Friday, 13 April 2012

‘n Boer maak ‘n plan! (A farmer makes a plan!)


Yesterday was quiet uneventful (thankfully!) until the late afternoon. Dieter and Ryan went for a 9km cycle and I took Jed, Ethan and Aimee for a walk which took us about 40 minutes to complete. It was around 5pm and we were all home again when Dieter decided that he’d put up a tent and camp in the garden with the boys. Ouma was whipping up a delicious seafood and chicken paella for dinner so the rest of us were free to help Dieter put up the tent and organise beds for the night. Aimee was originally quite keen to sleep in the tent too, but at the last minute (literally!) opted to spend the night indoors with me. The boys were all very excited to sleep in the tent with Dieter.

We first watched Big Break Legacy, an entrepreneurial challenge programme which the older boys really enjoy watching. It was followed by ‘The Titanic’ and Ryan and Jed were VERY keen to watch it, so I stayed awake with them until close to midnight (thanks to all the ad breaks!) Its not often we stay awake that late into the night, and I knew there would be consequences! I took Ryan and Jed out to the tent just before midnight and crawled into bed. I woke a few times in the very short 6 hours that I was in bed: Dieter was awoken and couldn’t fall back asleep and being cold and hungry decided to come indoors and find some food and a warmer, more comfortable bed. (He had to wake me and tell me he was doing all this!) It’s the first time in a very long time that Aimee slept later than 5:45am and I was not happy that I couldn’t enjoy the extra half an hours sleep because Ethan and Jed were awake and talking and giggling in the tent. So, after a short night’s sleep and an early start to the day, I’m feeling exhausted and its only midday!

This morning Dieter, Jed and I headed to town to get a few things but the main event of our morning was a stop at the Carpe Diem school here in George. It’s a school for children with special needs and we were following up Ouma’s contact and Oupa’s conversation with the physiotherapist. She’d invited us to come and look at tricycles the school has and we’d hoped we might be able to buy or borrow one. We did find one that was suitable, in need of some work and new parts here and there, but the principal wasn’t keen to get rid of any of the bikes so we left without it. (I personally think they’ve got far too few bikes for the number of children at the school and I think he made the right decision for the school to keep them!)

We did come home with a few ideas on how to convert a standard bicycle into a tricycle, I took some photos and we can even take an engineer back with us if we’d like to copy the designs. We also came home with some contact numbers for sport and physio contacts for Jed. Most of all, we came home determined to continue our search for a trike for Jed and a new plan to make it possible, because ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan!

PS: An afternoon nap is our first priority as we try to recover from a lack of sleep all round …. And then we’re going to our first home-school get together which sounds more like a weekly youth group to me. Don’t think we’ll easily find any replacement for the weekly Discoveries that Ryan and Jed used to attend in Cyprus, but this sounds like it will come very close. Watch this space!

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