Rain. rain

It hasn't stopped raining since we woke up today, any thoughts I had about running have had to be quashed, well I did a yoga session instead , so I'm feeling relaxed and stretched in a pleasant way. I've just moved every singe houseplant I have outside into the rain, they can feel what it's like to be watered naturally. They seem very happy, I can almost see them smiling.
This kind of weather makes me want to spend all day in bed, snuggled up. It would be so great, I would read National Geographic and drink hot chocolate, maybe lie down on the sofa in the living room and watch a film. My Auntie Valerie always used to lecture me and my cousin that we should make the most of our teenage years , being free of responsibilities. I think I know what she means ,now there is always something that needs to be done, no time to languish around.
If I close my eyes, I see myself on an island at dusk, the sky purple as I gaze out to the endless sea. The sea is warm as it brushes against my feet, the breeze caresses my face and I feel at peace, at one with ocean and everything around me. Then I dance across the sand to the sweet sounds of calypso music, laughing and free.....

Hello again folks, I hope you had a good weekend. I just did some recording of a new track, it's a little bit crazy,I like it. I have only just written the song and not sung it that much,so each version that I recorded is slightly different, which drives Gerald mad. plus I pressed a few wrong buttons and will not be able to shut down the computer in case I have saved something where he won't be able to find it. Yes I am having a blonde moment and I am not even a true blonde.
Today I went on the bus with my Mum to help her get used to the routes, so she can start going to the nearby towns for shopping. She doesn't pay to go on the buses as she has a bus pass. It was quite enjoyable for a change , to watch the passing countryside from a bus window. My Mum enjoyed it as well, but says she doesn't feel confident enough to go on her own yet, so I will have to accompany her a few more times. She is very sweet though, she always buys me a little treat, it's like she is making up for all the times when maybe she couldn't give me all the things she wanted to when I was a kid, we weren't exactly rich in monetary terms. I was very fortunate though to have a happy childhood and for that I will always be grateful. Adios for now!

Lucky Susan

Friday again and the weekend is here. All those lucky people going out dancing tonight! We decided that soon we are going to go to a casino to win some money. I have a lot of experiences of casinos through working in them, they can be most entertaining, believe me. It is a unique environment where you can see grown men behaving like spoilt babies throwing all their toys out the window. Addiction in any form is not a great thing, but problem gamblers are bad. The greed just gets to them in the end, makes them turn. I want to go because I want to see if I am as lucky a player as I was a dealer. I had a reputation amongst the high rollers of London casinos as being one of the fastest, luckiest blackjack dealers, they used to call me "Lucky Susan, " some even refused to have me dealing to them. I could pull blackjacks out of nowhere, almost unbeatable, but when I did give money away, I would give it away by thousands. So there's another piece of information about me. Actually, I am considering writing a novel about my experiences in casinos, or how about the gambler's guide on how not to annoy the dealer? I could give some great tips. For example if you are going to play roulette, please do not insult the dealer's intelligence by only placing one chip on the layout, at least have the decency to play with loads of stacks and make it interesting. And never, ever be the first, last or only customer in the place, the staff will hate you. I could go on and on, but eagerly await your sarcastic comments...

Hello again!

Hi there everyone, pardon me for not writing for so long, but we had terrible computer problems over the weekend, neither of us could get online for more than a few minutes and it was all very frustrating and annoying, so much for technology. Also the last couple of days we have had beautiful weather and we got stuck into clearing up the garden. I've never really done any gardening before and I find it very therapeutic and creative, I love to grow things and be outdoors. So today we are going to go to the plant nursery and see what we can find. After living in a flat for 5 years, when every time we wanted to be outside we had to walk across the road to the park, I'm really appreciating what we have now. Like yesterday evening, i just opened the patio doors and sat outside with a cup of tea, enjoying the tranquility!
Went running over the fields and hills yesterday, the countryside is so green and the crops in the fields all have yellow flowers, it's like looking over a sea of yellow, very pretty indeed.
Does anyone know anything about dreams, I had a really weird dream the other night in which I was being haunted by a poltergeist, it was quite scary indeed.

Bob and the cheesecake

Drove home last night, the proud owner of a delicious milk-tart, which is a very yummy cake/dessert from my part of the world. One of my friends had managed to aquire one for me and I thought it would be a treat for my mum as well to have something from home. Reminded me of an incident that happened to one of my friends in Zimbabwe ( I promise this will be the last Zimbabwean tale of the week).
Anyway, this friend of mine used to work out near the airport in Bulawayo and used to drive at the speed of lightning. One day she was returning home and she just happened to have a large cheesecake which she had purchased for the family. She didn't know , but Robert (Mugabe) had just arrived at the airport and was on his way into town with his 50 car motorcade of police, army, ambulance ,you name it, not that he's paranoid or anything. In Zimbabwe if you hear the presidential sirens blaring you know damn well to get off the road otherwise you have a very good chance of being shot. So when she heard all these sirens approaching , she didn't take much notice at first, luckily for her she was stopped at a road block and was immediately surrounded by screaming police with guns, yelling at her to get away from the road. She was so scared when she saw Bob go past that she started crying and trembling. She asked one of the officers what was going to happen to her. He said "Don't worry madam, you will just get a ticket, one policeman will accompany you to the station in Bulawayo and you can sort it out."
So a policeman was duly selected and climbed into her car. She was still shaking with shock and all she could think about was the cheesecake getting ruined, so she asked the policeman to hold the cheesecake for her, and that's how they drove off into town. Only in Zimbabwe!

The Rise of Henry

I thought I would tell you about Henry today. Henry was my father's gardener when I was a little girl and he taught me some lessons about life that I even remember today. Both my parents used to work, my dad as a buyer in a big department store, he had an office that used to overlook the shop floor and it was always a treat to go and see him at work, where all the ladies would make a great fuss of us. My mum worked in the same store, but in the furniture department. This meant that on school holidays we were left alone in the house to be looked after by the maid and Henry. It was at a time when Zimbabwe was close to independence, although I was too young to understand what was going on, except that there was a nasty war. There used to be a big hill outside our house, I would come tearing down there on my bike, so of course if I ever fell off, it wasn't my parents who used to have to unpeel me off the gravelly road, it was Henry. Once I had a particularly nasty fall and Henry had to pick me up and carry me into the garden. He sat me down on the grass and attended to my wounds. My knees were all grazed and bleeding and he was doing his best to distract me from the pain. He took a penknife and cut himself on the finger and said "You see, we are different colours, but our blood is the same colour, we are not so different from each other." I have never forgotten these words of wisdom taught to me by the humble gardener.
A few years later, we had moved homes and continents twice, my sister went back to that sleepy little town in the mountains where we were born. She went into the store where my parents worked and guess who had my Dad's exact same job? Yes, it was Henry!!

Crystals before our eyes

If anyone was planning to come and see us play at The Rainbow Spirit Enlightenment Fayre, we learned yesterday that owing to licencing problems, they have had to postpone the festival (again!) until 2009! How disappointing.
The first time Gerald came to Zimbabwe with me, we went to stay in an exclusive game lodge that belonged to and was named after a girl I used to go to school with. It was quite strange, because apart from another family , we were the only guests there, it was at a time when the tourist industry had more or less collapsed in Zimbabwe.
Anyway, we had arrived there in the afternoon and later on we decided to go for a walk to a small dam that we had seen, it was quite close to the main road at the boundary of the lodge. The owner's dog , which was a very boisterous Rhodesian Ridgeback, decided he was going to accompany us and we set off down the dirt track to our destination. The heat was still oppressive, but just starting to cool off as we sped towards dusk. We turned the corner and the dam was straight ahead, and to our delight and amazement, there was a herd of zebra right in front of us. Our walk had miraculously and unexpectedly turned into a safari, for we also saw some other small buck and even more zebra. As the sun slowly started to sink down, the earth felt so warm and peaceful, we decided to climb up some granite rocks, to sit and gaze out and the landscape. When we got to the top, Gerald started to discover all these crystals that were just lying on the ground, it was as if Africa was welcoming him and showing him her magic.

Running in the forest

Today I was reprimanded for going running in a remote part of the forest on my own, it is the first time I have been out running since I got sick and I wanted to celebrate I guess. I get fed up of running next to the main road, and sometimes when it's busy, all I'm breathing is car fumes, kind of defeats the object. Gerald is going to get a bike now, and then he can ride whilst I run, and no I can't run that fast, I suppose he will go ahead of me and wait or something, in which case I will be on my own anyway.. but he is right , you never know what undesirable characters are lurking in the bushes these days.
Why is it that dogs always jump up at me when I run past them ? It must be because they think running looks like a lot more fun than walking along in a boring fashion. Or maybe it is just an instinctive thing. Today I came back with the overzealous footprints of a doberman pup all over my back. I'm a bit wary of dobermans as I was bitten by one when I was small, they are very highly strung creatures that need the right kind of owner. I still have the scar to show for that, I used to tell everyone that I had been bitten by a lion cub, ha ha.
Anyway the forest was beautiful dappled sunshine and the green shoots of spring ...

Leave the animals alone

Had a lovely day yesterday, even though we kept getting rained out, we still mananged to go for a walk in the forest and have a barbeque. Why is is that things taste so much more delicious when they have been cooked outside on the open fire? The grass is our garden has grown so long now , we must get a mower to cut it, in fact our garden needs quite a lot of work done to it. We have decided to leave the conifers as they are because so many birds appear to have nests in there and we don't want them to be homeless.
Have watched a couple of interesting documentaries recently, one was about the Greenpeace boat that stalked the Japanese whaling ships recently. I have a lot of respect for Greenpeace, even though they have a reputation for being radical, you have to admire them for what they do with their limited resources. At least someone is trying to put a stop to all the cruelty that is inflicted upon the animals of this earth.
I also saw a feature about the illegal practice of dog fights, the immense suffering and horrendous injuries inflicted upon the poor dogs is sickening, I can't believe that there are such warped characters out there that see it as some kind of sport.We can only hope that all these cruel people will get their just desserts in the end.

A Message for Thabo Mbeki

Yesterday Thabo Mbeki stated that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe, does he think the rest of the world is stupid or something? The man needs his head read and if I was South African , I would be ashamed to have such a man running my country. How can he ignore the plight and suffering of a whole country, he should be tried in the Hague along with Bob, they are as thick as thieves and both murdering bastards. Does he really think supporting Bob will do much for the international image of South Africa, it obviously suits them to have Zimbabwe in such a state. This would never have happened under Mandela. I will never set foot in South Africa again until Mbeki goes, what a joke he is. The MDC won the election in Zimbabwe, Bob is just a bad loser, a pathetic old man, in fact he is quite senile and a laughing stock of the world. His own people hate him and everything he stands for, yet he will carry on beating , murdering and intimidating, so desperate is he to remain president. What a sad, pathetic spectacle he is , a bad loser. What happened to the hero of Africa? One can only pray, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, that justice will prevail in the end.

Getting stronger

Had such a funny dream that I woke up laughing, what a fantastic way to start the day. I think I am well on the way to recovery. Before I went to sleep I had a large mug of Horlicks and some paracetomol, what a combination, highly recommended though. Anyway my dream was all about meeting people from my past, people I haven't seen for years. Maybe I was meeting them on an astral level. To think when I woke up yesterday, I was so full of aches and pains that I could barely move and now I just feel like me again. Gerald has composed a rather catchy little tune to which I will be writing some new lyrics. Don't know what is happening with this gig that we are supposed to be doing next mionth either, we have tried to contact the promoter, but he is ignoring us although we can tell he has got our message, so it looks as if he has blown us out, I just wish that people would be a bit more up front about their intentions and not mess us around. Just say it like it is and keep on clinging!

Discipline

I must be on the road to recovery as my appetite has returned with a vengeance. There's nothing worse than having a plate of delicious food set before you , then just being unable to eat it. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to waste anything and even in the hotel I was struggling to get through my meals. Now I can rebuild my strength and my fitness.
I was in the newsagent yesterday and I noticed that Madonna was on the front cover of no less than 3 major publications. No matter what people think of her, the lady has some staying power. She seems to be a big fan of discipline, which I can relate to, I think to be successful at anything requires tremendous self discipline. I feel uncomfortable if there is no discipline in my life, I feel unfocused, as if I am not achieving anything. Mt meditation teacher once said to me that there is a freedom that comes with discipline, because it keeps you steady in all situations. And when you think about it, everything has order in its existence.
Which brings me to the next question, can you ever have too much discipline?

Still cold

I'm doing my best to be positive, but I really am fed up with this nasty weather, it was snowing again last night and it is freezing cold again this morning. I think I am having a bad reaction to being ill, I just feel so disenchanted, ever since we moved here we have been cold. Plus I have spent all my precious time off coughing, spluttering and blowing my nose, unable to go running or accomplish much, apart from sleeping loads, which I am grateful for. Maybe it's just my body's way of saying slow down. But I can't help wondering , what is the point of all this life business?
I suppose the answer is to fight on, look at all the brave Zimbabweans who have never given up , against all odds they have pursued their dream of freedom and change and when I compare their suffering to mine, I have nothing to complain about really, so I should just shut up and get on with it.
Is that the sun peering through the clouds?

April Snow

Greetings everyone, we awoke again today to the sight of the garden covered in snow , we were shocked and delighted at the same time. What's going on, it's a funny kind of spring. I've just ventured out in the garden to feed the birds, I feel sorry for them, they must be confused, especially if they have little chicks to keep warm. There is a blackbird sitting on the wall now and he is calling out in a most disgruntled manner to me, as if he's asking me to stop the snow. We've even been visited today by two jet black ravens that had gun-metal grey faces, at least they all seem to know where to come for some sustenance. Even as I write , the snow shows no sign of easing off, in fact it appears to be getting heavier!
Today is the first day that I've actually felt normal since I got ill. I even ended up going to the doctor for the first time in about five years, she was very unsympathetic and advised me to go to bed. All very well but we were just about to go away on our pampering expedition.
I'm glad we did escape into a world of luxury for a couple of days. We had lots of hydrotherapy treatments, steam rooms, saunas, ice-caves, you name it. I'm sure it all helped in the healing process, it makes your skin feel lovely and soft as well! The hotel was grand, with excellent food and very comfortable, spacious rooms, I'm sure if you did stay there a week you would feel like a trillion dollars. It did make me really tired though, by the end of the trip I was falling asleep straight after dinner, maybe that's how knackered my body really is.
When we returned home, I was shocked to discover that my Mum was so ill as well that she had taken to her bed. Fortunately we are all on the road to recovery now!

Half dead

Help, my whole body aches and my clothes are hurting my skin. I keep shivering and am all wrapped up, despite it being a warm spring day. I can only ever remember feeling like this once before in my life, when I had real flu. Gerald is also feeling rather poorly and he is coughing and spluttering all over the place. Why did this have to happen just before we are due to go away? Well, I'm sure we will go by hook or by crook , even if we have to go in an ambulance, we could both do with just doing nothing for a few days.
The news is dominated by Zimbabwe again, as everyone waits with baited breath to see if Mugabe will go. I don't think anyone will believe it till they hear the words coming from the mouth of the man himself. I can imagine the atmosphere inside Zimbabwe is electric with anticipation. I hope that justice will prevail at last. Something has to change .