July 2006 - Mom's Birthday & The Croquet

The Birthday girl..and if it is blurry, don't adjust your set...this camera and I have a rather shaky relationship (ha ha). We made Mom rest in preparation for her international sporting debut the following day.

The day of the Croquet tournament dawned. Luckily the weather was perfect once again.

The Oelofses and Atkinsons between them have hosted a SA vs England croquet tournament for the last few years. The English won the inaugural one and since then the trophy has rested firmly in SA' s hands. We might have been hammered at cricket, rugby and foofie-sliding-on-the-pinkie competitions but boy we are still hot at croquet. I was too scared to tell Mom and Karin that they were a team in case they boycotted coming with us so we said that they had been invited to a barbie... and then gave them the bad news, but they did bloomin well and Mom showed potential to become a bit of a hustler. Maybe part of her secret was that she did exactly what Graham told her to and I was worried we would be suspended for excessive coaching but considering the fact that they had to play last year's semi-finalists in their first game ever ( and I don' t think that either of them had even seen a game on TV before, except perhaps in a Merchant Ivory production..unless one counts Brakkies Breekers moering each other with mallets in Voortrekker Street a croquet game?), they nearly caused the biggest upset of a major international ever (well since Hansie let the Dutch beat us at cricket fresh off the win at Lords)

Our first game was against Jed and Kate. (and yes you may notice that my finger eventually did find that lens.......)

Donna and Rob were persuaded to be honorary South Africans today seeing that the Homecoming Revolution appears to have depleted our numbers a little. Here Graham watched over them to make sure they aren't taking steroids.

Paul contemplates life, the universe and how to swing that mallet thingie without connecting with the opposition's pips. In one of life's weird co-incidences, Paul was at CBC with Ronald!




Cobus and Wendy with the champions, Jo and Ange - an all SA win!






Brian and Edie telling van der merwe jokes! (or maybe they were laughing at the Bok rugby test results to come a few months later..)

Karin and June looking relieved that it is all over.




Edie showing Graham her fan.

Jenny sucking up to the Judge - Ted didn't mind I hope.

July 2006 - June & Jenny (Paris)

I thought it would be a treat for Mom and me to go off to Paris. What I hadn't counted on was the heatwave. The recorded temperature that Wednesday was 40! We sweltered in t hat heat and with both us limping around, we didn't get very far very fast!

The first evening I took a photo of Mom in front of the Arc de Triomphe in the same spot where Graham and I have a photo when it is snowing - funnily enough this is also the starting point for when David, Graham and I made a dash across the road to the Arc. The next time Graham and I were in Paris, we watched some chap do the same thing and he was nabbed by the gendarmes waiting in the middle. Anyway Mom and I decided to use the tunnel beneath the road and even then it took us a while to get across.


As you can see, this is the evening we arrived and when the temperature was still bearable.


After taking some pics at the Arc, we went for a stroll / limp down the Champs Elysees. We stopped for a drink along the way and found it very difficult to drag ourselves away from a seat in the shade.


The next morning I had all these wonderful ideas of hopping on and off one of the open topped buses, but the heat soon put paid to that idea and landed up doing more hopping and collapsing than touristy things. This is Mom on the balcony before we started the Great Trek (more like the Great Vrek!). Look how fresh and cool she looks..



We didn't get very far before I decided to switch to the Metro. Gee you don't realise how many steps there are to navigate until you are not quite able to walk properly. Mom and I were like two old grannies, she hung on to the bannister on one side of the stairs and I hung on to the other side as we slithered and groped our way up and down to the platforms. We emerged near the Tuileries Gardens, you can just see the Eiffel Tower peeking out to the left and the obelisk in Place de la Concorde to the right.


We walked to the Place de la Concorde and although we were standing close to the spot where Madame Guillotine did her work, we only had eyes for the fountain. I was even too tired to try and jump in the water although I could picture the scene.


We wondered if Napoleon's horses were about to melt off the Victory Arch, on our way to the Louvre.


We were going to catch our tour bus from nearby and had to take a photie of the Louvre. Unfortunately no monks and holy grails or Da Vinci ghosts were about.

I think by this stage Mom was beginning to feel like the leprechaun in Amelie, I was placing her in front of all these tourist spots and saying...smile..when I'm sure all she felt like was a barrel of ice cold water.
See, even the sculpture in the Tuileries gardens was feeling the heat!!

We thought of hopping off at Notre Dame and wondering around in the quiet cool interior but when we saw the hordes of people queuing up to get in, we could not even move ourselves to get off the bus.

We gazed at the Eiffel Tower but again, too many people, queues too long and thirst too great!



I got this lovely smile out of Mom when we had made up our minds to go on to the next stop, switch to the Metro and return to the hotel for a swim. Oh what bliss it turned out to be, we wallowed in that water like happy hippos!!

After our swim and an afternoon zizz, we wondered off in search of grub! Of course we had to eat on the pavement. Au revoir Paris!

22 July 2006 - Dad's last day

Sadly, Dad had to get back to work and was flying out tonight. However, we were really lucky - all the family made it for a braai to give him a good send-off.

June and Jo

Jay and Karin chew the cud!









The 'manne' have a natter...yes Graham I am making sure that I don't have my finger on the lens...

Tashe and Vix landed up slaving away in the kitchen.

Poor old Graham, still having to feed the Laudins! Our braai-meester at work once again!

Mau and Lexi look on

Lexi all snuggled up in the conservatory.

July 2006 - Egham

Summer Braais and English Boerie

I was looking forward to having Mom and Dad back at home in Egham and had all these plans to pop off to London and other local attractions just to give them a taste of where we lived, but it was not to be. I went for a run with David one morning before the rest of the world woke up and as we were running down a hill, I was chatting about the forest path that we running towards when a cylindrical branch jumped out of the bush and crept under my foot. My ankle went, I fell the other way on my knee and David did a combined long-high jump over my head. It must have looked quite funny if it was jackass, but not so funny on the pavement.
David ran home to get car/help but that meant that the Laudin Seniors were housebound as I was not inclined to go further than my bedroom for a while. The best days of the year probably...the hottest days in a century...and there I was....bedridden.....and yes I did feel very sorry for myself. Graham was very good and nursed the old bag and took Mom and Dad off on short outings to give them a change of scenery although they did not seem to mind that much about having an enforced break.

July 2006 - Visiting the Sinclairs at Wadenhoe

We drove down to Wadenhoe to meet up with Patricia, Rodney and David. Although Mom and Dad had seen David and Rodney in the last 10 years and Mom had been over to the UK and seen Patricia, Dad and Patricia had not seen each other for almost 30 yrs. However we were all so busy stuffing our faces full of fine food and drink that the 'catching up' took place somewhere in between but it did not feel like they had not all been together for that long and Karin & I were only too happy that this time we did not have to do the dishes and bear the garlic prawn smell for the next 5 days at least.

Rodney serving Pimms

David saying Me too please..

Mom, Karin, Patricia, Dad and David

Karin, Dad and David

At the lock - Dad, Karin, Patricia, Mom, David & Rodney

Feast

July 2006 - Visiting Jay's pub in Chiswick

We popped in to Chiswick one evening. Unfortunately it was during the week so was difficult to get everyone together but Tashe brought Lexi along which was a real treat! Dad had not seen Tashe for so long that he did not recognise her until he saw Graham and I kissing her hello! Made me feel sad again because we all live so far apart and years go by before we see everyone but one feels it the most with the younger generation...they grow and mature so fast and I am conscious of missing out on time with them that cannot be caught up...but it was a happy evening and we got to see Jay and Bonnie as well. Jay had been in Glasgow for the day and Jo was working but Bonnie still let us play with her toys.

Mom and Dad in beer garden.

Lexi dressing up!
Tashe and Lexi
Mom, Dad, Jay and Bonnie

July 2006 - Rick & June at up North at Karin's

Am trying to add a link to a photo album as it is difficult to load photos sometimes
Try this? If you can access the album, try out the slideshow...by the way you don't need to purchase any of the photos, if you want any, just let me know ;-)

http://goljones.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01

We had the most beautiful days up north that I have ever seen (well this could be a toss up from the time it was covered in that blanket of snow....but at least this time we could wear fewer clothes). We took Mom and Dad to Guisborough Priory where Mom passed off her first dodgy £10 note but the guy at the tourist office was old enough to remember it, so it was all okay. Once again we had to wrap Mom and Dad up in winter woollies but that was for the visits to Sainsburys, the store temperature was set to a level that would keep polar bears grateful for their furry coats. Pics below were taken at Saltburn.