We're Back !!!

Yup we're back in the land of technology, back home, back to the challenges of day to day life in darkest Africa ...

Sorry to do this to you but I'm gonna bombard you with loads of photos from our 'Spring Safari' at Entabeni ... Kelsey and I had the most fantastic, brilliant and wonderful time ... I have never known my child to be so quiet, reserved, polite and well behaved (well OK we did have the odd moments but I had to keep having to check if I had the same boy with me !!!) I am now convinced the 'city life' is a mitigating factor for hyper activity !!!! pmsl.

I had the most fantastic time ever with me bestest friend Nan, we chatted lots, caught up, drank lots, crafted lots, cried lots and generally did all the good things that best friends do ... and made loads and loads of plans for the future too.... ;-) oooh even more safaris and trips away yippee!

So this batch of photos were taken on our first day ... and Nan I apologise if I get the names all wrong ... I paid attention at the time but the brain has a few holes in between and so some of the info was lost !!! pmsl

This is a Blue Headed Lizard ... and boy was his head blue - you could spot them from far away:

And I think this is the female version - who of course is not so pretty:

Kelsey became a true ranger and spotted this little creature rolling his prize along the road, a Dung Beetle:

The view from Nan's front door, imagine waking up to this every morning:

As some of you will know I love birds and I really miss the little Robin that lived in my garden in the UK and the Blue Tits that visited. We do get some amazing birds here in SA too and Nan, who is a serious bird fundy and feeds them regularly and can even name the birds just by their call actually puts me to shame ... this little fellow is a Yellowbilled Hornbill and Nan has 3 that are frequent visitors ...

I did start a diary so that I could tell you word for word what we had done ... but that got boring ... so I'll just jump around and tell you bits and pieces of all the things we did and make you all jealous !!! :-)

Our journey up to Johannesburg was uneventful, we dropped mum off at my brother Kevin's place and Kelsey and I stayed there overnight and set off up to POLOKWANE early on Friday morning... it was a bit dull and overcast but that made the driving so much nicer as it was cooler. It's only a 3 hour drive on a good day, and the first animal we spotted on the way there was an Ostrich!!! We were at Lolandi (Nan's mum & dad's place) by 11.30am. Lorraine (aka Ouma to Kelsey) Nan's mum, Russell and Nichola (aka Loli, who by the end of the week became Lolita Chiquita Gonzalez Chihuahua!!! more on that later)were there to greet us.

Nan was working Friday morning so she arrived in time for Lunch as did Andi (aka Oupi Andi), Nan's dad ... we enjoyed a lovely lunch together but by this time it had started raining heavier so in Nan's words "TG I had a 4x4 too" !!! Yup you got it you need a 4x4 in that kind of weather to get out to their house on the reserve ... We set off at normal speed, normal gears, clean car !!! By the time we got to Nan's house we'd driven through all the gears including the high 4 in 4x4 !!! we did mud drifting !!!! that was fun !!! and my car went from black to red mud coloured !!! PMSL...

Kelsey was 'gob smacked' when he saw the size of the White Lions - they are being bred on the reserve across the road from Nan's place and due to the weather they were all together near the main gates so we got to see them ... also looking a bit red due to the colour of the mud!!!!

Now remember I’ve been to Nan’s house before, but the last time I was here it was empty, they hadn’t moved in yet … what a difference it makes when you see the place lived in … It was lovely when I saw it unoccupied but now it feels like LOVE has moved in and it’s absolutely gorgeous!!! The place is soooo big, needless to say we women spent most of our time around the kitchen table … the happiest and best place to be in any house!!! And Nan made us Vetkoek (a traditional South African food that you eat either with savoury mince and cheese or anything else savoury or you can have them sweet with syrup, sugar or any other delightful sweety thing) we stuffed our faces with both and of course Nan and I washed them down with a good glass of wine!!!! Ben (Nan’s hubby) came in from work … boy! He’d had a bad day – a Lion had growled at him, the Elephants had blocked the road home and he had just seen a Cheetah hunt … the stresses of working on a reserve!!!

Boy it gets dark there on a night!!! And we were told you can see all the stars in the world when there are no clouds… but we missed out on that one on the first night … but Nan had ordered sunshine for Saturday.

Next installment tomorrow :-O!!!