2 Years ...

Can you believe it ???

We have been here in South Africa 2 years today, that's 104 weeks, 730 days !!!

And all that has happened in these past 2 years... all that hasn't happened too !!! that should have happened!!! that is still to happen !!! And things we wish hadn't happened either !!!

WOW! who would have thought that 2 years can go by so quickly ... and yet at times it seems to drag a bit ... (no actually I don't think any of it has really dragged...)

I remember sitting in my house in Bolsover just over 2 years ago chatting with mum & Paul , in the front room... where I did the classes and we were making all the plans ... how we were going to sell that house we were sitting in, build the house here in SA, move in, get my business up and running ... get Paul's business up and running and never look back !!!!

Girls ... do you remember the builders in, getting the windows done? that painter who insisted on walking around without his shirt on (yeuchh !!!) all the plans and preparations to sell ... oh! the farewell teas & dinners... packing up that whole house and the workshop ??? Getting it onto the ship ...sending my car... getting Indi sorted for her journey here ...

And here we are 2 years down the line, spent the first year living with June & Irena ... getting the house here started, getting to the stage we are at now, all the fun and stress we had finding out about the crazy watercourse on the land... stressing cos we didn't think we'd have the 6 months time to let the land settle if we land filled, so we went the expensive route of pile driving !!! the excavations, the rock blasting, the tree removals...all the hair raising, adrenalin pumping situations you have when your building ... and then this year NOTHING!!!

Where are we at now??? No further forward than 2 years ago ... well maybe 2 or 3 steps forward ... the plans are still approved, the land HAS been excavated, all the foundations ARE laid, the main house even has a roof on it, with the floors screed and the walls plastered BUT now until we sell that damned house in the UK we sit here in status quo !!!

Paul living and working in the UK, Kelsey and me here in SA !!!!Yes so we get to be a family and see dad only on school holidays and then it's sooo short !!! And the worst part of it all Paul leaves and goes back to the UK and we stay here in SA !!!

The changes in Kelsey over the last 2 years have been amazing though (Personally I think he is the only one in the family who has benefited from this whole new life!!!)... from being a child who did very little sports ... spent a lot of time in front of the TV or game console and had a 'chubby' disposition (LOL) to a child who's 'addicted' to rugby ... who enjoys all other sports at school too ... cricket, hockey, swimming, athletics & of course rugby. Who's gone from the bottom of his class academically to the top of his class in this last year ... has a social life better than mine (well anything is better than mine cos I don't have one LOL) a young man who is 'blossoming' (do young men blossom ??? is that too feminine a sentence??? what's the male form of blossoming ??? Kelsey would be horrified if I didn't make him sound like the young stud that he has become PMSL !!!)

Mum & I often sit here and chat about these past 2 years ... mum doesn't think she'll live long enough to ever live in her granny cottage !!! (sometimes I think she may be right, but then I have remind her that only the good die young and we'll have to put her down LOL) ... On the 1st October we will have been in this Town House for a year and I remember chatting to the landlord and saying I didn't want to sign a years lease cos we wouldn't be here that long !!!

Oh boy ... the things we've seen and done !!! the new friends we've made, the old friends we've become re-acquainted with ...

Gonna be interesting to see just what the next year brings ???