Oltman Botha 1978

About 31 years ago to the day, an old buddy of ours - Baas Oltman - was born to the Botha household with much fanfare, celebrations, and great plans.

31 years later, he's grown bigger, grown older, and grown bolder (sic). Who would have thought he'd be celebrating his 31st birthday just 6 days after our fourth democratic elections!! Sorry to say, FF+ hasn't become the new democratically elected government, but at least they're still around :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAAS OLTMAN EN VEELS GELUK MET JOU VERJAARSDAG!

GROETE, DA'DIE JOHNSTONS

Braai at the neighbours (the Hoyer senior)

Mmmmmmm. Divine! Chops, porkies, steak, salad, curried carrots, three bean salad, potato salad, garlic bread.

What a great way to end the weekend away!

Here comes the sun!

Finally on our last day at the beach the sun has decided to join us! It has been an awesome time relaxing inside with the soothing rhythmic beating of the waves outside but being able to actually enjoy the entire beach experience (swimming and lounging on the beach) is just one step closer to heaven.

We attempted to brave the icy cold waters yesterday and it was do able, but for me, really cold (the rest of the group is just a bunch of polar bears. They're insane). Today has been far nicer. Earlier this morning we spent a good half hour floating in the water like a bunch of placated sea lions before beaching ourselves belly first in the shallows to enjoy a moment of quiet reflection.

It's almost time for a braai now with the neighbours (who also happen to be the owners and Steve's grandparents) so Kat and Steve have gone out to quickly enjoy a bit of low-tide foraging along the ridge (you might be able to just make them out in this picture in the centre of the frame against the backdrop of some crashing waves). Joe and I are chilling on the deck with some popcorn and coffee (no coffee for me though, because I'm no addict).

Good times indeed.

Sunday by the beach

Tea with the owners (Steve's grandparents)! Promises to be fun :)

Steve's new car

Vehicle of choice for our relaxing getaway

We are here. Look at what you're missing!

Aaaah. The warm sea air and soothing rhythm of the undulating waves caressing the shore - what bliss!
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Road trip to getaway by the beach

Today is the day to start our long weekend getaway. Steve and I are going away earlier than the others (Kat and Joe) and we are going in LUXURY (Audi A4).

It's a modern marvel of German engineering! In fact so much so, that we honestly had to read the manual to insert a CD (and we are both computer nerds with appropriate qualifications).

I'm looking forward to getting away from all the stress at home and celebrating Kat's momentary "transitional" unemployment.

Back home a certain Thai restaurant is fuming because we changed over the remote control access to the complex and their landlord didn't bother to apply for remotes for them. Naturally they think it was all my ploy to stuff them around even though the truth is we instructed our managing agents to notify ALL owners - even the "problematic" ones. This perception will no doubt just fuel animosity towards me and I should expect more death threats and physicality from them.

Ah well let's enjoy a wonderful week off!!!

300 (tonight you browse in hell?)

We've been blogging for a few months, and already we've reached the 300 mark. Not a massive milestone by any stretch of the imagination, but a handy number to blog about. Thanks for the Spartans and their small villa, otherwise I'd have to wait for 500, or 1,000, or something bigger, and that would be pointless.

I wouldn't quite say that tonight you dine in hell, but perhaps some of my blog posts make you feel that way. At any rate, we haven't got a sniff on the other parties in the elections, but if we hit 10,000 by 2014, I'll promise to consider running for elections - okay?

My name's BrYan, and I'm a citizen

It's now just after 7am. My fingers and thumbs don't even work properly because it's so darned cold. I've been up since 5am because of a prayer meeting at the church to pray for the nation and elections, and for the first time ever, I'm here to vote in the morning. Something Kat said about "you're up anyway".

I'm actually waiting in a queue to vote! I've never had to wait! Usually my complete experience of voting is waste my day away, drive to Atholl Heights, stroll in, make some jokes, get my thumb dotted, mark an X, and walk out (not without saying hello to my father-in-law). This time I'm actually waiting. It's insane. What a waste of my day. I've probably spent more time in this queue (five minutes) than I have in the past two elections.

Some dude is allowed to the front because he's on crutches. I knew I should have faked an injury. I'm trying to, but people are just staring blankly at me. Those blank looks remind me of Jacob Zuma. They must be ANC supporters. I'm surrounded by them. Reminds me of zombies. Mmm... Zombies ... Braaaaiiiiins ... I wonder who zombies would vote for?

This is a waste of my constitutional right to sleep in late on a public holiday. I'm an unhappy member of the voting public. And I thought it was illegal to canvas today - the IEC party is still running around everywhere, and their banners are all over the voting station. That can't be right.

And what's with the kids? How can they be allowed to vote? This is the strangest election I've attended.

My name's BrYan, and I'm a plumber

Early Monday night, as we were about to leave for a family dinner out (to celebrate Duncan's graduation), and to return Wendy's car, we heard a funny "pop-thud-thhhhhhhhhhhhhh". At first I just chose to ignore it, but after a few seconds I decided to go check out what was going on (read: Kat was panicking about the noise and needed hunky manly man BrYan to go and risk his life and limb to identify the noise, unwittingly encountering the first-ever recorded mythical beastie gargantuan meat-eating gecko and be consumed by its gaping maw, granting Kat an advanced yet futile warning of her imminent demise [this is my blog so I'm entitled to be dramatic]).

I investigated the noise coming from the guest bathroom (yes we have two bathrooms now! What a blessing ... I call the guest bathroom the Xbox bathroom on account of Kat playing on the Xbox while being on the bodger - it's amazing! You can bath and see the TV... You can pooh and see the TV! Bruce and Ant designed the bathroom with a man in mind!), and found water pouring out from the cupboard underneath the sink. Being the quick-thinking stud that I am, I opened the cupboard doors only to receive a jet of conveniently-directed steam to the face. Like any super-stud, I realised I had to cut off the supply, but had no idea where it was. By now the floor was covered in hot water and the flat was slowly flooding. I summoned our landlord, who arrived quick as a flash and directed me to the stop-valve, which was residing on the roof.

I climbed out, and, with my hands clutching to the railing like a rock-spider's hairy legs would to a rock (or something), I used my nimble foot, disabled the valve, and etched the next milestone achievement into my blog forevermore. I saved the flat. I was a hero. I was ... a PLUMBER.

Next began the mopping-up stage. Rolling my jeans up to over my ankles ala Tom Sawyer (sans the straw hat), I had managed to remove most of the water from the affected floor areas of the flat within thirty minutes. Kat rejoiced at my rippling muscles, studly aura, and quick-thinking ingenuity (no point in laughing because I can't hear you anyway. This is a blog). I quipped in my manly drawl "it's time to get to dinner now, little lady" and off we went...*

(*... And not a moment too soon, because I didn't want to be the first person to be eaten by the legendary gargantuan mildly aggressive bathroom gecko!)

Home Affairs for me!

Off to Home Affairs to collect my ID book.

Time now is 8:30am. Let's see how long this takes :)

...

8:41am. Job done.

Wow. Now I can vote.

Time to vote for change! Vote for Zuma! Amandla!

I wonder if subliminal messaging works...
Anyone remember the song by Trio? DA DA DA...

Reality Bits :P

Okay so please excuse Bryan's over zealous desire for blog readers....he gets extremely excited whenever a new person is clocked up on our counter...but he really doesn't mean to call you all losers and as is patently obviously, he is in love with the idea of having followers.

So back to reality and the normal mundane news of our lives:
We had a pretty good Easter break, Bryan and I managed to actually cook a leg of lamb all on our ownsome, Bryan sliced up garlic slivers and I poked holes in the lamb and jammed them in. We even got the cooking time right and it came our superb. We thought it would be a great idea to start our own little Good Friday tradition to make it special seeing as it is a really important day in history. So we invited Julian, Janith and Raphael and Steve for dinner (luckily we only invited 6 people cos I don't think I could have manged anything bigger and I only have fancy cutlery for 6 people :P) oooer looks like a face with a double chin!
Anyway, we had a lovely evening, Janith and Raph brought yummy cheese and sweet chilli for starters, Bryan roasted potatoes and I did Woolies roast veggies and Juliand and Steve supplied decadent peppermint pud and gino genelli ice-cream to round it all off. Was a good start to our weekend and was wonderul to bung everything in our dishwasher afterwards. Special mention to the Tilson family for giving us their dishwasher..it has been a dream to have. Hate to say it but we could manage with a maid only once a week now...just not sure how to tell her that the dishwasher has made her less of a neccessity!

I made Easter cake on Saturday and pavlova pudding for Sunday and then we had a bit of a bad patch which doesn't need mentioning of details suffice to say that marriage has its ups and downs and the result was a miserable night that has spurred us on to think of great battle plans for what to do so we are nice to each other even when we are mad with the other person. Easter Day was glorious weather and we had a great time at the beach flat that Mom and Dad, and Bron and Brian had rented on Sheffield beach. I got to do some boogie boarding (I know that is no longer the cool term but I don't know the latest term) and had a good swim. Lunch was delicious..Sarah and Rob Jobling joined us and we had more lamb and of course my meringe pudding (yum!) ...the Easter bunny came at numerous hours during the day (because none of us could combine our Easter bunniness sensibly), this completely befuddled Gracie until she decided she was going to stay at the beach indefinitely till she spotted the bunny even if it took till next year! One hunt for eggs meant mom nearly got her bottom zapped on the electric fence guarding Gracie from stumbling into it heehee...I really love the beach and thoroughly enjoyed the day :) Hopefully Bryan did too even though he ended up building sandcastles with Gracie instead of catching his longed for nap on the beach.

Bryan and I ended Easter at his mom's house hunting for more Easter goodies, having buffalo wings and a good chat till late in the night.

Hmm so that's our Easter weekend pretty much ...sorry this is a rather hurridly written post due to the knowledge that I am neglecting my work while I write. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too...more holidays to look forward to this month wahoo!

DO NOT FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!!

Welcome to LOSER-ville, population ... YOU

Hectic business here. Our weblog has hit over 200 visitors.
In 8 days we've had 75 visits. That makes an average of just over eight people (and one dog) per day. What is wrong with you people? Have you not got anything better to do than to read about our lives?? Why are you still here??

Operation Rescue Zim Mission Mission (ORZMM)

It's 07h30 on the 13th Day of April, 2009. The message comes in. Zim Mission Team 2 needs help. Should we choose to accept this mission, we must be ready to mobilise in the next hour and head for Vereeniging. We would be sacrificing our long sleep in on a public holiday, a network session @ UKZN, and any semblance of "day-off". We don't hesitate for a moment. The Mission needs us, and we could do with a mission.



The twins, Julian and Nick, are ready to go with us, but owing to the nature of our mission, we don't need a demolitions expert or a sharpshooter, and there's no room for the extra personnel, so we have to take what we've got, and get moving.



Hunger is hitting the mission team, with Jed Skinner radio'ing to HQ "are they going to be bring food?". We know the situation is getting even more desperate every minute that goes by. These guys need our help. The Mugabe Regime has even managed to infect Megan with some diabolical (or at least, it's dia-something) illness - those evil thugs.



Word on the wire is that there might be a rescue team closer to the extraction point, and now Kat & I are just spending the last anxious minutes waiting for the green light or the word to stand down. These avo sandwiches will have to do to steel our nerves in the interim.

UPDATE:
The mission was aborted. Not the Zim mission, but our mission to rescue the Zim missionaries. Turns out there was someone else nearby that could salvage them from their situation, so Kat and I were ordered to stand down. Which was a good thing, because I'd finished my avo sandwiches and I was starting to get a bit jittery again.

A minor taste of justice

Arrived at work today, only to find some jerk (ND628-783) parked in my RESERVED parking at work. Just on principle, I am tempted to vomit all over the driver's seat and stage a miniature protest all day long chanting "hell no you must go, hell no you must go", but I know that would be pointless, because I'm fairly certain this car belongs to some GEOLOGY field-trip participant, and I'd be wasting my breath for a week.

At any rate, I have done the next best thing - parked him in! Again, this may be pointless, but I feel a bit better about it (except that our car presently is uninsured since we are in that transitional insurance period). Oh, and what's more, the security guard on duty has now reacted by organising the car to be clamped.

Check out my moment of justice (I snapped my proud moment - do you think he'll get the message? I'm the white Honda Jazz at the fore)! At least now if the guy's around, he'll have to be inconvenienced to find me and wait for me. I pay good money for that parking bay!

UPDATE: The jerk was a guy called Neil from MATHEMATICS (some student); he had to ask my secretary to phone me to move my car. I took my sweet time and about twenty minutes later I came down to find the scallywag having a puff and waiting diligently for me to move. I said "howzit" and moved my car. He's lucky they hadn't clamped his wheel by then. Grrrrr.