The garden needs some colour

The forest plan for the garden has some drawbacks, mainly the lack of wide open spaces with enough sun to plant masses of flowers.

The herons keep an eye on the arums

We moved the roses a few months back, they really don't like the shade much

But when I left the hanging flower pots on the lawn to get some rain the gardener decided that was an instruction to plant out the flowers. So I came home to six empty hanging pots and a few flowers dotted around the garden.

The Noddy Car

Walter will kill me for writing about his beloved car as The Noddy Car

Prime position in the study, just beneath a (very old) picture of the children

Now Walter has never been a car person. Sensible, safe sedans with good fuel efficiency have successfully made it onto the purchase list time and again. "Cars are functional" he would say (with a fairly superior tone), "I can't understand why people are willing to spend so much money when there are perfectly good alternatives"

The dinky version, on his desk. Well yes, in retrospect the signs were there

So you'll understand my surprise when I got home from a business trip last year to find a roadster tucked into our garage.

Walter, embracing his inner boy.

I shouldn't have been surprised. When I worked on the Mazda business my client very kindly let me take one for a weekend so that I could understand what all the fuss was about. I think there would have been less fuss at home if I'd won the lottery - and, looking back, I only have myself to blame.His face, when I pulled into the driveway, was a dead give away. A small boy on Christmas morning, getting exactly what he wanted.

And it's great fun, really, to go for roof-down Sunday drives to distant country restaurants for long, lazy lunches.

It's war

Just going through the pictures from our short break reminded me of the the Marakele Vervet Monkey war of 2013....

No. It's not a prisoner of war. It's trying to get the bits of meat stuck onto the braai grid.

When I saw them moving through the camp on the first day I made a point of saying "there's a troop of Vervets, don't leave anything lying around"
We have not managed to get through nearly 28 years of marriage by Walter actually listening to me (I call this the wife white noise strategy) and he gave me his customary nod and smile and carried on regardless.

Sure enough - the very next day I spotted one making a lightning-fast dash across the deck, grabbing Walter's cigarettes off the table without missing a beat and leaping into the trees holding his prize aloft. Of course once he opened the box and took a sniff of the contents he threw it away in disgust (fortunately. I'm not sure how we would have removed them otherwise)