Back home in South Africa

We left Nairobi at 16h00 on Thursday, arrived in Johannesburg four hours later,  overnighted at a hotel and caught the first flight on Friday morning to Bloemfontein. This is the nearest city to our home town of Marquard.

On Friday morning, the sun rose as we took off over Johannesburg. I managed to photograph the beautiful, soft early morning rays on the wing tip and clouds below

Albie's kennels, where Shadow's been boarding for 100 days, is a mere three kilometers from the airport. So our first stop was to collect our kitty who'd crept into Albie's heart that she said we should actually buy him back from her!

Back home, as soon as I opened the cat travel cage in our bedroom, Shadow crept out (cat's are naturally cautious, but he was even more so!) and began to sniff all around the room. By last night he'd remembered everything he left three months ago and had settled in so well, that he spent the night sleeping on my head!

Once again, Shadow has taken up his position as my shadow! I couldn't get a photo of him, as he'd constantly rub against my legs or as in the photo above, up against the camera lens 

Chip, our second oldest cat at twelve years old,  didn't forget us either. She jumped into Grant's arms and purred and rubbed her head against his face

Tigger, (ginger cat in the foreground) who turned fifteen last month, still spritely and also remembered us, although it took him quite a few hours longer to approach us. Angie, our black Labrador rescue dog, soaks up the sun while waiting for her evening snack of dog biscuits

Megan in serious need of grooming, and Eddie sit and wait for their cookies. All three the dogs were ecstatic when we arrived home and it took some juggling to pat each one over and over again, while they wriggled, squealed and wagged their tails with happiness

Felix calls for food while his brother, Puff hides out of sight around the corner. They also took a while to come forward and greet us, but now they hang around us whenever we're outdoors