A Bench Is Made To Reveal Its True Colours.

Another stage in our divine quest of a simpler life & lifestyle.

Give a man a tool, and he'll be happy for the rest of the afternoon...
The other day, while I was lounging in our garden corner, I had this vision of changing the colour of the benches. With great care and verbal tip toeing, I laid out my plans to Bob, because after all he'd be doing the stripping etc. Oh, it took a bit of convincing but once he'd seen the vision, enthusiasm abounded...

We are blessed with an abundance of space and old furniture. This greenish bench ( why does anyone paint over wood? ) is our prototype and thankfully the paint curled back in deference to the heat gun!

Lots of nooks and crannies to be stripped. The door you can see at the top belongs to our pig stye ( no really, a real one ) and might be next in line.

Bob's discovered the joy of stripping....ooh hoo!

This is a small glimpse of the finished bench...isn't it marvelous and cheerful? All it took was a few hours of work and it will give us years of joy, while looking at it.

Biggi

Who Knew That We Are Such A Modern Family!

A casual supper reveals all...

Having my parents come for a visit, apart from being fabulous to see them, also means a feast of food. As you know, we have been hitting the Restaurant circuit with great gusto and we have also made sure that our fridge is nicely stocked for home cooked meals.

Last night my Dad chose to cook ( now that I think of it, he's cooked every home meal ) his divine pasta Carbonara. Bob was on a late call out to a client, because let's face it, if your Internet is down panic tends to set in. And luckily so for Bob and his business. So the three of us were in the kitchen. My dad behind the stove and Polly and I in front of it sitting around the kitchen table.

Well, I realized than and there that we had morphed into an ultra modern family:

• My dad was slaving away behind the stove.
• Polly and I were sitting around the kitchen table, each with an iPad in hand and talking while squizzing at the iPad at the same time.
• We had chilled white wine within our reach and toasted my dad and his skills.

When it struck me that I was multi-tasking with that darn appliance ( don't get me wrong, I do need and love it ) I stopped immediately and focused on my parents. Those little Apples are not living up to the adage of

an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

At one point Polly wanted to help my dad with something but as our kitchen is small, he told her to not bother him in his space. A Maestro needs peace and quiet and no female interference!

Of course I am well versed in how to handle the odd situation of seeing a man cook in the kitchen. When Bob does his thing in the kitchen, I make sure he doesn't see me.
Out of sight...out of mind. Once, many moons ago, I made the fatal mistake and showed my face in the kitchen while he was cooking and had to field the:

" Where is the salt / spoon / strainer / plate etc..."
" Can you stir / hold / slice the food..."

No, this was not on. Bob knows where everything is and can easily get it himself. You don't see me calling out to him for those odd things while cooking. More importantly, he would ignore me anyway...

Bob often sits with those awful earplugs at his computer. He can't fool me though. I have noticed that when I ask him to help me with something, he pretends to not hear and only a bout of vigorous hand waving in front of him will make him look at me. Gosh, but when I go to our chocolate hiding place in the next room, he hears it loud and clear, demanding his share!

Look, even though we had a modern family dinner setting, it was still nice to sit & eat at the table. When Bob and I are on our own we tend to eat in front of the telly. Chatting around the dinner table is far more fun and interesting. Perhaps we'll give it a shot?

Biggi

Possessions: A Roller-Coaster Ride Through Our Life.

And we thought we needed it all!

Life gives us the right insight at the right time, I think. At the moment I am fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with the slightly older crowd. The Grey Brigade so to speak and what a privilege it is. Aren't they the ones who sort of know what is important and what is not?

One of the ladies I chauffeur to the doctor's rooms, lives up a slight hill and it is rather fun trying to manoeuvre the chariot in such a way, that she needn't walk so many steps. Driving on her lawn is not my favourite, as I need to reverse between a peach tree, a washing line and her shed.

As I got out the car to fetch her, I happened to see a new-looking coffee maker standing among the dusty lot. I only noticed it, because it was the same one we had back in South Africa. Gosh, hers looked still new, but was obviously given the boot out of her kitchen. Strange, as this coffee machine also makes a mean cappuccino.

The more I thought about this yesterday, the more I realized yet again that stuff is just stuff. When we are younger, we want to have all this stuff. Somehow we imagine that our life wouldn't function without all this stuff. Heck, we willingly sign up to work way past our retirement age in order to have it....

Oh yes, think about it...every time you buy another contraption, possession or some such, you assign more time to your work life. One has to pay for it. If you didn't get all the possessions, your pension pot would be ready so much sooner and possibly nice and plump too!

Most of our possessions that we spend half our life acquiring ( at vast cost too ), gets put out to pasture in the other half of our lives. Downsizing happens when we suddenly get that bolt of insight. That realization that we don't need it all. Dust collectors are just that. More work on the domestic front and space wasters.

If we have these issues in our home, maybe it's time to downsize, ahead of time:

• too many things in our closet? It doesn't matter how big a closet is, it will always be too small to hold it all.
• our lounge is overfilled with our possessions. Keeping it clean is a major task.
• our spare room, the room on standby for visitors needs to be cleared before visitors can sleep in it. Haven't our spare rooms become our storage facilities?
• our garage and or attic are testament to all the crazes we participated in. A surfboard, a few bicycles, shiny toys, paddling pools, roller blades and oh, the list is endless...

The one plus point of people having too many possessions, is that Bob and I have benefited hugely form their eventual downsizing. Most of our furniture consists of " downsized stuff "...

Biggi