Daily reflect on at least 3 things that make me happy

terrible at keeping this up so byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

my friend Avalon is back from Spain today where she has been doing a pilgrimage for the past 6 weeks.

Well, she’s back in SA – called me from Johannesburg just after she landed. She’s back in Cape Town on Friday.
Damn i have missed this chick so much, the past few weeks have been hectic for both of us or so many reasons and i can not WAIT to have her back here.

All happy ow.
:D

1. an early morning email that made me smile (and smile and smile and…)

2.lying here in bed with Raph, rain on the roof, tea, ginger biscuits and books and a cat

3.the planning of pancakes for breakfast

1. hot weather
2. coffee
3. the beach at sunrise
4. trees
5. beer
6. taking photographs
7. the ability to laugh despite everything
8. honesty

1. emailing back and forth with my friend Zorena who i haven’t spoken to for a few weeks, planning a birthday dinner next week end for our mutual friend Vashnee.

2. I just heard some great news a few minutes ago and am enormously relieved and happy about it

3. walking through the antique market at lunchtime with all the cafe’s and the Afro-jazz live band playing in the middle of it all. Sun shining down.

1. a spotlessly clean home (thanks to several hours of hard grafting this morning. raph did a great job in his room, too)including clean bedding.

2. new creamy shower gel with a delicious fragrance

3. baking with Raph this afternoon

4. a sunset-time run on the beach this evening with a full moon already floating above, while the wet sand turned pink. the wind was gale force and blew all the cobwebs away from my brain (momentarily)

only 8 a.m and already i have a great reason to smile.

:D

downloading my mail before starting work, i got a notification that someone just bought me a Flickr Pro account! It was a total surprise and i am elated cos i reached my 200 photo limit on my free account a while back and just haven’t had the spare cash to spend on this.

another great thing is it was from a fellow 43ter. and get this, my camera was from one of you, and yet another of you made me realise that i have an international warranty on the camera which is not working properly at the moment, two days ago. amazingly i still have the warranty and i found out that the Olympus SA people are just 20 minutes dow the road from me.

Three 43ters provided a camera, a flickr account and some most useful information which means i can carry on my love affair with taking pictures – thank you!!

But mostly today thanks for the surprise gift today, it’s perfect

1. ISP 24 hour call centre and the nice boy who helped me get back online tonight.

2. work today. i had fun. lots of silly things happened all day, the mood was upbeat, i laughed a lot and made other people laugh which is always a great feeling.

3. a surprise phonecall i received at work today. that was the highlight, it was.

1. friends (specifically, online friends from here)

2. good work-out at gym today

3. walking in the sun to fetch Raph from school.

10 things for the weekend at Duck Pond Cottage:

1. complete silence at night – not even the distant sound of traffic, or a night bird. just the occasional “dink” of an acorn from the massive oak tree over the cottage landing on the iron roof.

2. no internet, phone, tv, radio

3. reading on the grass in the sun and falling asleep.

4. picking apples in an orchard

5. rowing on the pond with Raph, and watching him master the oars (he did good!)

6. the smells of an African farm – dry earth, pine and oak trees, marshland, heat, fire.

7. watching a windmill turn against an impossibly bolue sky.

8. Braaing

9. early morning walk with Raph and his new friend, Stoffel (the farm dog).

10 sunset seen from the koppie, with the impressive Matroosberg mountains turning pink.