Bit of History

Hi Everyone

A VERY lo-oooong time ago, I used to write a Christmas letter to all our friends, unfortunately as the years seemed to go much quicker the time for writing cards and letters got less and less .. but I have made a New Year resolution to start again, it makes me feel so guilty when I get all your news and we don't send anything!
So, here we go for a synopsis of life in the Kruger family for 2007!


Johan
It was a really eventful year for Johan - he left the company where he had established a lab after leaving Wits, and started his own closed corporation "GeoTarget" - working on contracts for varying periods of time.
During the year he spent time in Botswana (Geological survey right next door to the mental hospital - enough said!), Upington, Northern Province and Stella. Most of the time he would be away all week but back home on the weekends. The old double garage has been converted into his office but however many bookshelves we have, it is never enough for all the files that he brought back from Wits!
For his birthday this year we arranged for him to have a microlight flight which he enjoyed very much - but the little plane looks so flimsy!

Michael
This is the year that Michael grew - he is now a lanky 15 year old. This year he decided not to continue rowing (big "Phew" from parents who had to get him to various dams at 7 every Saturday!) and to concentrate on tennis instead. He is still a big reader and is seldom seen without his nose in a book (wonder where that came from?). He will be going into Grade 10 in
2008 and has had to decide upon his subjects: History, Science, Maths, Technology, English, Afrikaans (can't remember the rest!)

Samantha
Samantha has successfully completed Grade 4 now - she still had extra lessons with the remedial teacher but only once a week instead of twice as happened last year. Her results were good so we hope to discontinue them completely in 2008. She is also getting taller, her hair is getting very long and her feet are almost the same size as mine now - looks like I am going to be the dwarf of the family. For her birthday she arranged that she would not get any pocket money for a whole year and that the money be used to buy her a puppy - so along came Biggles. Biggles is a highly pedigreed miniature wire haired dashund but out of the litter of 5, he and his sister came out with silky, curly hair - not at all kosher! But he is very sweet and follows Sam around like a little shadow and is stuffed full of character. He looks a bit peculiar now as he went for a clip and they gave him a schnauzer cut so he is all moustache and eyebrows and a weedy little body with stocky legs - but with a big voice!
Sam also rides each week now at Southern Riding Centre so her riding is coming on nicely and she enjoys the pony camps where they sleep in tents in the stable yard for a couple of days and do only horsey things! She also does Modern dancing at School and enjoys swimming in the galas.

Di
Well most of my news revolves around animals and cars and it really was a very eventful year!
First up was Patricia - my female alpaca that I bred. She had a little boy on 30th January - a light cream colour with a very good feel to his fleece, so he is the star of the show at the moment! His name is Tolstoy.

Then it was Pippits turn. Pippit is a Section A Welsh Mountain Pony that came to stay with us when we bought Sams pony Lass, so of course she has stayed too. At 11.30 at night (Valentines day) Pippit had a foal - it was wonderful, I watched and it was all so simple and easy and I leapt around the stable yard and phoned all my friends to tell them the good news. Then I started to get worried - no afterbirth came out. So I went in to read my books and it said this is a very serious condition if not expelled within 2 hours, what was just as alarming was the way Pippit was lying with her legs stretched out stiff making horrible groaning noises (which is normal in
these cases but I didn't know it). Instead of leaping around in joy I was now pacing around, going "oh help, oh help, what do I do," etc. Phoned all the local vets and listened to the various answering machines- no good! Finally got through to the emergency clinic, no problem she said - just bring her in! Well, how do I get a mare lying on its side into a horsebox, plus haul 2 kids out of bed, plus Johan took his truck on his trips so I had nothing to pull the box with. Panic! Finally I got a horse vet out from Alberton who arrived at 2.30, gave her an injection and all was fine and there was a gorgeous little dark grey colt - named very originally "Valentine"! Many thanks to the friends that I woke up at 1.30 in the morning asking for help!

So, off I went to work the next day - a bit frazzled but very happy - only to get a phone call at about 10 to say that there was something wrong with my Friesian mare (also pregnant) - so pull the kids out of school and back home again! The vets treated her for colic but after 3 days nothing had improved so off we went to Ondestepoort. Johan arrived home and drove in
the gate only to have to turn around, hitch up the horsebox and off we went! They discovered that she had ulcers! So was put on a drip and stayed there 3 weeks - during which time she had a wonderful little filly foal - Xanadu (known as Zoe)! She had to stay on medication 4 times a day so our maid, Nomie, also became horse nurse!

All went well until Zoe was 5 months old and then the colic struck again. I got home, took one look, phoned a friend to borrow her truck, and at 7 at night, in the dark, Brian (our wonderful gardener/groom) & I we set off for Ondestepoort again. That m akes it sound so easy but it wasn't. First the foal went into the box and then the mother wouldn't go, so then the foal freaked out and threw Sam on the floor. Total chaos, in the end we shut the foal in the stable and just went. Once we had delivered Sjoukje to the vet then I had to park the horsebox and unhitch it - which I had never done before, so after backing it into a parking bay (which took lots of backing and forwarding, running over verges and much cursing) I then tried to unhitch it and the little wheel fell off! So, there I was in the dark, having a sick horse, driven a car on which I couldn't find the light switch and now the blasted wheel fell off in my hands! AAARGH! I phoned Johan
(several hundred Km's away to wail "What do I do") - who's very sensible advice was to switch the car lights on as I was trying to do the whole exercise by light of my cell phone! Sorted out the horsebox and then came home as the kids were alone and Sjoukje definitely had to stay there. Poor little Zoe was neighing her head off in her stable so put one of the welshie mares in with her for company. They phoned me that night to say that Sjoujke had a twisted bowel and needed an emergency operation, later on, they phoned to say that they could do nothing and to ask for permission to euthanize her. Very very sad.

Next one along was Coco the alpaca who had scanned as pregnant and who proceeded to get very fat - well, we waited and waited until we thought we would definitely have a entry in the Guinness book of records for the longest pregnancy - only to find out that she was no longer pregnant - just very fat! So back for covering again - pregnant but when next tested she had lost it again. So off to Ondestepoort who says there is nothing wrong with her but to date she has been re covered - acts pregnant and then seems to lose it and this has now happened 3 times so we need to get her sorted out somehow!

So, that was all I can remember with regard to the animals (enough!) so then we began the car saga.

I had purchased a second hand Renault Scenic in 2005 and loved it - it was a real dream to drive and all was well - for the first 2 years, then everything went wrong with a vengeance. Over a period of about 6 months, the fuel pump needed replacing, the fan stopped working, the passenger door would not open, the boot would not close, the central locking started to
pack up, the final straw was the gearbox packing up (not fun in an automatic car and cost a bomb just to get it to a saleable state) and so it went on. The kids and I became used to being stranded on the side of the road with steam pouring from the bonnet - not to be encouraged. There was a period of two weeks when I was alternating between the Scenic, the Kadett
(now sold) and the bakkie - and things went wrong with each of them in turn - so that I was using my local mechanic as a swop shop, drive in with one, take out the other one, bring that back and swop it for the other etc - it was very stressful to say the least! Then I tried to trade in the Renault, dealers wouldn't touch it with a bargepole and we were lucky to get the pittance that we did get. Overall, the depreciation on the car was R120 000 - not including the costs of services, fixing and fuel.

So, as soon as the gearbox was done we traded it in - on a second-hand 2 year old Subaru Forrester - the car that doesn't break according to everybody and has rave reviews from all the owners we met. I asked for a motorplan and was told by the salesman that I really didn't need one - these cars don't break...

Well this car hadn't met us. Within the first week I had popped a tyre, and in the second week Johan drove it and it cracked its radiator and looks as though it has bust its head gasket as well - back to the shop and I'm back to the bakkie and I haven't even paid the first instalment yet! Very disappointing.

The House - as usual we have worked very hard on the house and garden, the kitchen had a revamp at the beginning of the year and really looks great! We painted the walls grey which looked a bit dull at first so the kids and I painted flowers, ducks, etc Griebo the cat (Terry Pratchett character) all over the place which has livened it up considerably. The "big room"
which was created by blocking off the part of the house that formed a U shape has been very successful apart from the sliding doors which leak like a sieve - we have to stay stocked with newspapers and towels for when it rains. This will be remedied when we put the roof on the outside verandha.

We also built our big duck pond in the front and it is lovely to watch them sailing around. However we had a bit of a battle as, although they now have their very own big pond, they also took over the koi pond and the swimming pool as well. This necessitated the draining of the dark green murky yucky swimming pool which Johan and Michael then acid washed and repainted so it looks lovely, the poor koi are still under attack but we will cover their pond with mesh - once we can move the plants in the middle but we have to wait for the birds who are nesting there to move first!

In August I went on the "Fibre breakaway" arranged by the Johannesburg Guild of Weavers and Spinners - a very good place for me to sell my alpaca fleece. I did the weaving course which I enjoyed very much! So now I can felt, spin and weave - if I only had the time!

Johan and I still ride each weekend (Lulu and Inkspot - Inkspot had to come out of retirement once Sjoujke had gone) and we compete with Womble in carriage driving which we enjoy very much. Womble is a whiz in the marathon and obstacles but we don't do very well in dressage.

At work, we had to move the whole library from the 13th floor to a smaller location on the 1st floor which was quite a massive task and it took us over a week to achieve. The only advantage of being on the 1 st floor is that now we are having so many power cuts it is not so many
stairs to climb up and down! This will be a temporary location until the the company gets a new building in about 3 years time when we will have more space again.

My mum is still managing to copy by herself although it is becoming increasingly difficult as her eyesight deteriorates more and more, she has very kindly offered to pay for us to fly over during the June school holidays so we will be in the UK for 3 weeks in the middle of the year (we
can't afford to pay for ourselves due to the CAR issue). I would like to attend the Royal Show in Warwickshire so maybe we would meet up with some London friends at this halfway spot?