A Day in the Life of a Labrador

Angie and Clarice OR Odie and Garfield?
Picking flowers

"I spy with my little eye"
or ...
Spy
...versus Spy?
Ladies, queue here for your daily dose of "Shine-a-Coat"

Sometimes forcibly administered!

Whoo-hoo! Time for water aerobics!

Now ladies, limber up!

Get rid of that double chin, girls: grip a plastic bottle and chew!

Megan, here's how to have a svelte figure like mine: s- t- r- e - t - c - h

Thanks, I know I'm beautiful

Meeting with a Muscle Car

We four friends met up again after many years
Chrysler Hemi 4,7 Litre, Turbo Charged V8 - all muscle car!

Metallic black with cream leather upholstery: sheer luxury

My husband watches longingly as Chris eases into the traffic

Two weeks ago my husband and I drove through to the city to meet up with friends, Chris and Theresa from Namibia. Chris worked with my husband in Guinea and he always babysat our dear cat when we came out to South Africa on break. Since we’d last seen him, Chris had acquired himself what is known in South Africa as a “muscle car” A large, V8, Turbo charged American car; a Chrysler Hemi, 4.7 litre (I didn’t know this, heard the men discussing it!) After breakfast in a fast food restaurant and catching up on old times, we went to the underground car park to have a ride in Chris’ car.

Once downstairs, I homed in on a security guard as I wanted a photograph of all four of us in front of the car. I explained to the man carefully in Afrikaans how to frame all of us in the on the screen and as I was showing him where to depress the shutter, he asked nervously (in English) “Do I push this button here?” So I said, “Now why didn’t you tell me you could speak English?” I heard Chris ask my husband: “Does Jo know this man?” to which he shrugged and said, “Jo speaks to anyone and everyone!”

To my husband and me this car was the ultimate in luxury. It had cream leather upholstery and the interior, spacious and comfortable, was finished in walnut. Too beautiful for words. Of course, when Chris swung the huge car out into the city traffic, he accelerated (just like a man, when he has another sitting beside him!) and the car really proved its muscle status. We are not used to cars like this in our country; it was an amazing to experience what people in America take for granted when it comes to transport!

A while later Chris dropped us off at the mall where our car was parked and we watched the car pulled off elegantly into the traffic.

Vegetable Garden?

My rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) thrives a flower bed alongside the patio

Above my husband digs up pototoes in the vegetable garden

As a vegatarian you'd think I'd grow all my own vegetables. Not so. I get so involved in my huge flower garden and then dash off to the greengrocer to buy my vegetables!

However, a year ago Emily asked if, together we could plant a small patch behind the windy drier / clothes line. We did and managed to reap pumpkins, spinach, tomatoes, beans, green (sweet) peppers and a variety of herbs. Last season I cut the eyes off my bought potatoes, dried and planted them. This year, we've enjoyed a quite a few crops of new potatoes. Nothing like a potato, freshly dug up with soil still clinging it.

A bowl of freshly-dug potatoes

Because I make my own compost, vegetables often spring up in my flower beds, under trees and around the shrubs. This last season I've had potatoes, pumpkin, tomatoes and parsley reaped from the flower garden.

This pumpkin, wreathed in cherry tomatoes, is actually growing where it should, in the vegetable garden

This tomato vine is growing in a herbaceous border amongst the aloes and other succulents

The pumpkin above is growing under a sweet thorn tree (Acacia karoo) amongst the day lilies (Hemerocallis spp)

This pumpkin, which we had for dinner last week, was delicious
Parsley growing in my herbaceous border amongst the indigenous daisies (Osteospermum spp)