Things that make up me…Thursday special

I did my piece of writing for

It’s write easy

last Friday about things that make up you/me

I feel I want to share this piece of writing and also an old clipping from 1973.

1.Things that make up me…

 

1972 – starting a new year, in an unknown town  and a whole new way of living for me.

After coming back from an awesome 3 weeks of touring South America I had to leave my parents home and start a whole new life on my own.I had been living and teaching for four years from home near Pretoria.

I got a  teaching job in Potgietersrus,starting January 1972. My first year there I had to stay in the hostel as part of my contract. Coping with teaching grade 2 in English(me as an Afrikaans speaking person) and looking after children in the hostel stretched my nerves to the full.

The hostel had two floors. The ground floor was the easy floor. Children from farmers who lived too far out of town were hosted there. They always went home during weekends.

The first floor had children from Johannesburg or Die Rand who were taken away from problem parents. They never went home during the term. They could only go home July holidays and then December. These poor children had many problems. They were from broken and poor homes.

Why I am writing about 1972 and my first year in Potgieterus has a twist!

On Facebook, I am taking part in, posting a photo a day. A topic is given for each day of the month. Monday the topic was trees. Someone posted a photo of a dead tree next to  Moorddrift monument. The camel thorn tree burned down some years back. A young tree is already growing there, very slowly There is a historical background to these trees. There were two big thorn trees growing on the side of the Nyl River. It was a good spot to camp for the group of Voortrekkers-Pioneers. During the night/day a nearby tribe came and killed the whole group. There were 6 children in the group. These childrens heads were bashed against  the two trees killing them. This is why the trees are historical importance.

May,1973 I took my std 1 class to this monument and gave them a lesson on the historical background on the moments there. A magazine, Die Landbouweekblad took a photo of us with the two big trees still growing at that time.

I told the person who posted the dead tree, about this picture. She asked me if I could show it to her.  After some digging in my boxes which I haven’t unpacked yet, I found the clipping and I sent it to the lady who posted it on Facebook.

I am very proud of myself because I first had to scan the picture and upload it to my computer, then I had to upload it onto facebook.

Now I am going to paste it onto my blog too!

The one in the green dress is me!

Visit Paula’s blog for more Specials

http://bopaula.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/thursdays-special-curiosity/

Gladioli : Flower power

Gladiolus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiolus

The genus Gladiolus contains about 260 species, of which 250 are native to sub-Saharan Africa, mostly South Africa. About 10 species are native to Eurasia. There are 160 species of Gladiolus endemic in southern Africa and 76 in tropical Africa. The flowers of unmodified wild species vary from very small to perhaps 40 mm across, and inflorescences bearing anything from one to several flowers. The spectacular giant flower spikes in commerce are the products of centuries of hybridisation, selection, and perhaps more drastic manipulation.

I have some gladioli in my small back yard.

Delicate!

Just a spot of sunlight!

Gladioli are half-hardy in temperate climates. They grow from rounded, symmetrical corms, that are enveloped in several layers of brownish, fibrous tunics.

Their stems are generally unbranched, producing 1 to 9 narrow, sword-shaped, longitudinal grooved leaves, enclosed in a sheath. The lowest leaf is shortened to a cataphyll. The leaf blades can be plane or cruciform in cross section.

 

Klip – Stone

http://blogs.litnet.co.za/tina/2013/10/07/uitdaging-klip-zephur/

(Challenge from South Africa)

KLIP

(STONE?)

Vandag was n heerlike dag in Upper Hutt.

Ons het gaan plantjies koop vir groentetuin.

Op pad terug kom ons by

KLIPPE
verby waarop boksers

uitgebeitel en geverf is.

Die middelpunt en beste uitbeelding was die volgende

Die klippe is by n boks gimnasium en ook n klein kerkie op dieselfde perseel.

 

FWF Free Write Friday

 

#FWF Free Write Friday: Childhood Gift

I still remember my best childhood gift. A sleeping doll with a soft green dress!

She was so beautiful I could not keep my eyes from her. When I held her in my arms, like a baby, she would close her eyes. Then when I held her up-right she would look at me with bright blue glassy doll’s eyes.

In 1952 my family moved to South Africa from the Netherlands. It was in the beginning of February when the journey started. My 6th birthday was going to be on the ship!

Next door to our home lived two sisters who, to me as a nearly six-year-old, looked very old. They were our neighbors and my parent’s friends. A day before our departure they came over and told me that they had a present for me because they won’t see me on my birthday later in February.  I opened my present,  and guess what? In the box, all dressed up was this most beautiful doll.  Her body was soft and her head, hands and parts of her legs were made from porcelain . Her face was beautifully painted and then those blue glass eyes! I will never forget her eyes. She even had on some white shoes and socks

I really loved this doll so much. I never like to give it to my sisters to play with. A year or two later my older sister played with it outside. She forgot to bring it in and the dew ruined my pretty dolls face. She   was never the beauty again.

 

 

http://kellieelmore.com/2013/08/30/fwf-free-write-friday-childhood-gift/

 

It’s write easy : How I felt when I started blogging

 

Describe how you felt when you did something for the first time!

This is my subject for the next piece of writing for

IT’S WRITE EASY       August 16, 2013

 

My younger sister has been a blogger for many years. She is also an intensive Face Book user. I have never been that interested in the computer and also not in using the internet. My son moved to New Zealand in 2005 and I started using e-mails to keep in contact with him. At first it was not easy to do because I have never really been an active internet user.

I moved to New Zealand in 2009 and a new internet era started for me that year!

In South Africa my sister used my Face Book page to play games or ”farm” in my name. I am not interested in all these games so I did not mind. My sister kept on nagging me to start blogging. I tried it! I could not make a success of it. I was so nervous at first to click all the buttons and also did not know exactly what to do or expect. My sister kept on sending me information on how to keep going. I still could not do it. It just did not want to work properly. This blogging site she recommended was an Afrikaans one.

Then one day I decided: “ To hell, with my sister and this Afrikaans  blog! I am going to try my own way of doing it.” I went to WordPress and one, two, three everything was in place and running smoothly. I was happily blogging on my own.

Shows you when you want to do something it will happen. I am already blogging for nearly two years  now. Thinking back of my first time makes me feel very proud of myself, proving I can do some computer work on my own. I even had to show my son, who is an IT expert how to use WordPress and start his own blog.

 

Protea : Festival of Flowers

Suikerbos

Proteas attracted the attention of botanists visiting the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century. Many species were introduced to Europe in the 18th century, enjoying a unique popularity at the time amongst botanists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protea

PINK ICE – Protea

Taken in my friends garden last Wednesday!

A Bouquet of 3 Awards

Yassmine from http://yassminelnazer.wordpress.com nominated me for this awesome award.

Thank you Yassmine I am so honoured to accept these three awards .

The  rules:

Display your award picture, on a blog post.
Thank the person who nominated you, and link back to them in your post.
Pass the nomination on to 15 blogs/bloggers that you have  recently discovered.
Contact the blogs/ bloggers, to tell them that you have nominated them!
Finally share 7 things about yourself.

Seven things about myself

1.  I love nature and  appreciate it every morning when I wake up.

2.  My body is telling me to slow down a bit but my brain does not want to accept it.

3.  I did not know that you could love a dog as much as I do Trompie at the moment.

4.  I am busy with a photography course which I really enjoy.

5.  I miss my family and friends in South Africa a lot.

6.  I have made some dear friends her in my new country as well as at Woordppress.

7.  I am thankful for my health and the way I can act and react to my neighbours and people around me.

15 bloggers I want to nominate are

http://wileyschmidt.com/

http://gobetweenflames.wordpress.com/

http://writetowag.wordpress.com/

http://unavistadisanfermo.wordpress.com/

http://lagottocattleya.wordpress.com/

http://rolbos.wordpress.com/

http://adinparadise.wordpress.com/

http://acrossthebored.com/

http://madoqua.wordpress.com

UNFORGETTABLE FLIGHT : Sunday Post: unforgettable

Unforgettable experience

The word “flight” brings back some memories from my traveling past.

I have been on a few very long plane flights in my life. One flight I will never forget is the flight from Athens to Rome and back to South Africa in 1976.

I was part of a tour group from South Africa visiting Greece. It was the Saturday of our departure back home via Rome. We visited the Acropolis before going to the airport. While on the Acropolis we heard a bell ringing and thought it was an ice cream cart. But no, to our surprise our bus driver was calling us to hurry up, we had to evacuate the site! We ran down the hill, jumped into the bus and we were on our way. The bus driver was in contact with the airport and the report said that the airport was closed we could not get out. Turkey had declared war against Greece because of the problems with Cyprus  and Macarios who did not want to give up. Greece was a military state! All men 18-45 were called to defend the border, All taxis and busses were used to take them there.

We had to wait in the hotel from the Saturday up to the Wednesday. The Wednesday Greece opened the airport a few hours for the tourists to get out. We hurried to the airport, jumped on the first plane to Rome. In Rome we were still stranded because our connection had already departed on the Saturday. South Africa sent two planes to Athens to pick up tourists. Guess what? We were not on the planes because we were already in Rome. The two planes were full house when they landed in Rome!

We landed the Wednesday night/morning 1 am in Rome. Without food, without money and  in transit. Thursday afternoon  when the two SA planes were gone we had to pick numbers out of a hat to see who will go when there were cancellations to SA.

During the early morning hours after landing in Rome I talked to a flight captain of a DC10 to South Africa and explained our situation. He said he’ll see what he could do to help us (we were a group of 36 tourists and my number was 32 in line for departures)

Well, I have to say, thanks to this flight captain. He was supposed to depart with his DC10 to South Africa at about 9pm Thursday evening. He did not want to go before we were  all on his flight back to South Africa. The airways had to cancel flights from Paris and Greece to make space for all 36 of us.

We did not mind the cancellations because we got the opportunity to fly back home.

When the captain said we were  passing over Potgietersrus we all clapped our hands and were very happy because now we were at least back in South Africa

Here we are: Rome waiting for what everto happen

Acropolus

Rock where Paul used to preach. At bottom is the bus waiting for us

On our way down in a hurry

Friendship Friday: It’s write easy

Today the 8 of February 2013, we started

It’s write easy

again.

We were only four people.

This did not scare us off. We did two pieces of writing and

we have some homework for next week.

Here are three busy writing their short anecdotes .

The lady in the middle is Audrey. She is our tutor and already 88.

Here are my two pieces I have done today.

February 8, 2013

Words:  train, car, storing, luck, books

Storing

After my husband’s death in 1993 I had to decide if I would stay on in Secunda, South Africa – where we have been living for 13 years – or move away nearer to my family who are in Naboomspruit and Pietersburg. At that time I had a job at the library in Secunda.

I got a job offer near Potgietersrus at the end of  December 1994, off we went to Potties.

I had to arrange to store all my belongings because I had to rent out my place. Everything was packed in boxes and ready to move or store before we went to Potgietersrus. I had to arrange for storage because I could not find a place to live  at first. I arranged  for a truck to take it to a storage company in Potgietersrus.

Luckily  for me ,I found a place to move in the Friday before the company would move my stuff on Saturday to Potgietersrus. I moved into my new place without having to store my belongings at first.

Storing is very expensive and I was glad to cancel the contract for storing everything.

Second Writing

Words: home, bedtime, rules, dislikes, color

Bedtime

Bedtime is the best time of the day/night. Everybody slows down. Everybody goes to his or her own bed or bedroom and there is silence, till someone disturbs the night with dreams or snoring.

As parents we are supposed to see that the young ones get enough sleep. It is so wonderful to see or be with a child that is happy before he/she goes to bed. I usually read a bedtime story to my son before he fell asleep. He always enjoyed hearing  certain stories over and over again. There is no use to put a child to bed if he/she is all worked up and excited.

A hot bath helps also to relax the body and after that ,a calm chat or story will also relax a child. Even grown up’s need to be calm before they go to bed, otherwise they will have night mares and they don’t want to go to bed because of bad dreams

 

“Braaivleis” in New Zealand!

It is/was the last weekend I am having with my son and his partner and his partners father for the year 2012.

We decided on a real traditional South African “braaivleis” (barbecue).  Mieliepap, vleis en sous.

I took some photos of what we did.

Die sous. (The sauce)

Onions and tomatoes + seasoning

Mixed salad

Tomato, cucumber, lettuce and kiwi fruit

Mieliepap

(corn/wheat porridge)

Cooked “pap”

Vleis

(meat, chops)

Before the “braai”

Marinated meat

On the “braai” (barbecue)

Ready to be eaten.

End result.

Lovely healthy plate with food for a king.