Beaches

We had great weather on on little holiday. The kids even swam a few times.

We went to check out Dwarskersbos one day. What a place and what a beach!

Back in Langebaan...

Neil charging towards the water, as is his wont; defence team in position

A Langebaan rainbow one morning

Observations on energy transformations

We had many opportunities to go for walks, often to playgrounds. Neil likes swings and really really likes slides. Miekie and Pieter like roundabouts most. Marisa and I serve mostly as sources of energy that, once steady states have been reached, compensate for frictional losses in the hinges of swings and aerodynamic drag losses. We also increase the potential energy of Neil at a frequency of about once a minute while at the slide, enabling him to transform this into kinetic energy with the help of the slide. However, we act as lateral stability controls and descent-velocity controls too, expending more of our own energy this way, but still finding it strangely relaxing.

At the "train park" in Langebaan

On part of the "pirate ship" close to Club Mykonos

While providing greater stability, the four chains make movement a little more restrictive

In Hermanus; potential energy just having been transferred to Neil

Neil was somewhere in there, making his way to the slide

Start of our Easter holiday

We set off on our Easter holiday on Sunday 22 March. Having booked rather late, one of the few remaining good options for getting to the Cape turned out to be flying on a new airline called Blue Crane. They fly the main Johannesburg-to-Cape Town route but stop over in Bloemfontein or Kimberley. We stopped over in Kimberley on our way down. The great thing is that we get to fly in one of my favourite aeroplanes, which is a narrow little tube called an Embraer ERJ 145. There were many open seats on our way down and it's quite a nippy plane. The stop in Kimberley is only a few minutes long.

'n Noue buis

Pieter and Miekie sat next to each other one row in front of Marisa, Neil and me. Being younger than two, wriggly Neil is still a bargain on-the-lap passenger.

Displaying our combined three-and-a-bit maxillary central incisors

More detail on the rest of the holiday is to follow in subsequent posts.

A few hours in Rietvlei

I've had several very busy and stressful weeks that have culminated in me becoming sick this weekend with what appears to be flu. So now I'm taking things a little bit slower today and thus have time to put up some long-overdue pictures here.

Last weekend we went to Rietvlei for a drive and a picnic.

Our obligatory family selfie when in Rietvlei Nature Reserve; the previous one in Rietvlei was before Neil's birth

Bits of Land Rover in nature photos always improve photos in my opinion...

... The alternative is to add some animation

The only pity with Rietvlei is the significant visibility of power lines and a pipeline

Rhinos

Hartebeeste

Miekie and Pieter spent this past weekend at Ouma and Oupa. They went to the zoo and were very spoilt! Neil, Marisa and (sick) I went to the shops and relaxed a little.

We're really looking forward to our Easter holiday in Langebaan, coming up in a few days' time!

Neil's grommets

Neil had his first operation this morning. Fortunately it was a really minor one: to insert grommets into both ears. All went very well, was over quickly and he was discharged before 10:00 this morning. He was back to his normal self shortly afterwards!

Neil spent some pre-op time riding around on his Austrian-bought Trunki suitcase

An empty tummy didn't stop him from smiling

Marisa accompanied him to the theater

Feeling a little confused (and nauseous); nothing that a little snooze didn't cure

I'm sure his world sounds a lot clearer now that his ears are functioning better!

Another tooth bites the dust

After what seems like months*, Pieter's loose primary maxillary central incisor finally let go on Tuesday evening, admittedly after not-so-gentle manual encouragement by Marisa! For all the anxiety he experienced, the mouse took pity and spoiled him with a generous compensation that night.

A school morning of greater-than-average pleasantness

*If our memories serve us correctly, this tooth has been wobbly since December.

V-day

Marisa made us a wonderful Valentine's Day lunch today! Salad with berries, cheese, salmon, little burgers (for those not having salmon), nuts, and other salad ingredients.

In retrospect, five seconds were too few and thus the motion blur betrays the one who set the timer

Berries have decorative uses too

Miekie gave us chocolates, bought using her own pocket money!

Stove scene stereogram (and alliteration)

Pseudonym

The Gaborone Town Lodge unwittingly provided me with a good idea for a pseudonym, if I ever need one in the future...

Flattering indeed

Concrete, water, air, etc.

Here are some recent photos.

I spent two days in Antwerp last week but didn't get many opportunities for taking photos. In fact the only semi-reasonable one is this one showing the impressive interior of the Antwerp Central Station:

One of my return flights, from Zurich to Johannesburg, was cancelled, so I had to stay a night in the five-star (but not-really-so-five-star) Hilton in Zurich. When I finally arrived back home on Friday night everyone was pleased that we were all back together again. And they were especially pleased about the heap of nice presents that I brought from Dornbin...

Pieter assembling his first Lego Technic set, under supervision of Caramel the bunny 

Later on Saturday we went to have supper at the Spur where I suppose the concrete cow serves as a portend to what gets served in the restaurant...

On the Sunday Neil found more concrete, this time of the non-bovine variety, to amuse himself in...

And later that day we were caught on camera while visiting Coillard and Mariska for Dawid's birthday.

Miekie is still very actively swimming in galas, and being back home I was able to attend a practice session during the week and a gala on Friday.

And in between everything I spent two days in Botswana.

Just before boarding time on the way back home

Last day in Dornbirn

Today is my last day here. I'll be off to catch the train back to Zurich in a few minutes. This morning my mother and I went for a nice long walk up and down the Dornbirner Ach. I know it from the previous time that we were here and the children will remember it too. The vegetation looks quite barren compared to in September.

Crossing the Ach (the grass wasn't any greener on the other side)

At a park that the children will remember (actually, the grass is probably a little greener on this side after all)

The park has a nice slide. I thought I'd take a video of myself on the slide for entertainment purposes...

On the way back we walked past inatura where we also spend a few pleasant hours in September.

A quick inatura waterwheel stereogram

The children spent a lot of time here in September, cycling around on their borrowed bikes

We had a lovely salad for lunch and now it's time to pack and be off!