Tuesday's Edition.

Sign of time...

Bob and I have made our home here in Eisenberg for close on nine years. Nine happy years, eventful years and exciting years. Being a part of, if only on the peripheral, a small village means living along side it and its people.

We first started English conversation classes in 2011 and a year or so later it morphed to English extra lessons. Much more fun and much more rewarding. The kids were still in Kindergarten when we first had the privilege to help them with English and through the years I was happy to be allowed to follow their progress by seeing them now and again trying to imprint on them the minute details of the English language. For some odd reason it is more difficult due to it being a second language. Pure torture of the kids at times. All those intricate grammar rules I had to help them understand and learn, we had never been taught back in South Africa. But, anyway, so far so good.

Yesterday I had an extra lesson with one of our ' original ' kids ( I think he was still in Kindergarten back then ) and now, he is in grade 9. Unbelievable. It had been a while since I had helped him with English and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw him. Almost all grown up but still friendly and courteous. Well, to him I must seem like an elderly aunt type of person, one that tends to irritate him with repeated writing of verbs and hints to write legibly ( a bit rich coming from me ! ) and of course, to please read books.

Time slips by so fast and often we only become aware of it by seeing the young grow up. Naturally we ourselves never notice the signs of time because if we don't believe it then surely those crow's feet, laughter lines and general stamp of decades gone by can't be real...

Biggi