Quick update

My sms roaming on my phone is not working ;-( so I can't update to twitter.

Just wanted to let you guys know that we are having the MOST divine time!

We had all sorts of travel hassles to begin with: Imagine this - we get on the plane at Dbn and you know how I hate planes...... Taxi off to the runway and there is a problem with the plane! Freak out! We had a one and a half hour delay, finally got on another plane and very, very nearly missed our Heathrow flight in JHB... stress. Anyway, we finally made it to London unscathed.

And boy have we been busy since then! We did Tussauds, we shopped (Rox's baggage didn't make it to London with us...) We did the Hop-on hop-off bus. Very, very exciting - I met my first ever real live blogger! Jeanne from Cooksister. She is SUCH a sweetie.

And then yesterday we started our European tour. After meeting our tour group in London we bused down to Dover and then caught the ferry from Dover to Calais where we boarded our tour bus. We drove through Belgium - beautiful green countryside and the fattest, most content-looking cows I have ever seen - and on to Amsterdam. I LOVE Amsterdam! The canals and canalside homes, the houseboats......man it's beautiful. We did a quick soujorn into the red-light district and then had a lovely Chinese dinner. And today we have had a gorgeous brekkie and are now heading off to Germany. yay!!

Bye-byeeeeee

Paula is packing!!

We are leaving in less than 24 hours, so life Chez Richardson is pretty hectic right now!

We're all really excited, nervous and hyped-up. Rushing around like Duracell Bunnies :-)

I hope to post at least a couple of times while I'm away, but we'll have to see how that works out.
In the meantime, keep well, keep blogging and think of me strutting around Europe LOL!

Oh and if you want to follow along, I will be updating my Twitter daily - look down there on the left :-)

Horrible realisation

This weekend I discovered that I am more like a man than I thought..... and no, I have not discovered any extra body parts.....

I have a head cold, a nasty head cold. You know how you get the "ugly cry" well I get the "ugly cold" equivalent of that. All snotty, red nose, watering red eyes, cracked lips..... you get the picture. It's not pretty. And the worst of it is I am behaving just like a man!

Yesterday I took to my bed and I was pathetic in the extreme. I found myself doing that whimpery, whiny, sick-man kind of thing. You know, the croaky "Please bring me some ginger tea, I feel too sick to get off the bed, sniff, sniff" thing. Stagger to the toilet, clutching my brow.... all that kind of stuff. Too embarrassing for words....

Living in a shade of grey: Part One

Is it just me or do most of you find yourself living permanently in a grey area?

When I was a know-it-all teenager I had this idealistic view of what my life as an adult would be like. In “The World According to Gill”, all was black and white – no grey areas whatsoever. I had rules I was going to live by, I had a plan! When you read the next bit you’ll realise that I also seemed to be harbouring an almighty superiority complex!

For one thing, my marriage was going to be completely perfect for the simple reason that my spouse and I would communicate effectively! I had come to the conclusion, having witnessed first-hand my mother’s numerous and dire attempts at married life, that the problem with marriages on the whole boiled down to a simple lack of communication. So, in my marriage there would be a wealth of communicating going on. This would be achieved by having regular little meetings, where we would each have an opportunity to calmly and clearly air our grievances. Heaven help me, I intended to run my marriage as if it were a business!

This was probably the first colossal illusion to shatter. When I entered into wedlock at the very tender age of 21, I soon realised with shock and horror that in a real life marriage, even one as “perfect” as mine, communication was frequently reduced to grunts…. and sometimes one party (that would be me!) would retreat into sulky silence…. so much for communication. Welcome to the real world girl!

It dawned on me, really slowly and after a dismal period of disappointment and grieving for that “perfect marriage” I had dreamt of, that marriage is pretty much a grey area. It’s not a matter of it being either perfectly wonderful or absolutely dreadful. Good, honest marriage is lived somewhere in the middle of the two. It’s largely made up of those simple, ordinary, everydays, with bits of bliss and bits of misery sprinkled, seemingly randomly, in-between. It’s taken me a while, but now I can happily say that I’m perfectly okay with that!

One week!

We leave for our overseas jaunt exactly one week from today. I can't believe how time has flown!

Right now I am surprisingly cool and calm about the whole thing. I have made an awesome packing list (as you can imagine!) and 1001 to-do lists for myself and various other family members, so I am actually feeling quite on top of things at the mo. Probably because I haven't had much time to think about it!

For those of us lucky enough to wangle Monday off work, last weekend was a 4 day weekend. We got to spend the weekend in Pietermaritzburg of all places. Not that I have anything against PMB as such. During my years in Greytown, 'Martizburg was our nearest city and I spent an awful lot of time there and grew to love "Sleepy Hollow". But it's not the place I'd choose to spend a weekend.

Paula was recently chosen to be a member of our district's under 14 hockey team and this was the reason for our soujourn to 'Maritzburg. The provincial hockey tournament took place there over the weekend. Because of Grant's inordinately big mouth, he found himself in the position of Team Manager. So Rox and I got to spend the weekend at a B&B and Grant had the privilege of sleeping in a hostel, with only a handful of other men and a couple of floors full of noisy teenage girls. Geez I felt sorry for him!! Leaving him there all defenceless felt like driving a lamb to slaughter.

That being said, things actually went relatively well until Sunday night. Sunday night was an unadulterated nightmare. After supper Rox and I got back to our (as it turned out, rather dodgy) B&B to discover that the manageress person had gone off and left her sidekick in charge. Said side-kick was socialising with about 6 rather inebriated men in the back-yard.... By 10pm when the noise levels showed no signs of decreasing and the inebriated fellows had taken to walking up and down the passage, Rox and I decided to take our chances with the teenagers in the hostel! We jumped in the car with the bare necessities and arrived on Grant's doorstep. Like dealing with a whole bunch of whiny, exhausted teenagers wasn't enough - the poor thing now had whiny, disgruntled wife and daughter to contend with.....!

So for the first time in our lives, we got to experience hostel life. I can tell you I am extremely glad I never had to live in a hostel!! Non-stop noise, hideous bedrooms, draughty passages and total lack of privacy in the bathrooms.....definitely NOT my style!

And then the gastric flu struck..... By morning Grant and a couple of the other coaches/managers were "man down", our Under 14 goalie had succumed and was crouched over a bucket and was in no state to do anything... A hostel is an unhappy place to be IMO at the best of times, but when gastro steps in.....eish!!!

Thankfully we had only one match left to get through! We played with a goalie who had never been a goalie before, a few girls who were looking exceedingly pale and waif like (you're not actively vomiting girl, of course you can play!), 2 girls (including Paula) who actually limped onto the field and for half of the game we were a player short!!... it was not pretty! And yet those girls played their hearts out! I was so proud of them! We had to play one of the strongest teams in the tournament - who all looked very robust and had reserves aplenty - and the score ended up being 4-2 to them. Brilliant all considered.

So that was our weekend. I am still recovering!!

Lent for Liam

Okay I have been a bit slow on the uptake here (was too busy having hot flushes over Zac ;-), so most of my South African readers have probably already jumped on this particular bandwagon, but for those of you who haven't, here's the deal.

Wenchy of The Nocturnal Wench is in need of our help and being the friendly, caring group of bloggers that we are (we are, aren't we??) I feel we should all jump in and help out. Heck, if I was in a tight spot, it would be nice to know that my blogging buddies were there to watch my back for me. What goes around comes around people!

This is a brief outline of the situation Wenchy is dealing with (copied directly from Wenchy's blog): Liam has ADHD, suffers from extreme anxiety, panic attacks and is on medication for depression, concentration an anti-psychotic as he has bouts of hallucinations. A learning disability has also been diagnosed.

He is currently in a main stream environment where he is not coping and required remedial assistance on a weekly basis (as that is all I can provide at the moment), there is a professional who acts as Liam’s “scribe” since he cannot articulate the information he knows into writing, an education psychologist meets with Liam weekly and he attend a psychiatric hospital monthy to oversee his medication…. all which I struggle to provide with limited resources.

I’m petrified for Liam going to High School because there is no way he would remotely cope emotionally, academically or socially. Remedial care has been suggested by more than one professional caring for Liam.

I found a government school which will be able to help with Liam’s needs… I’m getting all the (many) forms filled in, doctors recommendations etc to make application to the school, although I’ve been told there is a long waiting list… and private education is just totally over anything I could ever manage on my own… so I am making application and hoping they will accept him.

Meriel of Robin's Perch, ably assisted by Shayne of Time Out came up with this splendid plan:

a. PROJECT SUSHI

Give up one plate of sushi - i.e R100, or better still, one plate per month!

In Meriel's words: For me R100 is a plate of sushi. I am going to give up one plate of sushi a month and sign up a debit order of R100 into the fund. That’s R1 200 into the fund for the year.

I will find 5 friends to join me 5 x R1 200 = R6 000

Their R6 000 + my R1 200 = R7 200

We are looking for 5 of you brave souls who love sushi (but Liam more) to do this too – we will have R36 000 in one year.

b. PROJECT THANKSGIVING

How about hosting a Thanksgiving Party?

You all know Wenchy has this tradition of Thanksgiving so use her past posts as inspiration.

You get to plan whatever party you like, invite your own friends and ask them each to bring R10 with their thanksgiving wish. 10 friends x R10 = R100

We are looking for 10 brave hostesses to take up this challenge – we will have another R1 000.

c. PROJECT MISTLETOE

When you get your Christmas bonus – please donate R100.

We are looking for 10 carol-singers to do this – we will have another R1 000 in the fund.

d. PLAN BLOG

If you have a blog – please tell your readers about this.

We are looking for 10 bloggers to do this. Hands up please.

Boom that’s R38 000 for Liam’s education fund – and that’s just the first year.

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Banking Details:

LJ Cadger
Standard Bank
Branch: Norwood
Account Number: 006 867 480

Reference: Your Name / E-mail

Facebook Group:

Lent for Liam

Good grief woman, get a grip!

We finally went and saw "17 Again" last night - Grant included, he would never openly admit it, but I think he actually likes chick-flicks and teeny-bopper movies. Or maybe he has learnt to tolerate them by force of circumstance?

Anyway, the thing is, and I am deeply ashamed to admit it, but I have developed this alarming crush on Zac Efron.... In the words of Katy Perry, "I was disgusted with myself" when I realised I was licking my lips at the mere sight of him on the big screen, having to wipe away a trail of drool from my chin..... Eeuuww there is something very disturbing about a matronly 40-something year old woman having decidedly dirty thoughts about a rather effeminate 20-something year old. But there you have it, I think he is smoking hot!! Yummy!!

Rox is adamant that he is gay. Could be. I have always had a thing for gay guys. I like my men clean, tidy, sensitive, cute......pretty much sums up 99% of the gay population doesn't it? (If you're reading this Charlie, don't be scared of meeting for coffee I won't hit on you I promise!!) The girls laugh at me because if I point out a cute guy to them, nine times out of ten his boy-friend suddenly appears around the corner.... Just as well I'm happily married, I'd be completely hopeless at trying to find a boy-friend!

Which leads me to wonder how on earth I find myself married to a big hunky, untidy (but clean!), not particularly sensitive, alpha-male kind of dude? My friends were all very surprised when I fell head over heels for Grant, but no-one was more surprised than me! He didn't tick one of the boxes I sub-consciously measured all my boy-friends against. The thing is we click. In some weird and unlikely way, we really, really suit each other.

I know for a fact that I could not live happily with one of the clean, sensitive, obsessively tidy guys that I am naturally attracted to; not for 5 minutes - that'd be waaaay too much angst and obsessiveness in one house. Nope. I need Grant to push my boundaries, to challenge me, to not put up with my sh%t, to give me a sharp reality check every now and then. And he'd never admit it but Grant would be lost without me - he needs me to be the one fretting about things, making lists, moaning about the mess, nagging about tasks left undone... Truth be told, every now and again when no-one is around he actually admits this!

The other night I was lying in bed after Grant had had a particularly alpha-male, butch kind of day and I was pondering these very things; wondering how on earth I find myself happily married to a man who likes to drink beer and sweat and watch violent movies.... shudder.. and then he leant over and kissed me good-night and then he cradled the little kitten that was nestled between our pillows and he kissed her good-night too and suddenly I knew why I married him..... somewhere in amongst all that testosterone there is my sensitive, loving dream come true!