Not over until it is over...

The power to hold on in spite of everything, to endure, this is the quality of a winner.
Your greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fail.

It's your constant and determined effort that will eventually break down all resistance and sweep all the barriers before you.
Persistence means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that's necessary to reach your goal.

All great achievements require time.
Endurance is the crowning quality of succes.

8 years

Today (19 August 2008) we celebrated our 8th year in the UK.

I won’t say it was easy, but we’ve survived.

Seven years ago we got off Virgin flight VS602 at Heathrow. My wife and I, a 2 year old toddler and a 8 month old baby.

We knew we had to go to Romford in Essex, but had no idea how to get there. We were told that we could take the train, but with tired kids and loads of suitcases, I didn’t want to chance it.

We got a taxi, and the taxi driver asked me where Romford is. Upon questioning he told me that he’s been in the UK 19 years. We’ll I’ve only been here less than an hour at that stage……. Luckily he had a SatNav, which he ignored at stages…., but we got there in the end.

The first 6 months was bad. We moved out of a 4 bedroomed house in CapeTown into a 2 bedroomed flat on the sixth floor. On Monday mornings you couldn’t use the lifts, because it was used as toilets over the week-ends. Every week-end we searched franticly for a house to buy, and when our 6 month rent contract came to an end we had a house!

We moved out of London to the Country-side. And after 7½ years we are still glad we made the move.

When we got here we promised ourself we’ll get Citizenship as soon as possible, and to get our red passports. We made sure we got our ILR.

Well after a few years we pushed our citizenship application to the back, seeing that it wasn’t priority, because like Koos Kombuis said :” Ons het ‘n kuiergas, Mr. Ooievaar.” Our youngest was born in 2004.

On the 1st of August 2007 we attended our Citizen ceremony.

We've seen most of Wales, Scotland and England.

We got our maroon passports in December 2007, and now there is no issues with travelling!

We can’t complain about the UK, so far we’ve been treated xcellent, BUT this is not the place we want to grow old.

As most of you know we have been setting our sites on France, so watch this space!

Holiday...

It’s that time of year when most people (in the Northern hemisphere) take a vacation for a few weeks or a few days, just to get away. A vacation is like a cleansing of the mind and the soul, a time to leave daily routines and stresses behind for different approaches. Some vacations are restful, and some are not (parents will know what I'm meaning), but all give us a break from the stresses we face on the job and at home.

Go away. Don’t stay home on your vacation. You don’t have to go far, just make sure you are not in the same house and the same places you frequent in daily life. This break from routine and familiarity will help your mind reset itself so you can best manage your daily life when vacation is over.

So lie on a beach. Climb a mountain. Tour a castle. Read a book. Just do it away from home.

I'm going to Southern France!

Have fun and see you all later!

Be Polite

It sure pays to be polite. A polite person puts everyone around them in a great mood. By politeness, I do not mean following social rules just to follow rules. So what if you rudely toast Her Majesty with something other than water. Or, horror of horrors, you mix up your dessert fork with your salad fork.

By politeness I mean showing others around you that you care about them and respect them. Politeness might mean holding a door open for someone. Or offering up your seat on the subway to an elderly person. Or letting someone pass ahead of you into the elevator.

Be polite to everyone you meat, because you just never know when you will meet them again.

Bounce

We are springs. Everything that knocks us down is a chance to jump up even higher. Every loss is a chance to show that we can bounce back and try even harder.

Every fall is a chance to get back up and show that we won’t be kept down.

Nobody and nothing can defeat us. The only person who can defeat you is you. If you give up, you are defeated. If you persevere, you win. It really doesn’t matter what they throw at you, you are a spring and you can bounce back.

Whatever happens, keep going. If you keep bouncing back, you win!

Happy B’Day, Bokkie!!

I thought I'd share 40 reasons Y I love my Déjà-Vu, seeing that she is 40 today :

1. She was created by God just for me
2. She is an xcellent Mom.
3. She's my bestest friend.
4. She loves me.
5. She has learned to love things "I laaik" just to spend more time with me.
6. She gave me 3 beautiful Prinsessies.
7. She is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.
8. She knows what I want to say even before I finish my sentences.
9. She cries during sad movies, and pretend not to see my tears when I cry at the same time.
10. She works a well-paying, soul-sucking job so that I can work from home.
11. She works incredibly hard, and I am proud of what she’s accomplished.
12. She laughs at my stupid jokes.
13. She can laugh at herself and she has a great sense of humour.
14. She's so warm and soft.
15. She loves to get a hug from me.
16. She smells really good.
17. She's fun to tickle.
18. She looks peaceful, content and beautiful while she sleeps.
    
19. She loves games, she's very competitive, and I love her for that!
20. She is willing to put up with me, the 3 Prinsessies, and 2 cats.
21. She likes to look good for me.
22. She forgives me when I act like a jerk.
23. She makes me feel manly.
24. She sings beautifully to music.
25. She’ll never cheat at games, no matter how hard I try and talk her into it.
26. She likes to be romantic.
27. She's a great cook and she laaiks my cooking.
28. She loves to draw, and she's good at it.
29. She showed me how much I could be loved.
30. She stands her ground.
31. She’s good at meeting people.
32. She’s smart & witty.
33. She spoons really well.
34. She’s absolutely faithful.
35. She’s not materialistic.
36. She looks great even without make-up.
37. Because I can’t imagine life without her.
38. She likes to just go for a drive with no destination in mind.
39. She cleans the house when I won’t.
40. We are a team and great together.

Thanx that I don’t need to pretend with you!

You are Responsible...

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door
and the whole world will be clean."
~{Johann Von Goethe}~

Goethe reminds us a little of personal responsibility.

It's not up to us to be concerned with what others are doing, but it is up to us to be responsible for our own actions.

Not only is it unneighbourly to nitpick over the shortcomings of others, but worse, it distracts us from taking care of our own responsibilities.

While looking at our neighbours' doors, we forget to sweep in front of our own.

Happiness

How much happiness can you handle?

“All of it!” you might be tempted to answer. Sounds good to me.

But wait.

Too much of a good thing, even happiness, is not necessarily the best approach. We actually need downtime. We need time to feel sad occasionally. We need time to feel lazy. We do not need to be filling every moment with thrills.

While we embark on this journey to live happy lives and to spread happiness to others around us, let’s not forget that it’s okay to listen to our spirits and have some down time…

…just don’t get stuck there, because happiness awaits you.

Tribute to Nathan

Like Emil I can't be at the memorial service for Nathan, and I thought Emil's idea of the OrangeRed Mosaic is an xcellent tribute to little Nathan!

RIP, Nathan!

Friends or what?

It's funny, about old friends...

Funny how it happens as well. It might be that you just ran into someone from your past on a street somewhere, or on a train, or find yourself leaning against the same bar one night.

It might be a phone call out of the blue or in this case an E-mail.

It's weird how some people that you'd never really been close to might turn out, a few years down the line, to be all right. To be the ones you got on okey with.

While others, people you thought at the time would be your friends for life, or like my Prinsessies say, BFF.

People you had a pact with, and said stupid, soppy stuff to after a few beers. People you felt connected to. They end up being the people causing you headaches later on in life, or just completely disappear.

And Murphy's Law is, that you could never tell the one from the other, the first time you meet them...

I reckon there is always a good reason Y people loose touch with one another. Sometimes it's an effort to keep a friendship going, when geography is against you. But if the friendship is really worth it, you make the effort. Simple as that!

If it's not worth it, you'll let it go, and the other person will think the same as you and will let it go at the same time.

If an effort was made later on to get back in touch, there is a good chance that the one making the effort, wants something!

Which is the case with the E-mail I received.

About 3 ½ years ago was the last time I saw the "friends" in question...

Friday, after all this time, without even a phone call, text message or e-mail, I get an E-mail asking to borrow R600 000-00(£42 000) or ½ of that would also work...

WHAT?

Do I look like the Bank of flippen England??

Sorry...

Sorry seems to be the hardest word. So sang Elton John. And I have seen that this is true not just for him and for me, but for other people as well.

I know I have a hard time saying sorry when I did not mean to hurt someone or if I can’t see or relate to the pain. Y? I don’t know. But I must say sorry more often.

If you also have trouble saying you are sorry, try leaving your own point of view and seeing the situation the way the other person sees it. That just might make it easier to say “SORRY”, even if you do so several minutes later.