Caught in a summer's moment

It's been hot and muggy in Tana - real beach weather - for the last few weeks. I went for a ride on the old girl on Monday and came home with burnt forearms and singed knees. But as there is no beach within 200km, it's had me dreaming of my time in South Africa over Christmas (where it also rained too much, unfortunately).

But we seized the moment whenever the sun did shine, and when it didn't we built puzzles, drove to town for coffee and explored the quaint little villages in the area.

I love the beach. On days like this, it's worth dreaming about... Here are some special moments from the short time with friends and family.

(I've linked this post to the L.E.N.S. Photo challenge: This moment)

Puzzle-building niece. And in just a moment it was done!

A moment with no rain... The gulls and fishermen taking advantage.

Beach cricket with no rain. And in a moment. The Ball. Was gone

A little Jack Russell taking advantage of a beautiful evening - caught in the moment.

Watermelon - a perfect summer snack. And gone in the blink of an eye.

Cabin Fever

After five days of rainy, miserable weather at the beach house everyone is starting to suffer a bit from cabin fever!  My brother-in-law (seen here) has worn a hole in the couch from watching too many television reruns, puzzles have been done, scrabble has been played. Oh, for a sunny day!

Girls, girls and more girls

Girls are just different! I'm so used to boys after hanging out with the Midgley children most recently. But in South Africa I've mostly come across girls... Despite the differences, they are just as entertaining - maybe even more so:

My niece, the 5-year-old drama queen, overheard having a conversation with a six-year-old and four-year-old over dinner the other night about boys they liked ... Tahila (the niece): "I love Ryan, and want to marry him." Jocelyn: "You know he has to love God if you want to marry him." Tahila: "He does love God. And he loves zombies!" Enough said...

My sister always jokes that her three kids were plugged directly into ESKOM, the South African power provider, at birth. The same can be said of my friends Collin and Jacomien’s 5-year-old character, Abigail. I asked her the other day if she was a naughty child to which she responded, “Ummmmmmm ... only most of the time.” She too is a drama queen of note!

Little Rachel was very shy at first (when I went to visit them recently) but once she had warmed up she kept on showing off her latest discovery, the concept of time with, "It's time for spitting," at which she walked around the house blowing rasberries at me. Or, "it's time for flying ... please can you make me fly, uncle Robin?" And finally, at suppertime, "It's time for playing, and NOT for eating." That didn't go down well with the parents ... (And for all you anti-photoshop people out there - this pic was not photoshopped - this is courtesy of my new 85mm Nikkor lens)

And finally, my greatest fan - 11-year-old Zoe - who promised me at a young age that if I never found a wife she would take one for the team and marry me when she was old enough. Although, after this year's Christmas play, I'm not sure if this is still the case. The next day she asked her mom, clearly much-scarred, "Mommy, why did uncle Robin have to pull his pants up like that in the play? I don't think I'll ever forget it!"

A pseudo-Christmas

18-year-old Helen contemplating Christmas

It isn't in Mada, but it sure is madder... Every December for the last several years, whenever I’ve been in South Africa, I’ve spent Christmas Eve with a family who are like family to me ... Here Helen, second-eldest of four children, shares about this year’s gathering:

“Isn’t it true that dysfunctional families form dysfunctional habits, dysfunctional relationships and dysfunctional personalities? I will dare to add to the theory and claim that “pseudo-families” are just as incapable of leading normal lives. To support my claim, I will use my own as an example. "Family" at Christmas time for us does not consist of aunts and uncles and hordes of cousins coming over to crowd the house and join in the festivities, but rather of one woman and one man (who share no blood relationship to us) joining us ... 

Dearest Auntie Lou hails from Bryanston, not too far away, and this year came bearing gifts of chocolate and tiny cakes. Uncle Robin, keeper of this blog, had to be different and came all the way from Madagascar, bearing an empty stomach, an infamous pair of sunglasses and a camera that produced a jealousy within me that has caused me to, after 11 years of certainty, consider changing my career path in the hopes of someday owning a similar one.

Our pseudo family, like any dysfunctional family, is incapable of having a regular gathering. This, ladies and gentlemen, produces pseudo-Christmas, which this year fell on the 20th of December. The day consisted of way too much fruit cake, tree climbing by my ten-year-old sister and aforementioned uncle, an excess of photography, a rather raucous gift exchange and dinner complete with coke in wine glasses, crackers and cheesy hats. To keep sanity well and truly at bay, a nativity play was prepared by the adults. (Normally we children do the nativity – always with a different theme). My father played a rather disturbing version of Mary while my mother had to wear the pants in the house and play Joseph. Auntie Lou was the star, the shepherd and the subtitles. Uncle Robin put us all in counselling by playing the role of the angel in a tutu and horrendously short shorts. With time and therapy we trust that we will all recover from the sight of so much hairy leg. Picture the scene – the beautiful story of the birth of Jesus told to the music of a reggae Christmas, with some midget wise men thrown in, frenetic, hilarious scene and costume changes, a “star” flitting around the lounge and quotes from the A-team ... a nativity typical of our family.

While normality has never been an element in our gatherings, there is no shortage of laughter, joking and (say awwww) love. We don't keep our voices down, we don't follow the correct plot in our plays and we never ever act like polite citizens. But there is nothing pseudo about our happiness.”

The angel shares the good news with Mary, who immediately emails Joseph the news...

Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem on their trusty steed.

One of the "wise men" sees the star ...

The angels let the lone shepherd know about the Saviour, in song: "The hills are alive with the sound of music"

The "midget" wise men come bearing gifts for a very furry-looking baby-Jesus

Not-so-long-ago odysseys

“Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest” Ashleigh Brilliant

It's mid-October, we're two months into our school term, and I could seriously do with a holiday! I started off the new school year in August teaching Life Skills (which several of my friends have pointed out is an oxymoron - me and life skills) and Physical Education. Which was great. But I now find myself in the role of English teacher, brushing up on my grammar rules and Shakespeare and trying to prepare the Grade 12s for their impending SATs, as the English teacher left after just six weeks on the job.

At least my dodgy ankle gets to take a break. 

And thus the need for a holiday! As I don't see one even remotely on the horizon, I thought I'd post some pics from my holiday this January-past to Ile aux Nattes, on the southern tip of Ile Saint Marie, off the north-east coast of Madagascar. One can but dream!

I'd love to upload all of my photos here, but as there are too many, you can see the rest on my Flickr page.