Mud ride

(We are having real problems getting blogger to work at the moment, this is the first time in two weeks it has worked. This is last weeks blog)

Christmas time is almost here, although the clues here are very different.. The flaming red Christmas trees and the small red christmas bugs the children love to collect. Talking of small creatures, this week saw the tragic death of a chameleon, run over by a car at school, very sad. The children were planning a funeral!

We had a big thunderstorm on Thursday night and today is grey and humid and the clouds are threatening, might still go for a swim though as there really isn’t much else to do round here. Joshua is currently involved in another of his projects. This one is to make Santa’s sleigh. I’m sure it will look right in place on compound B. The children take Christmas very seriously and would quite like me to put up the decorations now. I on the other hand find it very difficult to take Christmas seriously when it feels so unchrismassy here.

Caleb is learning to ride without stabilisers. I’ve actually never seen anyone learn so fast. He just decided to do it and then got on and was away. Unfortunately he doesn’t know how to stop and crashed into the sand pit. This afternoon we have been practicing with a helmet. Caleb’s swimming is really coming on and he is good enough now that I don’t need to watch him that much. I’m always a bit nervous the first few times without armbands. All three children have been practicing their diving. Caleb is improving, but many of his dives turn into bellyflops. Why does that not hurt kids?

Work permit permitting I will officially start work on Monday. Please pray my permit comes through soon. I have the official mobile, the laptop and the key to the office, so it’s serious now. I’m planning a meeting with the finance manager to help me get up to speed with everything I need to know. Where airstrips are, what we do where, new proposals in the offing, how to use wingman and so on. Hope I can manage it all.

Sunday afternoon Daniel and the children and other like-minded people went for a mud ride. Not much else to do here on a wet Sunday afternoon. Two hours later they arrived back, very wet and very muddy and the car too. They only had to pull one of the cars out of a ditch twice. Apparently it was an excellent afternoon and I should go next time!!