The Lion Park (rrrrroooowoarrrrr)

When I was little, we would occasionally go out on a day's trip to the Lion Park. It's an extremely artificial environment (but less so than a zoo), in that the herbivores get to roam somewhat free, and the carnivores, lions, cheetah and African wild dog are in fenced off camps. But it sort of simulates the more typical African safari experience in that the animals are viewed from the safety of one's car.

Nevertheless, it's probably more interesting for a toddler than most game reserves, because the animals are easy to see.

We set off on a cool and cloudy morning to the Lion Park. There's a feeding station for the giraffe that Goblin was completely uninterested in. He wouldn't even allow me to try feeding the giraffe, but he was quite fearless when it came to the ostriches who did their best to get in on the free food action. We didn't bother with the queue to pet the lion cubs, that was way too long for our limit allotment of patience. ;)


We said hello to the meercats and then

got in the car and drove around.

I resisted the urge to pet that furry kitty belly!

Watch out for the ___ crossing

Whenever I see a sign on the side of the road warning motorists of odd things that could cross the road, I try to capture a picture of it.

I've managed to "collect" quite a couple of signs, like the "Cat crossing" sign from a little town in the Western Cape:

And then there was the "Hippo crossing" sign up in Limpopo:


















But the Johannesburg Country Club is concerned for some of its smallest residents, hedgehogs.

I saw the signs on the way into our Christmas lunch and got excited, so on our way out, despite the super tired Goblin in the back, I had to snap a shot. Watch out for the hedgehogs.

A midsummer's Christmas

For Christmas Eve, Goblin, mom and I went out to Claudia’s place. Her caregiver cooked a roast chicken, mom made a gammon and I made chocolate pots de crème. We opened up presents to each other and Goblin loved the Christmas crackers. Everyone wore their paper party hats without complaint although Goblin’s hat was a little too generously sized, but a quick application of some sticky tape and we all had crowns that fitted. We stayed out quite late and it was 9pm before we arrived home with a very sleepy Goblin.

I quite expected him to be up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning but he surprised me and didn’t wake up until 7:30am. And even then it took some encouragement to get him downstairs to the presents set out beneath the tree. Mom and I had stayed up late the night before and hurriedly wrapped everything. It’s a good thing a three year old has no real discrimination about perfection (or the extreme lack of) in wrapping because much of the wrapping paper was hanging on by a wing and a prayer and some very slapdashedly applied tape.

I broke one of Goblin’s presents as I was putting it under the tree. I’d bought him a tiny green mug (green is his avowed favourite colour) and dropped it. Ceramic mug + ceramic tiles = that ghastly tinkly crash sound that means someone better get a broom and a dustpan chop-chop. Fortunately Goblin didn’t know the difference and he loved the gifts he did get.

For lunch we were lucky enough to be invited to Johannesburg Country Club with my aunt, uncle and niece. The club has a gorgeous (and apparently relatively new) pavilion next to the pool and tennis courts. And above the pavilion is the volleyball court. A volleyball court that apparently doesn’t drain well when it’s received days on end of rain. After lunch, Goblin went exploring and it didn’t take him long to discover the rain-filled volleyball court. Rain and mud-filled. Delicious fun for any three year old little boy. (Actually, if I’d had a change of clothing, I admit, it’d probably have been fun for this mommy too.)

After he’d gotten thoroughly wet and muddy, I retrieved Goblin. Time for a change into something dry. My brave and wonderful aunt Denise took Goblin off so I could have a lovely post-lunch cup of tea. (I could wax lyrical for multiple blog postings about how nice it is to order tea and have a good cup [pot] of tea delivered to me in South African restaurants.)

Aunt Denise got Goblin stripped down to nothing, reached for his clean dry clothes and then grabbed for the empty space where Goblin had been just a few moments before. Standing a few feet away, eyes a-twinkling, bouncing with nekkid joy was Goblin: “You can catch me now,” he announced and took off.

So there we were, at a la-di-dah country club with the Christmas lunch streaker dashing across the lawn towards the tennis courts. Alas, everyone was laughing too hard to actually pick up a camera and take a photo, although we have some before shots that should be good for the 21st birthday embarrassment special.

All in all a wonderful day!

A pool and a boy

Water water everywhere... well, it's in pools anyway. Everyone has a pool. And for a kid who screamed blue murder everytime he was put in a pool for swimming lessons he's adored paddling and splashing around in pools as much as possible. He's also taken an unintentional plunge once, but that's a whole different story.

Now if only I'd remember to pack Goblin's swimming costume whenever we go anywhere. But that's okay because underwear does just fine in a pitch.

What Christmas tree?

Shortly before we left North Carolina, Goblin asked when we were putting the tree up. Somehow he remembered the lit tree from last year. I prevaricated and put him off and three days' later we were in the air flying to Jozi so the point sort of became moot. Sort of because a three year old in search of a Christmas tree complete with lights (oh the lights) is a determined little three year old.

Given that my mom is trying to cut down on possessions in preparation for her move, so we didn't want to invest in a fake tree, and real, cut, trees just aren't grown or sold here, we were somewhat stuck for options. I suggested getting a wild olive tree and decorating it for the few weeks we needed it and then planting it out.

The olive trees we saw in the nursery make Charlie Brown's tree look lush. Plus they were all quite tall. So we ended up with another evergreen native: a yellowwood. Throw in some tinsel and a handful of shatterproof decorations and voila! an authentically African Christmas tree. Except for no lights. Goblin was quite disappointed in the lack of lights. We'll have to go all out next Christmas.

At the same time as we bought our Christmas yellowwood, we picked up a couple of cherry tomato plants. It's been luxurious to grab fresh toms off the plant for the second time this in just a few months.

Procrastination in slow motion

First I said I would visit home (also known as South Africa) sometime in 2009. Then I swore I'd make it back for Christmas 2010. And then early 2011 and then sometime later and then...

I looked at ticket prices for December 2011. This was on the 1st of December. And the cheapest price I'd seen all year, and the cheapest for December was a departure date of the 6th of December. So with some consultation with the spouse who'd be left alone to look after three cats, suffer a North Carolina winter and arrange for us to move house, I booked tickets for the Goblin and myself.

An international trip, with a 3 year old, for a period of approximately 3 months, made on complete impulse and with less than 5 days to plan.

Yup, that's me all right.

So on the 6th of December, we arrived at the airport at the unholy hour of 5am-ish, 4 large suitcases in tow. One with my clothes, one with the Goblin's clothes and two stuffed to the hilt with toys, fluffy animals and other essential survival gear for life with a toddler.

The flight was... hellish. It's over. Well, until I have to do it all back again. The trip from JFK in New York to Johannesburg was 15 hours. And the Goblin slept for a grand total of 1.5 of those hours. I slept for maybe 15 minutes. That's standard as I don't sleep in planes without chemical inducement and I wasn't going to take a sleeping tablet when I was solely responsible for a 33lb potential terrorist. I may frequently take a laissez faire attitude to parenting but I'm not that lax. ;)

Thank heavens for inflight entertainment though. I think Goblin watched a single episode of Pepper Pig (of which I'd never previously heard) 6 times. And he watched Rio at least 3 times over. Rio is now his absolute, undisputed, ultimate favourite DVD.

So we made it to Jozi in one piece, without losing any pieces of the aeroplane along the way. Almost as soon as he was strapped into the carseat, Goblin fell asleep. Way to adjust to jetlag kiddo... you wait until you've been up nearly 24 hours straight, it's now 3am back where you were yesterday and you go to sleep. Hmmmm....

The day after we arrived, it got cold. I love summer in Jozi. You never know what weather you'll encounter from one day to the next and it can and does get chilly here. Of course, it's a mild, temperate, tropical chilly, but still it's enough to encourage the wearing of the one and only sweater I brought with me for three days' running.

Fortunately I brought more than one item of warm clothing for Goblin.

There is a small selection of play equipment near the pool and club house in mom's townhouse complex. The playground is also right next to a bird sanctuary. On the other side of the fence is a bird hide and a notice asking for silence.

You'll probably see the sacred egrets hanging out in a fair number of pictures from the playground. Those are the white birds blobs in the picture to the left. The kid on the slide is Goblin, who managed to notice the existence of a playground despite being asleep and highly jetlagged when we arrived at mom's house.