Dale and Kate on the 24th and 25th December, 2005.
We all tried the hat on, but Kate was the unlucky one who had her picture taken in it.
She'll probably kill me for this!

This is the divine grand daughter, Kirsti. She gets really good grades in school and is crazy about Paris Hilton, the Beckham family and her dog Joey. She is softly spoken and kind. We haven't seen her for a year and in that year, she has grown from a child into a young woman. Her trademark used to be her waist long hair, which is now fashionably cut at the shoulder, as in these pictures. I absolutely love her to pieces.

Christmas 2005 with the family should bring some up to date pictures of Kirsti and Alex, Mike's grandchildren. Also of Steve and Dorran. Now, if my brother Hugh and sister-in-law Wendy and my sister Ginny and her children would just send me some photos, I could post those too and then we would have the whole fandamily.

Don't really know why I am doing this Blog, but its quite fun and I can add whatever I like whenever I like and I like that.

Little A and Smelly Cat.

Two oil paintings.

The "Girl in the Fluffy Dress" was bought by my most wonderful American friends, Tim & Marilyn.

The "Lock" is one of my favourites and one of the first water pictures that I attempted.

Pastels. "The Med", "Ladies of Namaqualand" and "The Enchanted Forest".

Mike commissioned me to do a parrot for his birthday last year, so I opted for this Hawk Headed parrot as he was so colourful and grand. I absolutely loved doing this picture. It is in acrylic and oils.

A couple of my early pencil sketches.

At a Birds of Prey sanctury near a town called Dulstroom where we spent our 25th wedding anniversary. We didn't actually spend our anniversary in the Birds of Prey sanctury! It was a cold and overcast day, but the demonstrations and lecture were great.
More of our garden. The one on the right is the walkway between the house and Mike's office. Mike runs his own business from home and although I am officially retired, I
still do quite of lot of work for him. I am currently negotiating a salary!

This is especially for Tammy -it is the East view in our garden. I know lots of you will say 'but that's not a garden, its a back yard'. When is a garden not a garden? When its in the front? I don't know, you decide.

At the top, Smelly Cat and Little A and below, da Vinci and Peppa, our furry family.


Catching the two cats in one picture was a bit of a coup as they don't like one another much and are not often this close. Peppa and da Vinci, on the other hand, like each other very much. Da Vinci now looks like a Whoodle - a cross between a Whippet and a Poodle and moves like one too. Wonder what went wrong? Guess we were sold a pup! Gee, that's corny. Forgive me.

This is an air plant. Do you have them in your part of the world?

It has no roots, just lives hanging off a branch of a tree. It doesn't attach itself to the tree, just hangs on it. As long as the tree is alive, the air plant will thrive. This cluster is about 2 1/2' high by 3' wide and we have them all over the garden (back yard, front yard)! They also don't bloom for very long but when they do, they are quite spectacular.

Just to let you know that these postings are not coming out in the order in which I put them. Just so no one is offended that they are last in line!

These are the clivia that bloom in our garden in the Spring. They are big and beautiful, but don't last long so we enjoy them while they do.
Why don't some of you start your own blogs, I would love to see your families and homes, animals etc.

This is the beautiful Kate, Mike's youngest daughter. And she has the figure to go with the face. A real self-starter, Kate runs her own sauce business from Cape Town and is quite the young executive, hoping to enter into the export market in 2006. She makes frequent trips to Johannesburg to see her old man and me and check on her manufacturer and sales people up here.

The love of her life is Dorran, an entrepreneur, property developer and computer fundi who we think is lovely. We will see them and their two "furry children" at Christmas time.

The gorgeous Dale, Mike's oldest daughter - but not that old!
She is blonde and sassy and spends her days in, amongst other things, persuit of the perfect meal that she can cook for her family of four.
She has her hands full with her husband, Steve who is a Financial Advisor, and their two children, Kirsti 14 and Alex 11 who, I hasten to add, I call my step-son-in-law and step-grandchildren, and very proud of them I am too. So good a Financial Advisor is Steve that they are currently spending a fortune completely revamping their house in Cape Town.
We will spend Christmas day with Dale and all this year.