Weekend 20 - 21 Sept 2014

We had an action-packed yet but restful weekend. 

Apart from several birding trips into the bush (and this week I WILL post about them and other things - promise!), we also had the largest blast on the mine to date. Apparently 90 holes were drilled and filled with explosives. Grant asked me to come up to the viewing point to watch with him, Thys (production manager) Poena and Touro (production supervisors) and Riaan, the new planning manager for the client.

I set my camera on Scene. The countdown began on Thys' radio and as Stephen, blasting supervisor reached "ZERO", I clicked away. 

In the center of this photo is a rock; right next to it a puff of dust is appearing and going clockwise around the open ground. To the right of the photo, also near the rock, you can see red flames as the charges ignite

An image of the full blast with fly rock which can be dangerous if you're in its path! 

 And finally, all dust settles, the blasters move in to check every charge has gone off and life resumes as normal! 

Now a quick update on our pups: day five

I'm so proud of Princess who has turned out to be a wonderful mother. She feeds and cleans the pups, rests alongside them. In between, when they're all resting, she goes into the garden, runs around the inside of the fence and then settles down between where Michael is working and where she can still watch the shed. 

And of course, the cute factor increases tenfold every day!

I'm hot, leave me alone!

 I need the closeness of my blankeee! 

I'm hugging my sister

I love my mama! 

Here's wishing you all a wonderful week ahead. 

Another Winter Sunrise over Khartoum

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Sunrise Sunset over Khartoum

Last week my husband had my camera (for the first time ever, perhaps it was after he photographed me going to the spaza shop!) and caught this vapour trail and airplane. If you click on the photo to enlarge, the aircraft is clearly visible(Photo credit above: Grant Hedges)
That is when I noticed by the pink glow in the sky, that from our east-facing balcony we were not noticing the most awesome sunsets. (I always take the sunrises from this direction) I dashed up onto the roof...
and was rewarded with this...


For the next few mornings I made sure...


...I was up on the roof at sunrise

One particular morning I was up on the roof

and captured these angel wings

Not being able to decide which images to post

I eventually chose these. Hope you enjoyed them

For more skies around the world, click here.

Sunrise, a sprain, air traffic, a kiss and cleanliness

On Sunday morning I went up onto the roof after "doing" the steps. However, I was a little later than normal. The sun was already rising so I decided to run without my hand-held torch.

This was to my detriment. As I started into my ninth lap, I heard something in the street below. I looked over the parapet and when I turned to carry on running, I tripped over the Cable TV Dish cord. (Served me right for being so inquisitive!) I hit the surface on my right side just managing to keep my face from grinding into the dusty concrete. I stood up, dusted myself off and took stock of the damage. I had deep grazes on my right elbow, -hand and -knee.

I limped indoors feeling very sorry for myself, had a shower and rubbed ointment onto the injuries. My left wrist, though not externally injured throbbed with pain. I'd obviously "caught myself with this hand. My darling husband popped into the pharmacy on the way home from work and bought stretch bandage and an anti-inflammatory creme. He applied the ointment and wrapped my wrist firmly. I must admit, the pain has abated and I'm almost sure that by tomorrow I can remove the bandage. I have continued to run, using my torch again!

Meanwhile we popped into the city on Tuesday for a few items. While waiting in a traffic jam near the airport, I managed to capture a close and clear image of a plane coming in to land.

The army was out in force and we spotted many low-flying defence force helicopters.

Come-on Sweet-Pea, give us a kiss...

Back home I took a few photos of our budgies. This is not easy as the cage bars always detract from the birds and little Sweet Pea is also still quite shy. She keeps diving into her nest. They continue to thrive as a pair.

When I unpacked the groceries, I looked more closely at the toilet soap we'd bought. I LOVED the "Strawberries and Cream" soap. You can actually see pieces of "strawberry in the cake! The other soap also tickled me:

It is called "Wake me up" ...

All in a day's work in Khartoum.

Sunrise over Khartoum

These photos were taken from my rooftop this weekFor more skies, click here

Keeping Healthy in Khartoum

Greek Pasta Salad - delicious

Having arrived here in our first storey Khartoum flat during the early hours of Saturday morning, all good intentions of healthy eating and excersise were set aside for now. The stopover in Addis Ababa which you can read about here, took a heavy toll on my healthy eating plan. The salads and vegetables served in the hotel, albeit delicious, [the salads]were drenched in high-oil dressings and the vegetables were cooked with lashings of butter. There were also hot bread rolls to die for and I had more than my share of these. However, I did manage to take two oranges to my room which I ate later while watching Amharic television!


By Monday I had settled into life here in Khartoum, so no more excuses. I had been to the supermarket with my husband and bought all the necessary staples and salad vegetables to make healthy meal options for myself. Pasta is very cheap, salad vegetables like cucumber, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers and lettuce are readily available at stalls on the banks of the Nile river. (I hope to do a post on this exciting excursion soon.) I made a deliciously crisp, tasty and low-calorie Greek Pasta Salad for lunch. It looked so fresh and tempting that my husband brought a plate and dished a portion for his lunch! I have posted the recipe below. It is delicious.

The flight of steps leading up from our flat

On Tuesday I had relocated my gym clothes which I'd left in the spare room before flying out to South Africa in September last year. At 6h30, while it was still dark, I was up, dressed and ready for my home-made excersises in lieu of my regular spinning classes back home. I run up and down four flights of steps inside our flat (forty steps); I do this five times. Then I go up onto the roof and do six laps of jogging around the top. I have to do this in the dark as it is not good for a woman to be seen in a tank top and cycling shorts out in the open. I use a hand-held torch.

Standing on the landing, I photograped the flight up to the roof and back down to the flat

I 'd like to treble my step routine in the next two months and do three times as many laps on the rooftop by then as well. I also have the skipping rope which my dear friend, Ida from South Africa blesssed me with last time I came up. I'll take it up to the roof tomorrow morning and do some skipping! I know that to real hardcore fitness fanatics this may not seem difficult. Yet for me who has been spinning for the past three years, it is quite a challenge to suddenly be pounding the surfaces by running up and down stairs and jogging on the roof.

Halfway up the flight of stairs to the door leading out onto the roof

Up on the roof - above and below

Herewith the pasta salad recipe.

Greek Pasta Salad (Weigh-Less Pasta Recipes)

Serves 1

100g Pasta, cooked weight

22.5g Olives

22,5ml Low Oil Dressing

30g Reduced Fat Feta Cheese
100g Cherry Tomatoes

50g Cucumber

25g Lettuce

25g Onion

Assemble the salad, drizzle the dressing over and serve.

Man, Machine and North African Sky

Earlier this week I posted about my husband fixing, among other things, the air-conditioning unit in our flat. You can read about this here. Ever the helpful wife, I took a few photos while he did the job.

Downloading the photos, I was amazed to see how clear and blue the sky was.

For more Scenic Sunday posts around the world, click here.

Blue Sky over Khartoum

Instead of wandering around my garden as I do in the late afternoon in South Africa, my husband and I walk up to the roof of our flat. There we have a view of the whole of Khartoum. Apart from greeting our neighbours going about their daily business down below, we also watch many planes coming in to land at Khartoum Airport. Surprisingly, the airport is a very busy one, with no less than 26 airlines arriving at and departing from the runway. I'll do a post on this later on.

After the downpour of rain we had this week, everything was washed clean and the sky was a clear blue.

Last night I took my camera up there and got many photos. I snapped away at planes arriving and then I spotted this aircarft (photographed above). With the speed it was travelling at, it was definitely not coming in to land in the Sudan. We thought it might have come from Cairo and be on the way to... (we know not where)

For more beautiful sky photos check out SkyWatchFriday.

It's Raining in Khartoum!

I woke up this morning to find my husband had left for work and the power was off. Power-outage in Khartoum is a regular thrice-daily occurance. Because all the ceiling fans and airconditioners were off, I could hear rain pelting down on the roof.

Sure enough, when I looked out of the window I saw that the street was a quagmire and there was hardly any sign of life outside. I've found that things get going much later in the morning. Africa only wakes at about 9h45 and slowly eases herself into the day.

I phoned my husband and told him the power was off. He phoned the nightwatchman of our building (who I'm sure was NOT impressed at being awakened at 7h30) to start the generator. A few minutes later the power was restored and I began to prepare for my day.
At the moment my day consists of sleeping until 6h30 - 7h00 (Unheard of back home in South Africa where I was up at daybreak to see to my animals and to go to spinning and have my quiet time) I have a shower, dress and go off to the kitchen to make breakfast.

There is a large variety of fruit on display in the supermarket. It is very expensive so instead of buying a bag of apples and a pocket of oranges as I do in South Africa, i picked out three firm looking apples and two ripe oranges. My husband had already placed a punnet of grapes in the trolly, not looking at the price, but buying them because I love grapes.

Every morning I cut up half and orange, half and apple and then cut them into pieces in my cereal bowl. (I store the other halves on a side plate covered in plastic clingfilm. I add a few halved grapes and then top this fruit salad with a few spoons of yoghurt. I'm not sure whether the yoghurt here is fat-free but I recognise the container. It's the same yoghurt we had in Guinea. As far as I can recall, this was NOT a fat-free variety. Mmmm. To complete my health breakfast I add two tablespoons of cereal on top and decorate with more halved grapes. Viola!

My North African Health Breakfast

These scone which I got off Lynda's blog, are delicious and easy to make

When my husband arrived home this afternoon, I had baked a batch of Lynda's scones. These are delicious and so easy to make. You can see her recipe here.

Hubby readily tucked into the scones, cheese and strawberry jam snack I placed in front of him

At the moment I'm cooking dinner in between writing my blog post. It has stopped raining and we have the door open to try and dry out the floor.

First Day in Khartoum

This is the first time I've worn a skirt in more than fifteen years. Women are not allowed to wear shorts (boo-hoo) in the streets so here I am, wearing a skirt

On my first day in Khartoum, my husband took me to town to buy groceries. The supermarket which he frequents was a lovely surprise. They stocked every possible item we needed albeit quite expensive. My favourite section of this shop after the fresh fruit and vegetable racks, is a refrigerated display case with all manner or delectable salads and exotic sauces. Exotic to me, but quite ordinary to the Sudenes and Egyptian people in this city. There is pickled brinjal (aubergine/eggplant) vinigarette gherkins, onions, beetroot, huge chunks of feta cheese and a myriad of pureed dishes of which I've begun to sample some. As the attendant behind the counter began to dish me a carton of "mish" (which looked interesting but I was not sure of the contents) I asked him if it had NO meat or fish. He assured me it was cheese, chillie and lemon juice, no meat. He asked if I was a vegetarian to which I replied I was. He dipped a plastic spoon into a creamy looking chunk of cheese and passed it to me, saying: no salt and no fat! It tasted divine so I ordered a few blocks. He told me the Egyptian name for it which I've forgotten, but said, "In English: cottage cheese" I was thrilled! My first day in North Africa and I've found a low-salt, fat free cottage cheese. Whoo-hoo.

The Gouda, tomato and cucumber baguette reminded me of being back in West Africa

After our shopping excursion, Grant took me to OZone, an outdoor restautant patronized by Expats and local folk alike. It is set in an island in the middle of the city but you would not guess it. You relax under beautiful shady trees between which pipes are strung. These emit a fine spray of water to keep you cool while you enjoy a variety of light snacks and delectable desserts and cakes.

The restuarant is set out under huge shady trees. A soft mist cools you as you enjoy the delicious snacks on offer

OZone, a popular gathering place for expats and locals alike. Ramadan had just started this day so the restaurant was very quiet.

The Blueberry Waffle and Ice-cream is to die for...

Sandstorm!

As we enter the colder winter months here in South Africa, my husband is experiencing hot and windy weather in North Africa. Apart from daily temperatures soaring in the mid-fifties, he is living through the most incredible sandstorms. These sandstorms, known as Haboob, are prevalent at this time of the year and can number up to 24 in the season!

Hubby arrived home from work last Thursday and photographed the sandstorm from the rooftop of his apartment. In his e-mail to which he attached the images, he wryly added: “Khartoum at its best; certainly not for sissies!”

Above is a photograph of the setting sun taken that evening. The storm had not abated, but it seems a little softer in this light!

The sun setting over a dusty Khartoum