Sunday Nov 16, 07h30AM. I'm at Cape Town International Airport, Departure Lounge. A familiar spot, but it's becoming harder and harder to go every time. It's not just the early mornings (although I hate those too), but more the fact that I'm leaving behind our lovely home in Cape Town ... and there's always so much to do that now has to wait until I get back again.
What makes it hardest though is our 'little' dog... Gandalf becomes restless the moment he sees me packing my suitcase and basically spend
s the night wandering around from one of his favourite sleeping spots to another. The moment I dis-alarm the house and open the bedrooom door, he pushes past me, gallops through the hallway, and sits waiting by the front door, as if to say 'you're not going to leave me behind this time!'. I absolutely hate it... and make up for it by locking him into the garden with a nice, fresh, HUGE ostrich bone ... PS. He now eats and drinks from a bowl on a stand ... he loves it. So much easier than bending ...
So here I am, at the airport, my second last visit to Windhoek before the end of 2008. The year has absolutely flown, but it's mostly been a very good year ... apart from Tim's times away from home, of course.
I spent all of yesterday working in the garden, mainly cleaning the pool, weeding and cutting back some of our trees to make room for some more building work, but also finally finishing the firepit area which Tim and I started two weeks ago. 
This involved carrying around 30KG bags of stone and since I'm trying to take on board everyone's warnings about not killing your back before you're 40, I went out and bought myself a nice green wheelbarrow. Gandalf thought this thing was very interesting and had great fun leaving one of his ostrich bones right in front of the wheel every time... We've had interesting weather in Cape Town. After a few days of decent weather, the rain came with a vengeance this past Tuesday and Wednesday. This put a hasty stop to the painting of the outside of the house, which had been making such good progress. The painters were back on Friday, when the weather unexpectedly turned absolutely glorious ... Yesterday was even better, and I was of course way too engrossed in my gardening to even think of sunscreen. As I sit here writing, I can feel the heat radiating from my back ...
What else is new in our world? Well, as always small progress on various things on the house front. The jacuzzi was installed a few weeks ago and we're now busy getting the decking around it sorted. It's 80% there, just a few last piece
s of decking and a nice dark stain to finish it off. We haven't been as lucky with the doors. The three sets of French doors we had put into the house had been without door handles and were permanently screwed closed for the last three months. I finally found what seemed a reputable handiman (he spent money on professional flyers - must be reputable, right?) to sort it out ... but alas ... Yes, we can now open, close and lock the doors, but that's the most positive that can be said. In the process of fitting the handles and locks, the guy chiseled away half the door and happily filled it all up with a bit of wood filler ... plus he didn't realise we actually wanted both doors to match up to each other when closed ... I mean, who would? We've decided to just add it to the list of 'less than perfect' things and just be grateful that at least we can get some fresh air into the house by opening the doors ... plus, if we keep the doors open, no one will notice a thing :). On the work side, all is well - Exceed work keeps us constantly busy and even the CLC side keeps on ticking over ... without any marketing from our side, which is great! It's all word of mouth as previous clients move to different organisations and phone out of the blue. We realise we can't sit back though. The economic crisis is certainly being felt here in SA as well and we wouldn't be wise if we pretended we're immune to it all.
I must go now ... only 14 days until Tim comes home (he has added a post below this one) plus we just got the very exciting news that Paul and Bee and the girls will be visiting us for two weeks in December. We can't wait!! It means that the pool will be put to good use with two little girls around and we'll be able to practice fitting beds into our office for February when Hans and Marjan are coming for four weeks. Exciting!
That's about all the news from our side ... more next week as I'll be heading down to Sedgefield this weekend for Tim's Mum's 60th birthday celebration as well as Ron & Barbara's 40th anniversary and June's 70th. What adds to the excitement is that Tim's cousins from the UK will still be there as well ... the sad part being that Tim will be missing out, but at least he's home for Christmas!
LOL,
-ange
These are pictures of the Oil Rig I work on. It is a drill ship aproximatey 150m long and 35m wide.
s the night wandering around from one of his favourite sleeping spots to another. The moment I dis-alarm the house and open the bedrooom door, he pushes past me, gallops through the hallway, and sits waiting by the front door, as if to say 'you're not going to leave me behind this time!'. I absolutely hate it... and make up for it by locking him into the garden with a nice, fresh, HUGE ostrich bone ... PS. He now eats and drinks from a bowl on a stand ... he loves it. So much easier than bending ...
This involved carrying around 30KG bags of stone and since I'm trying to take on board everyone's warnings about not killing your back before you're 40, I went out and bought myself a nice green wheelbarrow. Gandalf thought this thing was very interesting and had great fun leaving one of his ostrich bones right in front of the wheel every time...
s of decking and a nice dark stain to finish it off. We haven't been as lucky with the doors. The three sets of French doors we had put into the house had been without door handles and were permanently screwed closed for the last three months. I finally found what seemed a reputable handiman (he spent money on professional flyers - must be reputable, right?) to sort it out ... but alas ... Yes, we can now open, close and lock the doors, but that's the most positive that can be said. In the process of fitting the handles and locks, the guy chiseled away half the door and happily filled it all up with a bit of wood filler ... plus he didn't realise we actually wanted both doors to match up to each other when closed ... I mean, who would? We've decided to just add it to the list of 'less than perfect' things and just be grateful that at least we can get some fresh air into the house by opening the doors ... plus, if we keep the doors open, no one will notice a thing :). 
The last month has been thoroughly enjoyable as I have had more time off than (a ship's cat) normal and the entire 4 week period was spent with Ange doing a variety of stuff all over the place.
