seems I am writing a complaint book here instead of a casual update... Got to get back to work - lunchtime is over!

Assignments due!

Saturday morning at 07:30 and sitting here to update my blog for yesterday, I even wanted to do some updating last night before going to bed - maybe the novelty but I seem to be hooked...

last night I sat with my Bishop (Fernando Braganca) and tried to make sense of an assignment due before midnight. I had previously spent hours on tha thing but had no success. This was the infamous delphi programming assignment.
we started at around seven pm and worked non stop until twelve and still did not complete everything we needed to. I am a total novice / beginner here but Fernando is quite experienced and knows Visual Basic as well as a couple of other programming languages. Even with his experience, we struggled because of the strange way they have of asking their questions and giving examples. I was just clueless without him there.
Thanks for the help Bishop!

All assignment due dates are now done and it is time to start the studying for exams - what fun.

Ruby and I have a meeting this morning with her mothers estranged husband. we get the feeling that they are going to get back together the way things are going. This is a good thing normally but there are some concerns we have - particularly Ruby - as this is her mother who has had troubles here. We will see how things go later on.

What to do?

I am sitting here after working for some time on a programming assignment and just do not know what to do. The course material consists of a textbook and assignments - nothing to tell you how or give beginners basics.
I have no clue how to code some of these lines to get the correct reaction when pushing a button and cannot find an answer in the textbook - I feel so incompetent! I can understand having time on my side (maybe a year course) but to expect this sort of understanding within a semester seems crazy to me. Again, maybe it is just me and my incapacity to understand / comprehend / figure out what coding works, and for what reasons, without any outside help.

Anyway, I am now putting it aside and am putting some thoughts down to try forget about things for a while.
I am still feeling sick - possibly even more so than yesterday - and am not looking forward to having to go back to work! It is not that I don't enjoy work but sheesh! I just want to be able to get up when ready to and see children off to school, read something without feeling guilty, bake something (yes I do enjoy being in the kitchen) or just do nothing if I wanted to. I realise that I am not unique in wantinng this sort of thing but it doesn't change the fact...

Ruby is out right now finalising some things for one of the members of our ward (Springs Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) who recently lost her husband to cancer. While she is out doing that she is also collecting the final ingredients for supper tonight. We are going to make hamburgers and also some marshmallow for after - we will see how it turns out. I was really looking forward to this supper but the way I am feeling right now I am not to concerned one way or the other. poor me.

I have nothing to complain about really - "Spring has sprung" as they say and it is really a beautiful evening. Kyle and Jesse are outside playing, the birds are singing and I see the reddish light of the setting sun on the trees from where I am sitting. As I sit here I think of how lucky I am to be able to enjoy all that I do. I really am blessed!

Update - 8:30pm
The food and pudding turned out pretty good (even if I do say so myself), the marshmallows are a success thanks to my good wife and her Kenwood mixer. The whole thing turned out easier than I thought it would and the children seem to love them although they will devour anything with sugar in it so maybe a little deflation to the ego.
Thanks to Jethro and Selcourt Meats and especially to Ruby!

Sick Leave

I am at home at the moment on sick leave. I have not been sleeping well lately (besides having a little son who is still waking up at night) and have been struggling through the day as a result. I went to the doctor yesterday to ask for something to clear my nose and throat to allow me to sleep. He checked my breathing etc then opened my mouth and had a look at my throat - his response was actually funny.
I was booked off for a couple of days with five different medicines to take and must admit that I am feeling a lot better already. I think I may end up going to work even though I have officially been given an excuse not to (guilt about being at home with a valid reason - how crazy is that?).
I have got a couple of things happening at the moment in my life and the most pressing right now is the studying through Unisa, phew what a pain! I have some subjects I have no clue about and need to submit assignments this week. I was so happy to get out of school and now I am starting things over again, am I crazy or what? I am no great scholar and struggle to retain what I am reading through when reding "school books" but give me another book to read and I will be able to give you all sorts of information after reading it. Maybe just a mental block with regards to studying...

Anyway, I suppose I should be going through some study material now instead of blogging!

A beginning of sorts...

Well here goes. A not so bold step into the big unknown world of blogging.

I will have to see where this goes (if anywhere) and what becomes of the idea. Right now I think I am just going to try this out as an unofficial journal thing and see how it goes.

Wish me luck!!!