Rest in peace Les

Today is supposed to be a happy day, a day that marks the beginning of the advent and count down to Christmas.

But, sadly, it is not a happy day. Our friend and colleague Les, passed away this morning. She was diagnosed with lung cancer just 12 days ago. I have bearly had a chance to tell people. We had lived in hope until she was due to see the oncologist today. I miss her so much already. Her deep happy voice and the way she said my name, Rix. Even the last sms I got from her was Thanks Rix.

I bought a sunflower on Saturday and planted it on Sunday and vowed to think of her and send karma to her everytime I looked at the sunflower. This morning when I woke up, I looked outside and looked at the sunflower and had a very bad feeling. I got to work and felt suspicious. Howard looked a bit sad and when I went into our office, I thought Gail also looked sad. But I was relieved to hear it was just work "stress" and having to work over the week end, that was getting her down. Gail actually got the call from Heather midday and I saw Gail closing her eyes and saying " I don't believe it" I was too scared to ask, and didn't even think it could be Les, until she confirmed it was. Heather told Deanne and she went into Ronnie's office crying. Ronnie didn't even come out of his office to offer words of comfort, but I guess each to their own. He later told us that one of his clients had also passed away last night in Amsterdam.

But life just goes one and one has to suck it up. Work has been so hectic for everyone with the Irish being down so we just had to get on with it and save our grief for home.

When I came home I just lay on Thomas's bed and hugged the kids and shed a tear or 2. Thomas asked me how adults cry, and I said. "just like children" I asked him if he had ever seen me cry and he said, No mommy, are your crying now, because your cheeks are wet. Which of course made it worse!

I am so glad that Les got to celebrate her last birthday at our house in Feb, when we combined a girls night and surprised her with champagne, a home baked cake (by me!) and pressies. I still have the champagne bottle, as she sms'd me on their way home to ask me to keep it. I never got to tell her that I still have the champagne bottle. Well, now I'm going to cherish it forever, along with the memories of our lunch at the Brass bell, our drunken nights at the Avis box, including the night we got kicked out at 02h00 in the morning and Les had her car locked in the parking garage. What a mission it was to get out. The travel bags lunch that she invited me to. She was such a good person and even though she didn't have alot, she always gave what she had.

My thoughts are with her family - Her parents, and her 3 children, Jessica (7), Bradley (26) and Mike (24)

Death is not easy to deal with. We really have to enjoy and cherish each day as life is so short.

R.I.P my friend, Les. I love you.

We have a parrot in the house

I wonder how authors must feel when they've written a whole chapter and then somehow delete it by mistake or forget to make a draft or back up! I have just spent a little hour writing and I must have clicke on the "back" button coz I cannot find my entry ANYWHERE! I thought with this blog site, it saved to draft every few minutes, but obviously NOT IF YOU HIT THE BACK BUTTON!!!!!
I'm so tired how, I honestly cannot write more, so I'll just copy/paste a post I made on babynet a few days ago with a little update on Alexander.

"Every month older Alexander gets, I think THIS must be the cutest stage. Oh gosh, he is so sweet. He now repeats, or tries to repeat every word we say. He even says big words like Deleeeeeshus, to Taaasty when he gets something yummy to eat. He woke up this morning and pointed at Thomas and said his name perfectly. Before today it's been Bomas, Pomas, or just Mas. He sometimes leaves out bits in the middle, like he can't say Papa Joe (Craigs's dad) so he says Pa Joe. He can't say Caroline yet so he say Caline. When he wakes up in the morning, he spends a good 1/2 an hour in his cot just talking to himself before I pick him up. He goes through all the names he knows, Mama, Dada, Maya, Gogo, Dawn, oocie (lucy) Molly, Lola, Alex (our cat) Weeka (Rikke) and many many more. It's just so cute to listen to. When he gets hold of something that he knows he's not allowed to have, he runs so fast I can't catch him. He knows EXACTLY where the sweetie jar is. When I come home from work he runs to the fridge and points to the top of it saying, Schweetie schweetie. He also knows how to ask for things that he needs like Strawberries, juice, water, milk. (He LOVES strawberries, don't know what I'm gonna do when they go out of season!)"

This past week end, Friday night Mor came around as usual and we braaid some ribs. Cheated a bit on my weigh less diet (once again) that I started on Monday. Saturday after swimming and shopping I took Thomas to the spur. He played on the jumping castle and I read my book. I met Honey (Christy's cousin) who also came armed with her book, but she sat down (her daughter Morgan also went to go play with Thomas). We had a nice chat which was great, coz even though I've known her since she herself was a little girl, I've never really gotten to "know" her and chat to her, so it was a lovely co-incidence.

We braaid again Sat night. Craig had bought loads of lamb so we asked Christy and Phil and Aidan if they felt like coming round, last minute, short notice, but luckily they are far more spontaneous than we are, so they came for dinner. We had an early night as they have the wedding show on all week end.

Sunday we went to Jaydon (Lydia and Hugh) name giving ceremony. There was a lovely brunch, and the ceremony was beautiful. Lots of touching speeches, dedications and songs. Heather Mac's daugher Amber sang a lullaby with ironically woke Jaydon up for a view moments. Hugh sang a song on the guitar that he had written, and Heather's boyfriend, Mark ended off with a happy jolly song. Christy and Phil left soon after the ceremony as they had to get back to the show, and we left shortly after that. We braaid AGAIN in the evening, even though it had started raining.

And now it's already week end again. It has been a busy busy week at work. We are going to Tulbagh tommorow and then Bimse and Kenny's farm in Wellington on Sunday for their combined birthday.

When the days go by..

It is scary how fast this past month has gone since we came back from Denmark. I didn't even get a chance to blog about the rest of our trip, so in brief:

The wedding was AWESOME. A whole romantic week end. I said goodbye to Bjarne and Lisbet on the Thursday morning and went home with Tine, HJ, and Mor. We dropped Mille off on the way.

We had a fantastic evening the day before (Wednesday night) They arrived at 18h00 for dinner and Peter got delayed on the train so he only arrived at about 20h30. We had an amazing dinner as Lisbet always does. We had dessert at midnight coz by then everyone had had a few glasses of wine and Lisbet was well into talking mode and had forgotten that she had taken the pie out the oven an hour before. Tine and I laughed so much. Gosh, writing this all down now, I realise how much I miss them so much already. After dinner, we all went accross to "my house" where the billard/games room is. HJ and I played billard, and I actually managed to win! yaaay! Mille and Peter got on like a house on fire (first time they've met) and they played darts. Lisbet and Tine just wanted to chat, and Mor fell over at about 01h30 so she went to bed before the games started. At 04h00 we all went to bed. I woke up the next morning with a hangover that I haven't had in a long time. I took one bite of my breakfast and couldn't have any more. Luckily HJ had a good little pill that sorted me out.

We went for a nice long walk (mor stayed back coz he knee was sore from her slight fall)

We left after lunchtime, and I said goodbye, not knowing if I'd see them again. They did say they'd come to Julle's on the night before we left for a cuppa coffee and say goodbye, but phew, it's a looong drive there and back for a cuppa coffee, and they were going to some kind of fair down the road the whole day that they had to sell coffee and cakes, so I'm sure they would be tired.

So, the night at Tine and HJ we just chatted and I sat on the computer a bit. Tine suddenly felt very sick and even called the doctor, but felt better so doc got cancelled. Thank goodness, coz I was very worried about her being so sick just before the wedding etc.

We were going to leave before lunch the next day but we took it easy and left after lunch and got to Gilleleje hotel at about 16h00. We checked in and went to our rooms. I went into town with Tine and HJ and we went down to the harbour and had a quick hotdog. Beautiful little town. I was quite sad I didn't have more time to walk around and do a bit of shopping


Everyone else started checking in and coming by to say hi. When we came back from town, Sisse and mor were already having a glass of wine in our room. She was looking so relaxed and happy for someone that is getting married the next day! Britta also came by for a glass of wine and Maya and Rasmuss checked in (room next to us) and came for a smoke. That's the worst part about mor being a smoker, even in a non-smoking room, smokers make a plan and don't really care about the non-smokers. We got ready and went accross to the hotel for the tapas and welcome. Sisse and Michael had paid a fortune to get some red wine from Diemersfontein shipped to them specially for the wedding, so we really enjoyed that. Sisse and Michael had their welcome speech. We ate deeevine food, tapas (prawns, salami chunks, ementaler cheese chunks, chicken drumsticks and loads of yummy dips and breads) Sisse and Michael made us all promise that we would finish by midnight as the next day was going to be a loooong one. So that we did and said our goodnights at midnight.
The next morning, we all met for breakfast between 09h00 and 11h00. I wanted to go down to town again, but nobody else felt like going and even though Maya said I could borrow their car, I still don't feel comfortable driving on the right hand side of the road, even if it is a small town. So, I went for a walk along the path towards the beach but I never got down to the actual beach, but the view was very pretty. I came back and most of the girls were upstairs in the bridal suite keeping Sisse company while she got ready with some champers and fruit. Later we all went back to our rooms to get ready. We went to the church at 14h00. It was about 8 kilometres out of the town and we nearly got lost. We even saw Jeppe stopping the bridal car so that we could pass!

The ceremony was beautiful and of course Sisse even more beautiful. Michael cried as he saw her and that got all the girls in the church sobbing

We came back to the hotel for drinks and snacks and photos and then all got seated

The food was devine again. Some sort of white smoked fish with asparagus for starters and for main course some wild game baked in a kind of peppercorn pastry with veggies and of course lots of gravy. For dessert some creme bule, apple pie (famous for the Gilleleje badehus) and icecream in a brandy snap type basket. And then of course coffee and choccies out in the lounge later. The speeches were so touching. I think most of the women had to redo their eye make up couple of times. There were no songs, but that was their own request (not to have any) Even Preben's speech was very emotional when he spoke of Tida (the daughter he lost) and everyone shed a little tear again including him (and as he said, he normally gives the cheer up speeches

After dinner and speeches and all sorts of traditions, the band was setting up and we all had a good party and danced till the wee hours of the morning. The music was all Danish, but it made me feel so proud of my roots and so good to be able to spend such a special day with my special family.

We got to bed at 04h00! but of course the evening ended off with some "natmad" (night food) A gulash type soup and crispy warm bread. Amazing how hungry one is again at 03h00 in the morning after all the dancing and drinking!

Wonderful Copenhagen

Or, should I say wonderful Verup! The little town just outside the bigger town Dianalund, where I am staying with Bjarne and Lisbet.
It is so peaceful and quiet here and I really feel as if I am on a retreat. (Not that I have ever been on a retreat before!)

So, the departure was not as stressful as I thought it would be. Dawn came to fetch Alexander so he was happy to wave goodbye to me and left with her before we left the house. He had been a bit clingy that day, almost as if he could sense that I was going somewhere. So I was a bit worried he would cry when I said bye but I think I took it far worse than he did, and yet I was totally in control and felt as if I was just saying bye for the night. Thomas came with to the airport. There is so much construction going on, so unfortunately we couldn't see any of the aircraft. We said goodbye and Thomas and Craig went over to domestic side to see if they could see our flight take off, but Craig told me later on the phone that it was just as bad there and the spur was almost nonexistant, but they did manage to see the Emirates flight take off which took off about an hour before ours, so he just told Thomas that Mormor and I were on that flight. Our flight took off 1/2 an hour later than scheduled anyway.

The flight actually went quite well considering mor couldn't smoke. She drank quite a bit of wine, but she seemed ok. We had 6 hours in Heathrow which dragged on a bit, but before we knew it, we had landed in Copenhagen. Tine and Joan came through to airside to meet us (as they both work in the airport) Outside, Bjarne, Mille, Hans Jørn and even Michael had taken the train from Odense to surprise Mor, and of course Sisse, were all there to meet us. We dispersed and went our own ways. It is over an hour drive from the airport to the farm. It was so good to see everyone again. Bjarne and Lisbet look the same and haven't changed much.
The life here on the farm is very different to city life, but so much more relaxed and the pace is much slower. People are more friendly and not in such a rush as the Copenhageners are. What a lovely life to have as they are still young and fit enough to enjoy it and not have the worries of getting up early and cathing busses and trains to get to work. I think Lisbet is so grateful that she didn't have to work another 5 years at SAS. Bjarne still does a bit of advertising work here and there and writes a few articles for the local newspaper.

I need to go and pack now already as mor, Tine, Hans Jørn, Mille and Peter are coming at 17h00 for dinner. Lisbet is running around cleaning and preparing (some things don't change) and I feel a bit bad that I am sitting here here on the computer. Bjarne has gone off on his quad bike to paint the other gate. They are all sleeping over here tonight and then I got back with them and then it's off to the wedding for the week end. Then on Sunday I will stay over at Julle's and the probably at Tine and HJ on Monday night and then we leave already on Tuesday. The time has just gone so fast! but then again I knew it would.

Craig and the kids are coping well. I have spoken to Craig a few times. I haven't "spoken" to Alexander but I have spoken briefly to Thomas. I asked him if he was missing me and he replied "sort of" Well, it would have been far worse if he had started crying or something. So, they seem to be happy and thriving. I am very lucky that Zac and Dawn are so capable and love having them.

So, that's it for now, but I'll update on the whole trip, probably only when I get back.

1 week to go!

So, now it's down to 1 week till we go to Denmark. My feelings are still the same though I'm getting more heart jitters now. I can't wait to see everyone though, and I'm really working fast to try make sure all my work is up to date so that I don't need to hand to much over.

I still have 1 more week end to sort things out. Not quite sure what I still need to sort. Maybe I should start making lists like mormor used to do and pack a week before! I am hoping to get Wed 10th Sep off, as I have a hair appointment on the morning of the 11th and a meeting with Thomas's teacher the afternoon of the 10th, so I'm hoping I don't need to go back to work after that.

It would be now that Alexander decides to get so darn cute. I'm almost too scared to miss out a day of his life because he changes daily. He is a little monkey and imitates everything we do. He can't quite speak the words, but his tone and voice are exactly like ours. He also has quite a temper on him and makes it quite clear when he doesn't like something. More often than not, it's one of us taking something away from him that could be potentially dangerous. He just shouts NO, NO, and then tries to swipe at us with whichever object he is holding. Thomas thinks it's very funny but I'm trying to tell him not to laugh as Alexander will thinks it's cool and turn it into a game.
His vocab is coming on. He still says the arb words like baba, whenever he sees one. He calls Dada dada, in the mornings, so cute.He says Kitty and makes a meeoouw sound. He can point to a pictures of a cow, sheep, pig, horse and duck when asked. He points to his nose, mouth, teeth, ears, eyes, head, hair when asked and then points to ours. When he wants to have a bite of his food, he points to it and says "num" It is truly amazing how babies learn to communicate. Even though he only says a few words, he can make it very clear what he needs and wants. He gets quite upset in the morning when we leave the house, so I try to make our leaving as undramatic as possible. I just hope he doesn't cry when I leave the house for the airport, coz that will just destroy me.
Thomas will come with to the airport with Craig and they will wait until the plane takes off. Somehow I think it's good for Thomas to actually see me leave in a plane so he can get an idea of how far away I'm going, and that I can't just come home in 5 minutes. Ag, I doubt the kids will even miss me, I'm sure they will have a splendid time with Gogo and Papa Joe. Dawn will be taking Thomas to school in the morning after dropping Alexander off here with Caroline. He will sleep over at Dawn, so she will fetch Alexander in the evenings and leave Thomas with Craig. I hope it won't be too much disruption for the kids, but at least Alexander's day time routine won't change and he has stayed with Dawn and Zac so many times, he hopefully won't feel lonely or out of place.

So, maybe the next time I blog will be when I come back from Denmark, unless I can log on while I'm there, but I have so little time with my family I can't see myself wasting any time being online.

Chow till then!

1 month to go!

And so the count down has started. 1 month exactly till mor and I leave for Denmark. My feelings are very mixed. On the one hand I'm very excited to see everyone again, the wedding, having time to myself, no kids, no Craig etc. BUT on the other hand, it's going to be the furthest and longest I've ever been away from the kids. I'm scared I'm going to worry about them, wonder how they are doing, wonder if Craig is coping, wonder if they'll miss me, wonder if I'll miss them!
Everyone is telling me I must just have a fabulous time and not worry about them, but as a mother, how can I not!? I'm hoping once I get there all will be fine, and I'll make sure that Craig phones me every night to let me know how the kids are.

I think for Thomas, as long as he is happy, he won't miss me, and Alexander, well hopefully one day to him will be the same as 10 days, because I've been told that kids under the age of 2 don't have a concept of time. I'm hoping that is true, because he has become quite clingy lately.

The rest of Thomas's birthday went off very well. In fact, he had a 4 day birthday, starting with gift from Christy on Thurs night. The family coming over on Friday night and spoiling him rotten. The spur party on Sat night went down well. A bit chaotic in the beginning, but I think everyone got on and were comfortable enough. The kids had a ball, they were either jumping on the poor jumping castle, colouring in or playing video games and going on the kiddy rides. So that was really what mattered most. I had JUST enough party packs. I had made a few extra but they all went and Thomas didn't get one, but I told him his is at home, and he was quite alright with that. He got some lovely gifts from everyone and TJ, Kayla Mae and him seemed very chuffed when the spur staff came to sing their special Happy birthday song (or whatever it is they sing/chant/rap!)

We left at about 20h00. Poor mor was exhausted because I had left her on Alexander duty. He was happy though, sitting in the kiddy chair munching and sucking on ribs. Not sure how much he got to eat, but he was covered from head to toe in spur sauce and he looked happy enough. He was so well behaved, even when we left he was tired but not moaning or crying. He had his bottle in the car but still didn't fall asleep which is good coz he seriously needed a topping and tailing before going to bed.
I was fast asleep by 21h30!!!

08/08/08 - what a special day today!

What a date, the 06th birthday of our first born. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. 6 seems to be such a milestone age. Craig has been feeling very emotional this week about Thomas turning 6 today.

I honked and cheered along with Gareth Cliff this morning at 08h08 on the 08th day of the 08th month of the 08th year. Got a small tear in my eye to think exactly 6 years almost to the minute my first miracle happened and was lifted into the theatre lights to take his first breath of air and face the world.

Happy birthday our son, we are so proud of what you are and what you have become.

He has had a lovely day. He woke up at 06h00 and went to fetch his troublesome truck that Christy, Phil and Aidan gave him last night (they are going away for the weekend) we told him he could open them last night but only open the seal of the one this morning. I then dropped him off at school with choc cake (that I BAKED!) and cupcakes. Rushed thru my work at work and left at 12h00 to fetch him and Jake, who was coming home for a playdate. Unfortunately both Craig and I missed the birthday ceremony but Thomas was happy and didn't seem to miss us too much, so that is all that matters. We were a bit sad and Craig angry that we had missed it, but that is the price one pay of being full time working parents.

He had a lovely 3 hours of play with Jake (I had the afternoon off) and Mormor came over at about 14h00 and Jeanne fetched Jake just after 15h00. At 18h00, Linda, Jonathan, Steve, Mel and Gogo and later Papa Joe came to wish Thomas and spoil him with gifts. He got loads of more Thomas trains from us and a stunning birthday edition from Linda and Jonathan from Hamleys. He also got a Paddington bear dvd and stationary and car and more Thomas trains from us. From Mor, he got a new bike. He jumped around fro joy. I must say Thomas has always shown appreciation for gifts no matter what he has gotten, but to see the look on his face when he saw the bike shape in a black bag was priceless. I'll upload some pics once I have loaded onto the laptop.

We ordered pizza and had salad with it. I bought some cupcakes which I put 6 candles in and we lit them up and sang happy birthday.
Now Thomas and Craig are lying here fast asleep in bed next to me, and I guess I better sign off coz my eyes are also getting sleepy. But I just had to post on today's date! a very special date indeed.