Bear's Balls

The decision to have Bear's balls removed was not one that I made lightly ... poor bugger, how cruel can we be to our animals? I have ignored all advice from friends and our vet, wanting to keep him as beautiful and nuts as he is ... also thought for a while that someone might like him enough to want to have puppies with him.

Anyway, living with a very horny husky has been quite difficult, and he has to be the horniest dog I have ever seen in my life. We had to stop taking him out in public as if he saw another dog, male or female, he would do his best to grab it and hump it, not worrying whether he had the right end or not, or if it was even male or female. He seemed to think that any other animal out there is for his pleasure only, which has caused rather a lot of embarrassment over time and in a crowd ... 

He has never really been a leg-humper thank heavens; although there are specific people that if very horny, he would try and grab, only to be smacked rather hard for his efforts poor sod. So then Kita came along, and being female, there was the concern that puppies would be on the way. So a month back we couldn't decide if she had come into heat or not as there had been no visible sign, and I also couldn't decide if she was just overweight or pregnant ... off we went to the vet and not even Saskia could decide if she was pregnant or fat. We are assuming she is just fat and I have been told to cut her food in half ... clearly Saskia doesn't know Kita very well LOL or just how much of a ginormous pig she is. 

So, Maya returned to Swakop on Thursday. Maya is Destroyer Number Two and the one that taught Bear to dig holes all over the garden - apparently she no longer does this whilst Bear still delights in digging holes to China. So we reunited them, and it was a rather joyous occasion for both of them once he had stopped trying to hump her and she had stopped biting him back. 

That evening, however, Bear went a bit loopy. Whether it was hormones playing up or just the fact that he desperately wants another husky to play with and Kita isn't good enough (being fat and lazy I am leaning towards her not being good enough for him) I honestly am not sure, but he went off his rocker. He spent hours in the front garden howling at the moon - and no, it wasn't whining like a normal dog, it was honest to God nose in the air, howling like a wolf. I wonder how many of our neighbors thought that there was perhaps a wolf loose somewhere. No amount of calling and coercing would shut him up either. 

He would dash inside to answer me, and then two minutes later charge back outside, howling on his way down the passage and out the window. For a while he actually sat next to my bed howling; this is rather loud and hysterical to be honest. The more he howls, the more I laugh, and the more I laughed the more he howled. He has always howled and talked if someone laughs.

So with this insane dashing in and out the house and howling, jumping on the bed then off, and looking at me as if I had murdered his best friend, I decided to do the deed and have him neutered. People in this town like huskies as they are pretty, and get them as they love the colors and blue eyes and fluffy tails, but have no idea what it takes to look after them and what high maintenance they are. So most of the huskies in town, unless behind very high walls, roam the streets, are given away, are murdered and poisoned. My biggest concern is that someone is going to get fed up of his howling and poison him - being Bear he will eat anything that he thinks is human food as well. 

There is also an old lady that lives two doors down that stops every evening to pet him and to interrogate me as to how I look after him. She doesn't seem to believe me when I tell her that he sleeps inside and on the bed if he chooses, he has biscuits and milk twice a day, chicken livers cooled in BBQ sauce with rice for dinner, walks for miles every day, a whole bag of bones every second day - well the list just could really go on. These two are the most spoiled dogs I know. I also have never worked more than half day so that I can spend time with him and walk him and care for him - this is the only thing that keeps him from wandering I am sure. Bear, being a total traitor, sits at the fence and cries like a baby every time she walks by, so am totally convinced that she is going to report me to SPCA one of these days for not looking after my animals. Little does she know.

So I am hoping that neutering him will calm him down, and he will earn to control his freaky and insane moods as he won't have what is clearly a ton of testosterone whizzing through his body. I think he is all testosterone and nothing else actually. So this coming week I will make arrangements for him to go to the vet and have the deed done - poor bugger, he doesn't know what is waiting for him just around the corner!

A Dining Room Table!

Well, I have decided sod it, just spend the money and let's get a dining room table that we like. We have the 7 chairs, and today I ordered another one to make it 8, and have spoken to the carpenter about making a table for us. 

Now if you don't already know, we live in a big 4 bedroom house with a huge garden and it is pretty much mostly empty as we have never bought any more furniture! Now I am getting rather frustrated with not having anything in the house and so it's time to start buying and making our house look like a home instead of a homeless shelter ... 

So, I am going to go home at lunch and measure my dining room and see what size and just how big I can make this table and the matching mirror. I also get to put a Lazy Susan in!!! I have always wanted one - sad I know - but so, so useful and hey, why not. Of course not if it makes it stupidly expensive ... here's hoping!

The wood that we want to use is Dolf - no idea how you spell it, but it is cut up in Zambia and shipped down South, and we are going to try and leave it as natural as possible, so no dark stains, just plain, simple and straightforward. The Teak and Rosewood are too red for my liking although we can get both here - just asked Seth for some advice re the wood as he is a carpenter obviously - pity he's so flipping far away!

Well wish us luck and maybe by the end of the month will have a new dining room table to boast about!! :-D

Back to School

Hopefully anyway! I have finally got my butt into gear and decided to do something worthwhile, as being in a pointless job doesn't satisfy me at all and is merely frustrating - we won't go into why it's so frustrating ... some people are just beyond help really. 

So, the course that I want to do is all to do with Design and building websites, so Adobe and everything that it is - Dreamweaver, Flash, CS3 and a multitude of other things which will hopefully not only keep me busy but also give me the grounding to get a better job or to do my own thing when it's completed. I am only really happy when being creative and building things so this could be just the right thing - only took me 28 years to decide! Not long at all really ... 

The only problem is, Swakop being so small, there is an instructor that can be used, but now they have to find enough people to do the course in order to employ her. In one way I suppose it's a good thing as that means there won't be a huge amount of people on the course - hopefully hopefully - therefore you have more interaction with the instructor and also the less people that do it the better - less people to compete with for work when it's done! Is that mean of me? Knowing my luck will be about 40 people on it ...

It also means getting the brain back into the swing of studying again which might be a wee bit difficult although with any luck it won't take too much to get back into the swing of things! It seems like a nice place, a wee bit scrappy,and the course is expensive, but it will be an international qualification at the end of it and so can only hope that I am able to go through with it and get the ball rolling. 

Wish me luck people!!! Am going to need it!

My Photo Wall

After running around yesterday trying to find all the stationary etc that I needed and walking the dogs out on the beach - was really misty and cold ugh - I decided to get stuck into my old photos and stick them all up again and make the photo wall that I had at Mile 4. 

Pio suggested that we do it on the glass sliding door between the dining room and the braai area so that when we are braaiing then we can look at them and enjoy them more which in theory is great but after I stuck them all up I didn't like it as the lounge is quite dark so this photo wall now blocks out the light that comes in from the sky-light in the dining room. It also lets you see the prestik and the backs of the photos from the other side of the door, so I think that a move may be in order!

This is rather sad, as it took about 2 hours to complete and looks quite good from the one side, but am sure that it will look just as good on the dining room wall. Ultimately it will move again anyway, as I want the photos in either the entertainment area or in my office, and when I get my office I already have the electronic photo frame Pio bought me, so might very well have to put them in the entertainment area that I don't have as of yet ... 

I will try remember to take a photo of the wall today and post it, it is really nice to have all my photos up again, always makes me smile, I just need to print more now and keep adding to it. There is nothing better than loads of photos of family and friends! 

Bear v the Feather Duster

Bear has an obsession with the feather duster. I think that this may stem from his obsession in general with birds of any kind - from chasing seagulls on the beach to the poor goose he caught the other day to my total dismay. That was rather amusing after although he did come off a sad second best after I caught him - although that did take half an hour. It must have been a rather amusing sight - low-flying over-weight goose, Bear right on his poor feathered butt, the poor goose-minder after Bear, and me after the goose-minder running madly down the beach which sadly doesn't end ... Needless to say the goose escaped minus a few feathers and Bear escaped rather depressed and miserable after his hiding, but he still has this insane obsession. 

On the beach its OK as he hares up and down after seagulls that are way too smart to be caught, occasionally taking off after them and plunging into the salt pans to no avail, coming back stinking to high heaven of salty dead water and bird poo after running about a mile.

The feather duster is just amusing though, he must think that it is a dead bird attached to a stick or something, and this means to him that he must chase it and will one day get the better of me and destroy it, to his total satisfaction. So when the feather duster comes out, Bear goes insane and will follow you and it as if his life depends on it, trying desperately to catch it whilst you are dusting, using any means necessary,which normally means that my furniture is covered in great big muddy paw-prints as he launches after the bird-on-a-stick, never giving up.

When the duster is then put away - locked in a cupboard to prevent him climbing the furniture or ripping cupboard doors off to get to it - he will then lie in front of the closed cupboard or door for hours in the vague hope that it might come waddling out on its own so he can catch it unawares. As of yet, it hasn't, thank my lucky stars, but I am very sure that one day he will win his war against the duster ...

So Not Martha Stewart!

I went on to make my Mom's chili tomato chutney as I had a craving for it, so I got out the recipe and off I want. Clearly though, I didn't put any thought into the recipe as I would have remembered the error I avoided last time I made it and would then not have made it now!

The recipe calls for 1/2 a cup of vinegar, which I put in happily. I didn't remember the size of the tomatoes that I should have used, or the size of the chilies. The recipe said 6 - 8 chilies and so I put 7 rather large green ones in - not remembering that the last time I made it I actually asked my Mom and they were meant to be small ones! Ha! So I left it to cook away and eventually brought myself to taste it once it was done; only to be overcome by vinegar and chilies!

Wow but between the zinging vinegar and take the top off your head chilies, it was rather interesting. Needless to say, I parked that project for the moment and went out the following day to buy another 2kg's of tomatoes. I added in double what I had already put in - not the full 2 kg's but I got tired of chopping tomatoes so thought that double would do the trick. 

Well it didn't ... but by then and Pio quite liking the vicious chili kick, I decided to leave it as is. I then made a egg sandwich yesterday morning with a wee bit on and it actually wasn't bad, providing you don't use too much lol. Definitely a long way to go to be anywhere near Martha Stewart!

Me? Martha Stewart??

To my dismay it seems likely - OK, definitely not quite on the scale of Martha but seem to be on my way to becoming not too bad at the whole cooking and baking thing! Touch wood anyway - this now means that anything I bake and cook from now on will be a total flop.

I tried my hand at chocolate cakes,which came out great,but have worked out that my cake pans are too big for the amount of mix that I use and so my cakes are rather skinny yet large. New cake pans are expensive though so am holding out until I can afford smaller ones and living with what I have. Needless to say it could just be the icing and caramel that makes the chocolate cake so good!

I attempted cornbread which was OK - not fantastic but quite good. Again, I have a long and very skinny bread pan and would like to get a shorter fatter one, as my poor loaf looks decidedly odd. I found some gorgeous mini bread pans at Woerman, just the right size for one person, but as they are so expensive will have to hold off on that as well for the time being. 

On Friday I made a butternut soup which came out really well and fed us for the weekend, as well as a very nice Afrikaans pap-en-sous bake - only to discover that we weren't hungry after the soup and so half of it has gone to waste really. I am sure that the dogs will appreciate it though. 

Saturday morning I decided to make cheese and bacon muffins for breakfast,which came out great actually and I had the last ones for breakfast this morning - all cuddled up in bed with coffee, muffins, and Eureka. My next plan is to make a fabulous chocolate cake and take it to Ulf who has been a total life-saver for us regarding the Pajero and when I was so upset about the tax last week gave me a hug to cheer me up! Let's hope that it doesn't flop and I don't put it down on a hotplate on the stove like I did last time and crisp it again ...

Here's hoping that I manage to maintain this level of culinary semi-decency as I quite enjoy it - apart from the dishes!

Namibia's Coastline

I have been spending an awful lot of time on the beach this past week with the dogs. I have been attempting to take them out every afternoon now that things have quietened down for me and there isn't something that I have to do every afternoon and they get to run and play and I also get a good walk in.

We climb in the car and drive out past Mile 4; as soon as we're on the dirt road past traffic if there is any, the dogs run alongside the car and I drive the last couple of kilometers onto the beach itself and then walk from there. Bear is howling to get out the car and run the moment we leave the house and it just gets louder and louder until we get to spot where he can run his heart out. Yes, many passers by give us rather strange looks at this Husky that is screaming his head off out the window ... 

Even Kita is starting to enjoy the running, and is losing her totally ungainly galumphing crab-style sideways run and losing a bit of her grossly overweight body. She doesn't make it much over 20 km's per hour though,and usually gets left far behind as Bear and I cane off at about 40 km's per hour, leaving her far behind, but she plods on and catches up eventually. Normally by this time Bear and I have parked the car and are out on the beach already :)

Once out on the beach there is generally no one in sight for as far as you can see unless you look back to town,but during the week the beaches are empty - apart from Friday when we encountered some fisherman and so had to detour around them. I am slightly nervous being out there on my own as the dogs wouldn't be any kind of protection and there really is no one around. 

We walk down the beach and I try to get in at least a 20 to 40 minute walk; good for me and a load of fun for them as they get to sniff an ever-changing array of debris thrown up onto the coastline by the freezing Atlantic. There are hundreds of seagulls that Bear has great delight in chasing - although as of yet he hasn't caught anything apart from that daft goose he chased the other day - and a huge amount of dead sea-life, shattered mussel shells, seaweed, shark eggs even, and all sorts of other things.

The seagulls seem to eat the mussel shells,which somehow their iron stomachs break down into this fine grit that they mess all over the beach in massive quantities. There are also loads of little rock-like things; well they look like rocks until you pick them up and then they are semi-soft; must be some kind of ocean sponge.The dogs have great delight in digging them into the sand and playing - the whole experience must be a total sensory overload for them. 

On top of all the natural debris that the Atlantic throws onto the beaches, there is a startling amount of human rubbish - bottles, bags, fishing line, plastic, left over coals from fires, bones that people leave lying around and a huge amount of other stuff. All of this is detrimental to the sea-life in some way, and people don't seem to realize or care just what they are doing to the environment around them by refusing to pick up their litter. 

Each bit of plastic could be the end of some animals life; whether they think it's a jellyfish or if its fishing line that gets stuck in their claws or around their necks. It is shocking and depressing to see just what humans are doing to this last wild coastline as they use it to abuse the fishing, party, and run their quad bikes and cars over the Tern's nesting grounds. The authorities have cordoned off areas where no one is meant to be allowed to drive, but the people here have scant regard for them or for conservation and instead complain that they are ruining holidays and income from tourism by refusing entry to sections of the dunes and beaches. 

How small-minded - they don't seem to realize that when they are done destroying the coastline in the name of fun there won't be anything left to support our pathetic existence in this barren area and so won't be able to enjoy it anyway. What with rising sea levels and an angry Atlantic, it might not be long before Aranos is the new Swakop!

The Birthday Month

Well, it didn't work out quite as expected.

I had planned to go away on the 8th and 9th,have a big party on the 15th, and go to a lodge on the 22nd, which is our actual birthday. The 8th and 9th was scrapped as we had wanted to go to the farm but due to certain people (not us lol, read previous post) acting like children we didn't go. Then on the 15th we were invited to Omaruru, so off we went,and the party was scrapped.

It was the Festival of Arts or some such in Omaruru, so that would have been great to go to, but as usual that didn't work out either. Pio's cousin Behan and his wife Androette had a baby and so we collected Granny in Omaruru and drove on to Otjiwarongo to spend the night there and see the little mite. Kayla is tiny! We had a lovely evening and a braai with them, saw the baby, which sent Granny over the moon and she kept wanting to know when I would have one.

On Saturday morning we drove to Lilian and Jacks' farm on the outskirts of Otjiwarongo. Unfortunately I surprised them and so they weren't particularly happy to see me but showed us around. The farm hasn't changed a lot from when we were there - just bigger gardens and a lot more bird cages! They have the most incredible birds, imported from all over, in the most beautiful aviaries.

After that we drove back to Omaruru and had a really quiet evening, watched the rugby, and went to bed early.I also walked into a glass door without even having a drink :) proof that alcohol doesn't really cause you to do idiotic things! Sunday we had breakfast, Pio went to see Dan's huge collection of old cars, and then drove home.

Our actual birthday weekend went down the tubes as well as no one could look after the house, so on the Friday night we had a braai on the beach with Rian, Anika and Joani, which was really good. We had huge t-bone steaks, froze to death, and they made us down totally vile concoction to apparently celebrate our birthday. It hit Pio like a ton of bricks so he was man-down, and we then decided to go to General's for a drink, which we did and then went home.

On Saturday we watched the rugby at Gruner Kranz, ran into Vanessa and Wentworth, and they also did their best to get us drunk. We ducked home early after the game and had a very uninteresting Sunday chilling and watching TV.

So all in all the birthday wasn't quite what I wanted it to be, but we had some fun!

What a Weekend!

Every week, from Monday to Thursday, I complain that I am getting old and need to stop drinking and partying. Every week, from Monday to Thursday, Pio ignores me and somehow half the town lands up in my living room braaiing and making an incredible mess of my house. Thank heavens glasses are cheap - thank you Hardus who broke THREE on Friday night. Although him dancing with the mop whilst attempting to clean up his mess was rather amusing as well as futile - he missed most of the mess whilst managing to look like he had stepped out of Mary Poppins with a mop instead of a chimney sweep.

So there you go, Friday originally began as I spent the week saying that I did not want to party but we had to sort the Pajero out with Gustav and I wanted to make burgers. So this moved from Tuesday night all the way to Friday night, and instead of just being Gustav turned out to be Gustav, Joani, Hardus, Rian, and Annika. OK, great. There went my peaceful Friday evening. 

Then, at around 6pm on Friday night guess who rings Pio - Francois who is on his way to Swakop with Alex, an American mate of Pio's that he met whilst staying in the guesthouse. Fine, add some more people then, and hope that we have enough rolls, mince and salads for the burgers. 

And so everyone slowly trickled in, and all was going great until Francois and Alex arrived. I was sitting in the lounge next to the fire talking to Joani and Annika, and all of a sudden I hear Bear chunk and he comes bolting in to hide behind me. I knew something was of, but on asking about it was told that Bear jumped out of the car and landed wrong. I then went to the loo and he cowered behind me then hid on the bed and actually stayed with me when I cuddled up to him. So that was it, I knew something was wrong. 

So eventually they admitted it to me; Bear had gone to greet Francois and sniffed his crotch and Francois had belted the shit out of him. Pio had told everyone to not tell me as I would blow a gasket, but I know my dog. He asked if I could just leave it, so I said fine, and my dog hid behind me for the rest of the evening. I was furious. It only got worse; Francois and Gustav got into an argument about dogs as Francois kept going on about f'ing dogs up, and Francois was so drunk he tried to push Gustav around. Gustav, although on his ear, had stuck up for my dog and told Francois if he hit Bear again he would feel it.

So they attempted to get into a fight outside the front door, and I lost it, jumped in between them and then had a go and a half, and (screaming mind you) told them to grow up and that they could only come back into my house when they had made peace. Enthusiastically snarled at them, told them to stay the f out, and slammed the gate very satisfyingly behind me. I was clearly red in the face when I got back inside, so Rian and Hardus asked what was going on, I said fight and had another enthusiastic rant, and Rian and Hardus ran out the door lightning fast to see what was going on. 

Needless to say ten minutes later peace was made and everyone came back inside. Long and short of it, Francois was a drunk moron that is no longer welcome in my house nor will I go to his farm, and his mate Alex is an arrogant American twit that spent the night raving about himself and everything that he personally has done for this country and all the government ministers etc etc that he knows and has lunches and dinners with. I took great pleasure in telling him that the government here means nothing so he can stop bragging, and I probably know them all anyway so he has no reason to brag about it. MORON!!!

So thank heavens they left, and from then on we had a really pleasant evening and the burgers were a big hit - Pio and I only got one each so everyone else must have enjoyed them. Hardus took over the braai from Pio and happily splatted burgers (hopefully he washed his hands) and braaied them. Hardus then went on to break the three glasses (I suspect it might actually be 4) and then danced with the mop. Shortly after he also got out his harmonica and played along to a few songs, which was great. 

Saturday we were going to Rian and Annika to watch the rugby, and that was also great fun. Gustav and Joani joined us, and I blame it solely on Gustav that I got drunk - we were playing darts, and someone has to nominate someone else, then you pick a number, and depending on how many times they hit that number is depending on how many times the poor idiot (me that picked the wrong number apparently) drinks. I got hit 3 times, and that was me sitting in the corner woefully dreaming of my bed. 

Nevertheless, they all refused to let me go home, and before you knew it they had me dancing in the lounge with Rian, Pio and Gustav. Joani and Annika joined in and it was great until they started to go on about going out for a drink - Rian

Sunday we chilled and did literally nothing. Was great.