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.