Busy as a Bee

Yip that’s been me of late. We’ve almost come to the end of our HUGE painting job of our house. It has now been 4 weeks and they still have 3 rooms left inside to paint as well as my parent’s cottage. While they’ve been here I have felt like we’re camping in our own house and frankly living in a huge mess and it seems like forever. In fact, though, the painters have been more than professional and done an amazing job. So I am thankful for that. They have been here so long that they feel almost part of the family LOL!

Scaffolding outside my bathroom window:

Looking down onto the lounge {aka store room}which has been piled high with cushions, ornaments and paintings from other parts of the house:

 

The entrance hall, draped with cover sheets and scaffolding.

{You can see the lighter paint colour on the back wall vs the previous darker colour from before. I’m loving the brighter colour!} :

 

    Looking towards the entrance hall from the upstairs landing. The pillar still has the previous colour on it.

Shannon also started with exams this week, so I have to fetch her straight after her exam ends, which is normally between 10h30 and 11h00, so that disrupts my morning of washing curtains, clothes, and trying to move back into the completed rooms. We normally get back and after a bit of a break {read : playing SIMS}, I sit down with her {in the kitchen as her study is full of stuff from the guest bedroom} and try to help her study. I actually think I’d get an A if I had to go write her exams as I know the work better than she does!

I also have finally got Shannon in at Crawford College for next year. After much deliberating, we finally decided it would be worth the travelling and have enrolled her. After a tour of the school, an entrance exam and an interview, a deposit has now been paid and I must simply submit her forms on Monday – but she is in! At least she will now have the opportunity to take music as a subject and she could even do drama or French (amongst others), so she has a wider subject choice for High school- so pleased that’s finally done and dusted. Now I just have to sort Reece’s schooling out….decisions, decisions!!

I’m still busy getting everything done for our trip to Europe – two weeks to go !! Yay!! We still are getting our documents together for the visas – we need double of everything as we need a British and Spanish visa for each of us. {Where are the days we didn’t require visas for the UK!!?}. Today I must submit the UK visas online and also book Legoland tickets. We have promised Reece {aka Lego-boy} that we’ll spend a whole day in Legoland Windsor and I believe getting tickets online really saves time in queues.

Speaking of Reece- on top of all this, he has had flu this week and has been in bed for four days! It simply never ends.

So yesterday I decided it was time for a new digital layout and release some stored creativity. Here it is :

I enjoyed playing around with these photos and love the colours here. I think blue is now my official favourite colour!

So there’s my life in a nutshell at the moment. I love being busy, it keeps my head on straight, makes me feel complete and makes me happy. Though I have to admit I can’t wait to get the house back to some semblance of normality …                                            

                                                                                    

Autumn, Franschhoek & Red roses…

Wow, what a weekend. We flew down to Franschhoek on Friday morning to attend Jay & Phillip’s wedding. As usual things were rather rushed, but we made the flight easily and arrived in Franschhoek at around 3pm. The first thing that struck me was how Autumn had cloaked the countryside in it’s colourful splendour. The old oak trees lining the roads looked magnificent in red, orange and gold. And the vines were touched with the same glorious warm colours. This was our first visit in the Autumn, and although there was a cool wind, the sun still had retained some of it’s Summer warmth. It really is beautiful to visit here in the Autumn.

We stayed with Rika & Neal in a cute little apartment in the Ivy Apartments. Beautifully decorated in a clean, contemporary style. Friday evening we had dinner at Col’cacchio’s which was conveniently just across the street. I was unfortunately being hassled by a filling which had come out and my rough tooth was scraping against my tongue. So I didn’t enjoy my food too much the entire weekend. Not pleasant I can tell you!!

Saturday morning we walked a bit around the shops and then got ready for the wedding. Jay was a little more than customarily late. (and hour and a 1/4!) But we enjoyed teeny milkshakes in shot glasses and a small jazz band outside the chapel and took in the beautiful gardens of the Franschhoek Inn.

The Chapel was all white, with clear perspex slatted chairs with black cushions. The Aisle was draped with wide white paper printed with words from sms’s and emails the couple had sent each other with scattered red rose petals printed in between. This was so striking and so unusual! The front of the chapel was twinkling with countless candles. So pretty.

Against all this, Jay walked in in a stunning red ball-gown wedding dress.

The reception was held in Le Verger, the hotel’s restaurant. A really beautiful setting. Having only 35 guests, we all sat at a long banquet-style table draped with a silvery grey cloth, thousands of red roses and teaming with tiny tealights. Then from the ceiling, hung red wineglasses, which caught the candlelight beautifully. We were provided with small scissors with which to cut the wineglasses down should we want to drink water. Such a cute idea!!

The food was delicious (despite the ache in my mouth!!) and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening with our friends. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the cake! Really stunning! It was around 5 layers, tiered from large to small. Topped with a black icing bow. Each layer looked like it was about to topple over and each one was decorated in a different pattern in red, white and black. To me the entire wedding had a contemporary baroque feel to it. Just my thing!

We left for the airport at 09h30 Sunday morning, having not been able to see much more of Franschhoek or take any good photos. Instead, I had to settle for taking some quick shots out the car window. I also couldn’t take photos at the wedding as we were asked not to take cameras. I couldn’t resist taking a  few shots with my phone just so I could show Shannon how pretty everything was. I’m hoping Rika sends me a few or posts some on Facebook.

Now back to our usual weekly routine. Tomorrow is Shannon’s audition for the SA Talents Competition, so she has some practising to do this afternoon. This afternoon I’ve managed to grab an appointment at the dentist thankfully due to a cancellation they had. So I am relieved!!

 

Under Construction

I am finally 'getting it'! Blog designing is not rocket science once you learn to play around a bit. I enjoy making use of Blogger's basics and getting it to do what I want! One of which is the Navbar I've finally figured out how to do. So go ahead and start clicking to be redirected to specific areas on my blog. Watch this space as I'll be upgrading it it soon now that I've figured out how to get it there!

I'm still busy with the Blog Design course "Bling up your Blog" at the Little Light Studio. What fun! I love this creative site. Kayla Aimee and Wilna are really talented and artsy and explain everything so well - so go one and click on their button which you'll find in the left side-bar of my blog.

Do pop in again to see how my blog changes as it is still Under Construction!

This weekend we went away to Buffalo Thorn Lodge in the Pilanesberg near Sun City. This was our second visit and we really enjoyed it. The accommodation was superb and the kids had fun with their cousins. The highlight was finding a pride of 5 lionesses having their lunch! They had caught a Wildebees, we estimate around 2 hours before we saw them, and were devouring the last of it. They weren’t too keen on the vehicle and the one dragged the carcass further into the long grass where they could eat in peace. Fortunately we could still see them when they stood up.

 

One thing we decided after our visit is that we are so spoiled at Olifants being able to drive around when we choose and also the landscape there is so beautiful , nothing can compare in our humble opinion.

The weather lately has been cold and wet to say the least! We have had such a lot of rain, so unusual for late April. At Buffalo Thorn, getting there was quite a feat! Take  a look at the car!

We literally drove sideways in parts! The mud got into the rims of the wheels and the car shuddered all the way home each time we exceeded 90km/hr! So now we’ll have to have the tyres removed and cleaned out. At least we got some real mud on the “Rangey” which normally only sees city driving with the odd pothole here and there!

Today is a public holiday and Leon’s sister, Denise is visiting from the USA so his mom and Denise are coming to us for lunch. The weather is still cold and wet – real comfort food weather! So I think we’ll have a roast chicken with potatoes & veg (which Leon has offered to cook! Yay!!) and I’ll follow it up with good old-fashioned South African Malva Pudding…

 

Hives!

Poor Reece has been ill in bed since Monday. He started with a sore throat on Sunday, then got slightly worse by Monday, so I kept him at home. He then developed a cough and runny nose. This morning, his 3rd day at home, he had earache and then wammo - hives! He looked really weird! At first I thought - fleas!! So off came all the bedlinen and into the wash and new clean ones put on all the beds. But then the 'flea bites' got bigger, seemed to appear closer together and for weir welts. He was so itchy. His skin had red patches with raised welts and his face and neck were very red. Even his eyes swelled up and were red. Then he started shivering, only to tell me that he wasn't cold, he was scared! Poor liitl guy was really worried about himself!
I got hold of our friend, Piet, a Paediatrician, and he told me it's a reaction to sinus or the virus he has. So he gave me a prescription for 4 different meds he has to take. By this afternoon he was looking so much better and the hives were only visible on his legs a bit by this evening. Thank goodness that's over! Even I've been 'itching' all day from just looking at him!

A little sparkle of light....

Hi there again. You may have noticed a few changes going on at my blog of late. I'm taking a course at the Little Light Studio on blog design. I have already learnt so many shortcuts! I used to design my blog with such difficulty and, I have now discovered, the very l--o---n---g-- way round! This site is fabulous! Wilna (ex pat South African) & Kayla Aimee have started this website for giving various classes relating to Blog design, scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking etc. There are quite a few free lessons too which is an added bonus! So do pop in over there & take a peek at this awesome website!