Zaagkuil Bird Sanctuary

While at Zaagkuilsdrift Lodge, we visited the Bird Sanctuary again.  See here for my last blog post about the Sanctuary.  This time we did a much earlier walk at 7am, and because of the cooler weather, many of the owls were actually on the ground.  Such amazingly beautiful creatures...

Soy owns the property and personally funds the food for all the birds,

and pays the salaries of the staff.  This Marabou stork is human imprinted, and loves Soy as his 'dad'

Soy imports worms from China for this very noisy Korhaan.  Pieter fetched him from Bloemfontein recently and had to endure 5 hours in the vehicle with him shouting VERY loudly all the way to the Sanctuary.  He was apparently somebody's pet (seriously!!) and they didn't want him after he matured and made a noise.

 

 

 

New year getaway

I usually spend the old/new year quietly at home, but this year decided to get away to Zaagkuilsdrift Lodge with my friends Leonie and Cathy.  Leonie and I recently visited Zaagkuil and really enjoyed it so a return visit was ideal for new year.

 

We arrived in the scorching heat (36 degrees) on 31 December, and immediately ordered a beer shandy (ice cold beer and lemonade) to revive us - delicious!

 

and then we headed to the pool to cool off

 

Dinner was in the boma around the fire.  Everyone drifted off to bed at around 11pm.  I showered and then headed outside again to get some cool air.  Leonie was on the verandah having a smoke so we 'accidently' stayed awake to see in the new year.  It was lovely

our wonderful hosts Gerrie and Jaco 

On New Years' day,  we did an afternoon game drive.  The sky was black with clouds but no rain fell; the overcast day was cooler than expected (thank you Lord!) and gave us some relief from the terrible heat-wave

Alec is the Lodge Supervisor - he is such an amazing young man

 a flat tyre on our game drive was no problem for the guys

While they fixed the vehicle, we enjoyed sundowners

 

Road trip

My sister Caron and I did a spur of the moment roadtrip to Parys on 29 December; it's about an hour away from Johannesburg.  I was looking for some art for my bedroom, but just happy to spend time with Caron.  We both live in Johannesburg but life is so busy that we seldom get to see each other.

 

Caron said that a roadtrip 'rule' is that you have to have breakfast

and coffee at Wimpy...so we did

Caron's mother (Brenda, my step mother) and her aunt Collette also happened to visit Parys on the same day so we met up for lunch

There are a lot of retired artists living in Parys.  I found a few paintings that I liked, but still wanted to look around at more of the shops before buying anything.  We ran out of time so all I bought were these 4 little prints which I will frame in one big frame - either for my craft room or my bedroom 

 

 

Christmas 2015

In the blink of an eye, Christmas is over and 2016 is rolling along at a very brisk pace.  I spent Christmas with my family in the Northwest Province.  The endless heat-wave has been terrible; fortunately it was cooler and overcast on Christmas day with a little bit of rain (thank you Lord!!)

Christmas morning

 

Katie wore this traditional Scottish dress which her late

Aunty Rosie bought in Scotland

My mom enjoyed being around all the activity

but she couldn't remember what Christmas is

 

I bought torches and headlamps for my girls

Katie was grumpy because she wasn't allowed to eat

the 2 bags of jellytots in her gift bag

Elizabeth used her new torch to check for snakes in the garden

(we only found mosquitoes, no snakes)

One Little Word 2016

Hello 2016!!  Happy new year every one.

It's taken a while but I've finally decided on my One little Word for 2016 - kindness.  It's not that I'm an unkind person.  This word just encapsulates a lot of what I want to focus on during 2016.

 

 

Kindness during 2016 for me includes...

• being kind to myself by focusing on self-care and taking better care of me on a daily basis, not only occasionally
• patience with the people around me
• being courteous to people, especially in the traffic where I spend many many hours every week
• being generous and supportive of people
• being kind to myself and other people by being calm and gentle and letting the small stuff go
• occasional random acts of kindness
• making time for what's really important to me
• continuing to unclutter my environment - at work and at home

Wishing you a very blessed 2016!