B is for Busy… also for ‘I’m Back!’
Part 4: 2018
Some years ago, I started this blog initially to record family events, so there would be a record of some of life’s significant moments, especially considering how fast children grow up. And so here is the fourth part of my catch-up, dedicated to my family, especially my beloved children, Liam and Matthew.
With love
Your mum
Xx
[Editor’s note: Not all details of the year are included but it gives us all a good snapshot, especially of some of the key moments]
2018
Introduction: A quick scene-setting paragraph for Liam and Matthew
We waved goodbye to 2017 and began 2018 with a trip to the South Coast, Kwa-Zulu Natal, with a really enjoyable stay in Scottburgh. It was wonderful to have a seaside holiday again; it had been a while.
Having spent many childhood holidays in Scottburgh myself, as well as camping trips with your dad before you both came along, I always remember this little seaside town very fondly. It has a fantastic bay for swimming in, and for families in general to enjoy.
In 2018, my beloved boys, you were in Grade 7, Liam, and your last year of primary school (12 turning 13 in April), and Matthew, you were in Grade 5 (10 turning 11 in August).
As a Grade 7 child, and now in the senior class, Liam, you were finally wearing the coveted blazer, trousers (‘long pants!’) and shirt with tie, rather than the more casual and practical uniform of all the younger children. May I just say that neither one of you was interested in posing for this photo here on the first day of school!
Your dad was working at the SABC, and I was settling into my second year of working from home, which had me becoming more entrenched in the worlds of engineering and IT clients, with our exhibition client also adding significant variety. In the photo below I am checking out some spy glasses at a security show we were involved in. It was super-interesting: James Bond-style gadgetry in real life. The mind boggles…
Life as a mom who was working from home continued to be a pleasant mixture of at-home time (luckily I’m usually quite disciplined) with just enough client meetings to make me tug on my corporate outfits from time to time.
As far as the animals were concerned, we began 2018 with darling Sasha, Nickelback and Lucy in our midst, together with the kitties: Sisha and Feisty, our two tabbies, and Mischief, the panther-in-disguise (in her mind) but also known (perhaps a little unkindly) as The Fat One to the Hoo-mins.
Lucy our Rough Collie was to turn one around April 2018 (and she decided at around the same time that she was now the Alpha dog in training). Poor Nickelback. He never stood a chance at being Number One, did he?! He is just usually far too polite and obliging.
Feisty was starting to become a Tame Tiger and was getting much less skittish. For some reason, the more you two boys grew taller, the more she trusted you and allowed you to cuddle her. She was extremely wary of you both when you were still small – she did not understand Hoo-mins in miniature sizing. Here she is posing with some treasured soft toys, pretending to be an ornament.
Anyway my boys, without further ado: read on for the story of 2018.
xx
Highlights from 2018:
January
Life’s a beach… for a short happy while, life was a tale of sun, sea and sand, interspersed with time-out back at our welcoming holiday flat, pleasant outings up and down the coast, great food and drinks, and a little spot of sunburn, which we soothed with aloe vera gel and black tea – and TLC. Isn’t it lucky that mom drinks tea as her preferred beverage over coffee? You can’t soothe sunburn with coffee grounds!
And so we returned home, and settled into the work and school routines after a great holiday.
February
Liam sat the De La Salle entrance exam, and passed with flying colours. His future high school – at a good school with great values and an excellent academic record – was now assured, much to his parents’ relief. Here he is on the day of the tests and interview, feeling nervous but looking polished. (He’s into his second year of braces, though, so no smiling.) His whereabouts in Grade 8 in 2019 was now one less thing to worry about.
April
Frank is normally camera-shy so let me post a photo of him here in my parents’ garden while the opportunity presents itself:
Similarly, I don’t always take photos of my mom very often, so let me post this lovely photo of her with her friend Mavis, Liam and Matthew, at the end of mass one evening.
Here are some photos of the boys reading – I’m posting them because it makes my heart happy! Of course, it all begins with a parent setting a good example…
Liam’s birthday – April
On 28 April 2018, Liam turned 13, and as he was beginning to feel confident on a skateboard…
…it was his fervent heart’s desire to receive an awesome bespoke skateboard from Alpha Longboards, Cape Town.
This was achieved with much secrecy and downlight telling of lies on the part of both his parents, thanks to his dad’s efforts during a work trip to the Mother City a few weeks before.
Now everyone in the family has a skateboard except mom…
Poor mom. It really is a boys’ house these days.
But that’s okay, I have my bike.
Click here to link to a cute video, courtesy Frank
May
In May we spent a happy day at the annual De La Salle highland gathering. It was nice knowing that this would be Liam’s high school the following year.
I used to do highland dancing when I was in primary school and I do love pipe bands. I basically sat down on the grass and listened to them for almost the entire afternoon – I hardly moved from my spot! My kind family members brought me food and beverages where I sat peacefully listening. I can truthfully say that it was food for my soul. I was born in Scotland, after all.
Also in May, work took me once again to the 2018 A-OSH EXPO event at Gallagher Convention Centre for three days: a premier occupational health and safety trade event organised by our client, Specialised Exhibitions Montgomery.
I do like writing the articles before, during and after this annual event. There are always such interesting things to experience and the content from the presentations is world-class.
June: my birthday month
In June, I had a significant birthday and I can only say that I was spoiled far and wide by family and friends, for about two weeks in total! Thank you, everyone! It truly was memorable.
My birthday began with a sneak preview at the Westcliff a short while before the actual date, thanks to the renowned generosity of Mike and Jane, who were visiting from England. It was a wonderful spoil!
(With really grateful thanks here to Frank, for keeping the home fires burning so I could enjoy some first-class luxury and a wonderful time-out.)
On my actual birthday, which was on a Thursday that year, I was again truly grateful for the two best gifts I’ve ever received: my children.
I took the day off work and began it with a lie-in, which itself is a gift on a weekday morning when one is normally roaring around on the school run and/or getting ready for work!
When it’s cold outside (it is winter after all), it is best to stay in bed for as long as possible. Matthew fully endorses this philosophy. He came to say happy birthday, and stayed for a while.
Liam is very good and mature at getting ready in the mornings. Much more than his mother (even on a normal day!).
Going to see The Incredibles 2 was enormous fun and I am a big fan of Elastigirl.
She, too, is a working mom who juggles home and career and quite literally stretches herself in all directions – teehee…
Thanks to my friends, my birthday this year seemed to go on for about two weeks…!
Louise introduced me to Saigon Suzy – what a treat!
Tracy, Clarissa and Sue-Ann decided to go with cocktails and of course photography moments..
When Suki and I go to Tracy and Clarissa’s home, everyone gets to play with the retro Polaroid camera. Nobody ever knows if the photo will actually come out, and the anticipation is out of this world. The Burrows ladies tell us it’s art… I am not so sure this description can always be applied! But it’s huge fun.
And finally – the joint annual birthday celebration with Anne, Mel and me. This year it was in Melville, at Love Me So, for cocktails and ramen noodles. Delicious on all counts!
And so ended a really wonderful extended birthday.
June: goodbye, darling Sasha
I do need to add in here, for the records, that sadly our darling Sasha finally left us, five days after my birthday, on 26 June 2018. She was with us for almost 12 years and we loved her dearly. She was truly a gem – don’t let anyone ever tell you that Dobermanns are not family dogs: in my opinion, it is an outrageous slur!
I was fortunate to enjoy the experience of having a Dobermann in our family when I was a child growing up myself, and then to have the joy of Sasha with us when Liam and Matthew were small, only reinforces my opinion that Dobermanns are wonderful dogs: intelligent and caring at the same time, as well as good-mannered! Her final departure, after a year of bravely fighting cancer in her right back leg, was peaceful and at the right time. We loved her so very much.
When the children were little, Sasha thought of them as being her puppies too – she adored the babies, and together we shared them. Not once was she ever anything other than gentle and kind with the children.
We miss you, Dobie Darling, so much, but we imagine you now running again like the wind, up where all the good dogs go (and seriously, is there ever an innately bad dog?). I also imagine you playing again with Frodo, and getting love and head scratches from my dad.
July
July was… cold.
July in Johannesburg is always cold.
Here are some quick snap-shots from what I always believe is our coldest month.
August
During August, at least the weather was starting to warm up a bit.
And now for a little tale of a science project: I came home one day to find my hairdryer smashed to smithereens. It turned out that the boys, big and small, were after the hairdryer’s motor for a science project. Aha!
They did a great job, and Liam got a really good mark on the final project – ‘From hair with flair’ – for transforming kinetic energy into electricity. I helped with the creation of the presentation booklet, and we recycled the painting from a previous school project…. just to be ironic.
Some time in August, Matthew was turning 11 (on 27 August), which was about to put our small one firmly in the tweens age! While he is known for having a personal art bag filled with pens, pencils, paper and other arty ‘stuff’, he took to the laptop to design his forthcoming birthday event invitation.
In the meantime, on the same day, Liam, who is normally king of the computer, had decided that he *could* tackle painting after all. (But when in doubt, do consult YouTube!) … And so this is him designing a new cover for his notebook. It was a peaceful, pleasant, slightly topsy-turvy morning.
Matthew’s birthday – 27 August
Matthew’s 11th birthday was on a Monday so we went out for cake the day before, and off to Bounce the next weekend with Liam and a few friends. Sadly we didn’t take any photos at Bounce – our bad – but here are a few pics of the cake and presents moments.
September: Frank’s birthday month
Unfortunately some of the photos here are very soft-focus, but Frank was especially touched by the gifts from his two boys, who each gave him a painting that they had created themselves.
Some more snapshots from September:
Here we see signage that represents a public service announcement in our house, meaning that the bathroom was currently occupied… by a gigantic rain spider that nobody wanted to disturb. As usual, it was left to Dad to carry out his humane catch-and-release policy.
This is one of my personal mantras for life, together with: “In the morning, tea is my petrol. I can’t get started without it.”
October – First holy communion
On the 28th of October 2018, Liam and Matthew celebrated their first communion together.
Since then, they’ve become experienced altar servers, and are on first-name terms with our parish priest, who is one of the nicest and most down-to-earth men of the cloth you could hope to meet.
My mom, together with their catechism teachers, was especially instrumental in getting them to this important point.
On the 28th of October 2015, three years before this date in 2018, my beloved dad – father to my sister Lorna and myself, and husband of nearly 50 years to my mother, Linda – had passed away after his battle with motor neuron disease. I think this was truly the saddest day of my life.
So I post these photos here now, because I am happy that we have another family occasion to mark on this date every year that adds a happy memory onto the sad one.
Liam’s middle name is ‘Ralph’, after my late dad, and it so happened that this is how his catechism teacher organised the candle – to include his middle name on it as well as his first name. It made for a lovely and unexpected moment on the day itself, particularly because of the sad anniversary.
Matthew. on the other hand, has two middle names – he is Matthew Ian Daniel, after some very special men in my life and Frank’s: the late Ian Gillies, founder and owner of Giles Restaurant in Johannesburg, as well as the late Dr Ion Williams, the founder and owner of Vogelgat Nature Reserve in Hermanus, as well as my late Great Uncle Danny (Daniel Parry Jones), entrepreneur and businessman, and World War II naval survivor.
So there wasn’t really room on the candle for Matthew’s middle names.
The candles are very special to me and have an important place in our home.
At first Liam and Matthew were immensely pleased with their new, grown-up grey trousers. And then they got itchy!
Here they are back at home with my mom, now in more comfortable clothes, and everyone can relax again.
November
In early November, we took the children to the rides at Gold Reef City for the first time. What a great day! Here are just a few snapshots.
Gold Reef City
Work hard, party hard
November was also party time on the work front. Nicky and I put on our glad-rags and attended a wonderful party in Pretoria hosted by a client.
Here you can see us before we went through, with our normal going-out makeup on…
…and here we are with slightly less normal makeup on, afterwards.
We could choose from about five face painters there at the event; we really got lucky with how talented and enthusiastic our lady was.
I just loved what the face painter did! It is quite a strange feeling to have your face turned into the canvas.
An Owl Story
And also in November, we met the owls…
We saw these actual little owls at an owl talk at Delta Park Environmental Centre on 17 November. They are so small and beautiful. Matthew, our family owl enthusiast, was in love, and Liam not far behind!
All the other children in the audience were also in their element. The owls were not at all stressed, and very well looked after. It was a real treat to attend! The educational and entertainment values were phenomenal. It was a really worthwhile evening. owlproject.org.
December: farewell primary school and hello again to Christmas
After seven years, which went by unbelievably quickly, Liam finished Grade 7 and said goodbye to primary school in December 2018. When we included the four years that he’d also spent prior to Grade 1 in nursery school, it seemed like even more of a milestone. I suppose it was bittersweet, as these moments always are: he had arrived as a very young child, and was now leaving, having entered his early teens. From not-quite baby to young man, it was a significant time frame.
I will never forget my mind’s eye view of little Liam (in January 2012) aged seven, going off onto the primary school playground in his brand-new school uniform for the first time, as I watched forlornly from the sidelines and wiped away a surreptitious tear.
I think it is fair to say that he had some difficult moments during his primary school years, as well as some corresponding highlights, and that he finished with his head held high. Looking back, I can only shake my head with a rueful smile and say that – in his mother’s opinion – Liam did not like studying much in a formal manner during primary school! This scenario was not improved when he seemed to find out early on that he had enough brain cells stuffed inside his skull cavity to ‘coast’ very well!
Nonetheless, we are very proud of his academic achievements overall, as well as his spirited moments on the cricket, hockey and football fields as a team player throughout these early years.
Liam also had some notable moments of excellence – and one particular triumph, in Grade 6 – with his dramatic performances in the annual National Eisteddfod, after which he was invited to repeat this same Eisteddfod speech on national television. (The speech, a very moving one, was about Steve Biko, one of South Africa’s heroes and martyrs in the years before we had a democratic South Africa.)
In addition to his strong performance, as measured by his certificates record, Liam also won the overall prize for Computers in Grade 5, and achieved an outstanding result for an outside exam in English that same year. My oldest son likes to hide his light under a bushel sometimes…
As 2018 ended, we were very grateful to his primary school for its unfailingly kind and caring teachers and support staff – with their strong work and fun ethics, and emphasis on academic excellence – while also being excited about his entry into high school the following year.
And so onto Christmas 2018…
First we put up the tree, which we usually do around about the 16th of December. It’s always a day I really enjoy.
This year, Liam and Matthew had really wanted some beanbags for their den – which I call the Man Cave – in our cottage. I struggled to find some, I must confess, and then found some being sold at the side of the road on my way back from a client meeting, one day in early December.
They were affordable and the colours were great for our boys – one blue and one black – so a deal was struck then and there, and I was able to drive home from one of my last meetings of the working year with the two gifts for Liam and Matthew that I had most wanted to find.
However, buying them was one thing but getting them into my little car was another task entirely – in comparison to my Panda, they suddenly looked absolutely enormous! I honestly don’t how the vendor got them into the back of my car, but he was grimly determined to make the sale!
They sat in the back of the Panda looking like strange alien life forms and taking up the entire back seat, so I instantly christened them Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They were so gigantic I couldn’t see out of my rearview mirror and had to use my wing mirrors during the drive home (quite disconcerting). When it was Frank’s turn to get them out on the other side of the journey, it was difficult! There was a lot of nervous laughter, mostly from me.
before they supervised the wrapping of the other presents.
How *did* they ever fit into my Panda?!!
Christmas is incomplete until we see my mom… and Rocky… and of course we raised a glass to my dad.
Rocky was very happy because he got to play the Christmas version of his favourite game, Squish On The Couch. In our family, we like to point out that Rocky likes to smile, and laugh, as you can see here.
And so we moved towards the end of 2018 and closed off a busy year.
Next up: Grade 8 and high school for Liam, and Grade 6 for Matthew.
To be continued… 2019 beckons.
thoughtsfromthepanda 