Jun
21
Today is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and if you go back and read my blog from the start of spring you will see that I wrote something like “Was that it? Was that really the best winter could dish out at us?”, but now I am asking – Where is the summer? I guess I expected the winter to be bleak. Everyone had painted such a terrible image of it, that when it was over I was left thinking – “Ok, was that it?” but now I am starting to lose hope that we will ever have a summer. I know I can’t expect the bright hot African summer that I am used to, but we are seldom even making it into the 20’s. So, if someone finds the summer lying around, looking lost somewhere, could you please bring it to England. [superemotions file="icon_smile.gif" title="Smile"] I think it’s not the winter that is depressing, its the fact that you don’t get a summer. 
Mitchell did say to me yesterday… “don’t worry mom, I am sure it’s still on its way”.
Roxi is still chewing her way methodically through the house. I had forgotten just how puppies can chew, and this little one is relentless. This week she destroyed my mobile phone charger and the mouse from my laptop, she steals our socks and buries them in the garden, she raids the laundry bin, nothing is out of bounds, anything that she can get her teeth around is free game, but she is energetic, fun and playful and she makes Mitchell and Jenna laugh a lot.
Jenna’s horse-riding is coming along so nicely. She had a wonderful lesson on Sunday afternoon. The beauty of this means that perhaps the “lead rein” role might be able to end sooner than later. It must be wonderful to sit on that elevated level and look down on your parents running next to the horse, dodging the huge piles of recycled grass. At the moment the lessons focus on the children being able to maintain their balance in a trot. As the horse speeds up she must be able to rise and sit in sync with the horse, so that she does not fall off.
Mitchell has ended up with the World Cup Soccer leaving somewhat of a bitter taste in his mouth. National pride and supporters vibe is one thing, and known only too well to South Africans who usually shamelessly display their support for their team or their favoured player, but Mitch has ended up in the unfortunate position of being the victim of mob-mentality at school at the moment. 5 boys in his class have targeted him and are relentless in their contempt and disdain for South Africa. It reached a point this week where Mitchell didn’t want to go to school. He just felt like he couldn’t take another day of it. He said that it wasn’t so much what they were saying about South Africa that got to him, but rather how it just went on and on, even during the lessons they would turn around and shout at him about it. I suspect it must be rough to be the 13yr old “lone wolf”. He no longer even wants to watch the matches, because he knows that no matter what happens he will face the wrath of the mob the following day. This does of course mean that I have changed my allegiance and beyond my support of South Africa (Bafana Bafana), I secretly hope that the England team will be on a flight home sooner than later – but that’s only the maternal me, the lioness.
My “couch to 10k” program is wonderful. One thing about getting motivated to start a new exercise routine is that you probably won’t succeed if you do it alone, and although I AM doing this alone, I have this electronic voice in my headphones attached to my iPhone, which tells me when to run and when to walk. I have never been a runner and quite frankly never really saw the joy in it, and even though I have done a few short runs here and there, I just never really got why people do it, but when you can see the actual results (even within 1 week), when you can see that the distance you ran last week (that almost killed you) can now be done without even getting out of breath, it is motivational on its own.
On Saturday Jenna’s school had their Summer Fair. Mitchell volunteered to be the target of Jenna’s sponge-throwing endeavours. I think he underestimated the power and accuracy of her throwing arm. It was a fun afternoon of games and English tea and scones on the lawns of the school.
The school year is fast drawing to a close over here and lots of fun activities are planned. I am glad we moved Jenna when we did instead of waiting until the start of the new school-year. It has given her time to settle in with new friends and become part of a lot of activities. She has surprisingly taken to athletics like a bug to a light. Mitchell too has a musical evening coming up at his school entitled “Music from Musicals”. He will be playing as part of the guitar club ensemble.
June 21st, 2010 at 4:58 pm
The problem with England in general is that they expect their boys to do impossible things with a football. Scoring a goal is not common sense if you are English. Letting the country down is the name of the game. They have been doing it quite well since 1967. Of course every football match has to have some pundit mention the 1966 world cup team and truth be told, that was the only time England actually knew how to play the game. The team they have now is useless. The coach is not useless so it doesn’t make sense why they are playing this way. Shame on those boys in Mitchells class.