My sweet friend, Penny

A few days ago, Estelle, who with Steve, owns the Art Box which I manage, brought me a card from her post box. It was from my dear friend, Penny (here) in Canada. She has never omitted to send me a Christmas card since we met in Kenya, in 2011.

What a beautiful card with an even more beautiful and welcome bookmark inside. 

What a  blessing to be remembered by blogger friends. 

Many of  my blogger friends, also visit Penny's blog. If you haven't yet. do click on the link above . Penny travels to Africa every two to three years and in between she subscribes to assisting  the underprivileged people in  rural Kenya. 

Penny and I met online soon after we'd both started blogging about 11 years ago. We "clicked" and have communicated via the blog comments, e-mail, messenger on  Facebook and on Whatsap  ever since. 

In 2011, on  one of Penny's  trips  to Kenya, and while Grant and I lived  in Kenya,  she and I met  in  Nakuru which  lies 20  miles south of the  Equator. 

I  love  being part of Blogger and love the friends I've made here.  I   find it much  more personal  than Facebook  and hope  get to visiting you all again.

HAVE A HAPPY THURSDAY!  

Conference in the city (continued

Thanks to everyone who  commented about  my awards and doing the trip to the city and  back safely. Yes,  Sandra, that to me,  was the  greatest accomplishment! Over the years I've  become a  bit fearful of  doing long road trips on  my own. I need to do a trip to our old home town in the Free State some time this year. My MIL Pam turns 90 in May and  a few days later, my younger son, Angus celebrates his 40th birthday. I'm planning a trip with Grant's Aunts,  Gill and  Carol (whom I've posted about) will  also go up at that time. I want to arrange a party for Pam in the retirement center and later, join my son for any celebration my DIL, Amanda may be  organizing. All in the future and  gives me time to build up more confidence to do the trek up the hill  to Marquard! 

Meanwhile,, the plot  thickened at the conference I  attended on Saturday. As I bit into a banana, a  fellow group leader leaned over me and said the founder of the company wanted to  see me at her table up front. I joined her and she said  she wanted to offer me a position  of team manager in  charge of the Kwa-Zulu Natal midlands and Northern Natal including Pietermaritzburg, the  second largest  city in the province. 

 The company founder  and  me 

While it was rather a surprise to be offered this position, I'm still working daily at the art  shop in  the  Valley and where I've been happy for 18 months. So  for now  I'll continue with my afternoon groups  which fit in  with  my shop hours and which  type of work I enjoy more. 

At  the  conference I met up  with the group leaders whom I met in October and sat with my group leader and mentor who  trained me in September last year. Zulaika (I'm  standing next to her in  above photo)  is such an  inspiration to me. We  sat at the same table at the  event, and in between  the  talk and  later the awards, she gave me so many tips and ideas  to encourage new people  to  join Weigh-Less and "drop-out" members  to  return to the fold. 

I'm also planning to ree-open the group in Estcourt. I've beeen  in contact  with the group leader had to  give up the group due to ill health.  What  a  lovely lady. She is  arranging   with retirement  home where she is the admin manager, for me to continue to have a Weigh-Less venue at the Home. Once I have decided on  date to have an open day, (I'm  aiming at mid-February),  she will  send Whatsapp messages to her "old"   members and  hopefully  they'll pop in to meet me  and rejoin! 

So that's all on the  horizon  for me.  

HAPPY FRIDAY TO YOU ALL! 

Conference in the city

On Saturday I drove 180km (one way) from the farm to the city of Durban on the eastern seaboard of Southern Africa. I attended a conference - one of two held per year - for Weigh-Less. 

I left home at 6h40 in the rain. And turned onto the freeway in the rain. And drove all the way to Durban in the rain. It was hectic for this country bumpkin, hillbilly of a granny but whoopee, I made it there. And enjoyed the meeting and made it all the way back in one day! 

At the hall, I met up with the ladies from Pietermaritzburg and Durban and my favorite group leader, Zulaika Hoosen, (Ladysmith based) who put me through my paces last year when I trained towards becoming a group leader. 

The event on Saturday is held  early in the year,  especially to recognize  the Weigh-Less group leaders for their achievements during the past year. I haven't been with Weigh-Less for all that time - I only launched my two groups in mid-October last year. 

However, there I was being called up and awarded for being the most progressive group leader in the province. It was great to be acknowledged so early in my career with Weigh-Less. 

There were many other awards being given out - and ultimately the Group Leader of 2018 award was presented to a lovely lady, Sadia from Durban. As soon as it looked as if things were winding down and we'd soon be saying goodbye, I slipped off  to visit the ladies' rest room before embarking on my long journey home. 

When I walked back into the hall from the rear,  it was dead quiet and every head turned to watch me. The founder and chairperson of Weigh-Less, Mary Holroyd and her regional manager, Rouna were looking directly at me. Although I haven't been with the overall team all that long, and afterwards thought I was probably being forward, I pointed to myself and said "What ? Have I done something wrong?" 

Everyone burst out laughing and Mary said, No, you need to come up and collect your award as The Newcomer of the year  2018 ! As I walked to the front again, the other ladies all applauded. I was touched and thrilled to be acknowledged for my efforts albeit over the past four months! As Mary handed me my trophy, she also gave me an envelope and said, this is a voucher for you. 

Eventually we all said goodbye to each other and I left the city, hitting the freeway by 2pm and arriving home shortly after 4pm. Phew! I was relieved to have had safe trip to and from the city and know that next time I won't be so apprehensive about embarking on such a journey.

This morning I remembered the envelope Mary had given me and opened it. It was a pamper voucher for Woolworths to the value of R500! This translates as US$36 which doesn't seem/sound so much but is a king's ransom to me! Now I need to get to the city again to spend the voucher. 

The certificate, trophy (top left) and pamper voucher I was awarded at the conference on Saturday 

HAPPY MONDAY TO YOU ALL!