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!

A quick visit to Dornbirn

I'm in Dornbirn for a very quick two and a half day visit before travelling further to Antwerp. I flew with Swiss from Johannesburg to Zurich and took the train to St. Margrethen where my father picked me up.

A nice salad with cheese and eggs for our Sunday lunch

I'm too late to see the nice snow that was here in the town a week ago, so my parents took me for a drive in the mountains on Sunday afternoon to see some there.

Finding one's car can get trickier if you've left it in the snow for a while...

(But we didn't leave ours for very long)

Like a proper tourist I made a video while we were driving around. Nothing exciting if you're used to snow...

We popped in for tea, coffee, cake and nuts at Wendelin and Waltruad's house before returning home.

Their view from their house

The cozy inside; not so late, but already quite dark

Miekie's ninth birthday

Miekie starts planning her birthday parties months in advance, so yesterday, when the day finally arrived, it was the culmination of a huge amount of thinking, planning and effort.

Starting off the day in bed...

Pieter made a card for her from him and Neil

They gave her a backpack for school

One present was too big for traditional wrapping; curtains had to do that job

She's never had a bike with gears before

Gearing up for the first ride...

Approval

After school a load of friends came over for Miekie's spa party. Marisa did a lot of research on what one can do for such a party...

Poring over presents

Chocolate faces

Marisa only realised last night that she'd omitted something... our next few salads will no doubt contain a disproportionately large number of cucumbers

Petronel also enjoyed some pampering (not in the nappy sense for a change)

Cleansed and ready to shift some ice-cream and waffles!