The Quiet Life in Khartoum

As my alibi which I may need one day, you never know, my weekend starts on Thursday evening through Saturday. Sunday is the first day of the week in the Sudan. In Grant's job, he has an extra day off so we enjoy a three-day weekend!

Over the weekend I cleaned the fridge and of course, my Shadow was there to help. Perhaps he's striking the same pose as the cat on the tin of food in between the old veges on the bottom shelf!

In between my chores, I sat at my laptop and wrote 

With Shadow taking up most of my office chair

 

I also managed (after trying for about a week) to slip the harness onto Shadow.  Has anyone out there ever tried to slip anything on cat? Very difficult and fraught with the danger of being clawed and bitten!  We brought the harness back from South Africa and we're trying to teach him to...

...walkies! So far, even with Grant holding the leash and me tempting him with a piece of string with one hand, holding the camera with the other,  this is as far as we got over the weekend. It is my darling husband's desire to walk his cat in the neighbourhood. I'll keep you informed!

I photographed new visitors to the bird feeder on the balcony. Above is one of them: a Cut-throat finch. Rather fierce looking bird with the red slash around his neck

What's that dear? Do I look fierce? Nah, it's just a new neckerchief

A quick shake to dry my feathers

Mmm, I like this lassie

OK, how about a kiss then!

Above is a map of South Africa showing a little of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique at the top. The blob in the middle of the map marked "Les" is a country called Lesotho. We live in a small town between the western border of Lesotho and Bloemfontein. Our younger son Angus, his wife Amanda and their little boy live there as well.

Just above the country "Les" /Lesotho is the name Njasuti (a Zulu word for "fat dog") and that is where our older son, John, our daughter-in-law, Debbie and their four children live in the Drakensberg mountains. Gaelyn, I'm sure you recognize the area!

And last but definitely not least, we met some lovely South Africans outside the supermarket on Saturday. (that's why I've posted the SA map!) As you know, previously I mentioned that when we've approached expats in Khartoum and asked them where they're from, we'd get a non-commital reply or we are ignored. Last week we met up with three lovely young teachers on our trip to the temples in the desert;  two from Australia and one from Ethiopia. And we had a real catch-up on Western company.

Today as we walked towards the supermarket, there was a group of four men and one lady standing on the steps. One man called out the greeting: More which is "good morning" in Afrikaans. Grant replied and soon we were all chatting like old friends. We parted a few minutes later having exchanged business cards and promises to get in touch with each other.

To find out what other bloggers did over the weekend, click here

The Arabic for fridge is Thlājh (pronounced talayah)

The Arabic for laptop is al-Kmbywtr al-Mḩmwl (pronounced computer a mhemwel )