Off to the Bush.

After a week in the city spending lots of time with our Oscar who has been SO sick it is time to set off for the bush. Sarah took her staff on a team building exercise to Maputo. She is so impressed with the development in Maputo. The group also spent a few days in Belem which she. Said is great for a beach holiday! The night before we left it so happened that we were to have dinner with a former pupil, then fellow team player and now good friend Midgie. He was so proud and pleased to hear of Sarah' s impressions of Maputo because in the late sixties and early seventies his folk came to South Africa to find a safe haven and start their lives afresh due to the civil war that raged in Mocambique.

Midgie took us to a restaurant in Kensington, Johannesburg where we used to live and he says the area has become very Cosmopolitan with great Portuguese and Italian restaurants and coffee shops. He was recently widowed and is retired so he meets his buddies at the coffee shop next to the restaurant and it gives him great comfort.

Early the following day with a VERY loaded car we bade farewell to the city and set off for the Bush. It is a beautiful drive for the second half of the journey with Dullstrom and Sabie look so lovely with bougainvilleas and hibiscus in full loom. The countryside is green and lush with every shade of green in evidence. This is such a beautiful time of the year in the Lowveld. I am so happy to be hot.....for the first time since we left Malaysia. I do enjoy the heat....but enough of that.

Just before turning into Sabie Park I spotted an elephant wandering through the bush on the opposite side of the road.....this augers well, that is for sure!

After we had unpacked and getting sorted the noses zebras came sniffing around. What a lovely welcome. We also spotted a few impala later once the sun had gone down. It is full moon so it never got very dark which is so lovely. It is lovely to be back.

 

Blogging

I am so pleased that after my last little vent, to have received some pleasant notes from friends afar encouraging me to keep writing. As it so happens, yesterday I was "car guarding" our over loaded car while en route to the Bush House and hubby was doing the shopping, when I happen to tune into SAFM. Nancy Richards has a show " " and the topic of the day was Blogging. Nancy had been to a conference on blogging recently and met some of South Africa's top/ popular bloggers and was interviewing them on her show, on the radio. The questions being addressed were a)why people blog and b)how to blog. The technical "how to" info was not all that helpful for the complete novice but the " why" was most encouraging!

The bloggers being interviewed had slightly different ideas and interpretations as to why people blog but the discussion was most helpful and encouraging and the following are just some of the points I took away.

# Blog as if no one is reading your blog.

# Blogging is the new form of praying!!!

# Many people use it as a form of venting!

# Blogging is learning to live in purpose.

# It should be done with passion

# Blogging is sharing your journey

# Be authentic

# Keep it topical

# You never know everything!

# Enjoy what you do!!!

The point I would add is have the camera charged and ready ALL the time!

I think these pointers are food for thought and most encouraging. I am glad I was at the right ace at the right time!

Regarding security....I liked what one of the bloggers being interviewed said:

Although there are bad elements out there often the Internet is made out to be a much bigger Bad wolf than it really is!! After all someone looking for porn is not really going to look at a blog called Mommies Craft class or like mine "Beyond the Quilt" ....maybe if I called it "under the quilt"...it would be different!! So that put that one to rest.

Thanks Nancy for the most interesting show and hopefully many more South African women will find the time to blog!!