It is not the same any more

Q: What is the worst thing about a lazy day out in nature?

A: The journey back home.

As children we loved visiting our favorite picnic spots in Paarl. It was a carefree day of fun under tall trees next to a little river.
We had a picnic, explored the environment, had a swim, and ate ourselves dik then we started all over again, while the old people had to sleep it off on the camp chairs or a blanket on the grass.

I no longer consider such an outing fun. Just the thought of having to dodge the traffic, on the way back to Tableview, undoes all the relaxation of the day. My my nerves are as knotted as it has been before the trip when I get back home.

Then there the idiots and smart Alex’es who know just how to bring your blood to boiling point, when they squeeze into your lane, while you queue at the bottle neck in the road into Tableview.
You also have to figure out which is the best lane to queue in. I seem to mark one car in the other lane and see who moves the quickest. One can never see the cause of the holdup until you passed it.

When you get home you have all the picnic things to clean away and the family will be looking at you with big eyes for their next tummy fillers or just coffee to get the old nerves back to its normal stress levels.

If you live in and around Tableview, it is silly to go all the way to Paarl just to sit under the trees.
We may not have many shady trees in our nature areas left, but we still have a lovely dam and beaches where we can enjoy a relaxing day out.

People, who live in Tableview, do not appreciate or utilize the resources right on their doorsteps.

We have some of the best shops, nature walks, parks, water sport areas and beaches right here, on our doorsteps, and much of it is free. The only thing we do not have a lot of in our nature areas are shady trees to sit under, so perhaps a tranquil visit to deeper in the country now and again may still be warranted.

My garden is like a rain-forest. If I want to sit under a shady tree near water, I just have to put the sprinkler on and fold the beach chair open. I possibly have more birds concentrated on one spot than anywhere in Rietvlei.

Five big trees have been cut down in our area recently. It is the height of breeding season so we have birds breeding at eye level.

It is difficult to know when it is the best time to trim trees now that conservation removed all the alien trees, which is just about all the trees in the nature area. The birds seem to compensate by breeding all the year around.


Of wat praat ek alles

Doggy poop - what to do with it.

My dog made a soft poop on someone's lawn the other day. I did not know what to do because I forgot the plastic bag at home. Even if I had a plastic bag, how does one scrape a soft poop from the grass? It will take forever. We shouted at the dog but it was a matter of “If you got to go, you got to go".
So I walked on pretending I did not see it and hoped no-one was looking through the window and spotted me as the culprit. The right thing would have been, possibly to write a note of apology and leave it in the letter box, but that will only cause a temporary irritation to turn into a longtime memory. Once you put a face to a poop it burns into your memory bank.
What to do with the poop once you collected it is the next problem. We have no doggy poop bins on our doggy trail. Some people just dump the plastic bags on the field and other throw it into the storm water drain to clog up our beaches and wetlands.
I was thinking of getting one of those plastic, washable gift bags especially to be used as a dog poop bag.

Photograph: Storm-water draining into Rietvlei. Feb 2010

I was reading somewhere that someone suggested we make electricity with it.

Of wat praat ek alles

Perhaps I should start a ‘what to do with dog poop' forum; but then again, it is only me and Bible and the occasional visitor using the forum.

One right to freedom

Those who are not for us are against us

My praatnie gedagte

Why should our children suffer from imported drugs and other substances of abuse? Why should international individuals get rich at the expense of decent, life deserving, individuals like our precious loved ones? Why should the world tolerate fat cats who weaken and kill our global human resource?
There are a majority of global citizens who want a better, free for all world. Why can we not have a global government that can make global free citizenship a reality for all people?
If one, individual, group, country or continent threatens the well-being of the global citizenship, there should be a force that can isolate and remove the infrastructure of international travel from such a group or person until they conform to the global law of opportunity for all.
There should be no exceptions. We should have no mercy for global inf ringers of our democratic rights to a good life for all. Any country, individual or region who partake of travel outside its borders, should fall under one global law.
The ‘United Nations’ have the infrastructure to become such a law society. It should be given the muscle and power to uphold those principles.
The global government should be able to protect all people.

Of wat praat ek alles

How the Hippocratic Oath changed in Africa

How medical care changed over the years.
Will we ever get back to what we once had? Is that even desirable for modern patients?
Sometimes I do not know any more.

I spent my nursing career in public hospitals. In the early years we used to be given little books of devotion to carry in our pockets. I am sure it made our patients feel saver whether hey believed in religion or not.
That went with the nurses’ veils and caps.
It was as if the nurses wanted to modernize. They wanted to be like everyone else. They no longer wanted to be on a pedestal.

The Nurses “pledge” as it is being practiced in South Africa and some other countries today.

Hippocratic Oath (African Interpretation)

I shall forsake the needs of my patients in order to strike for more money.
I shall milk the hard earned cash from my patients to the best of my ability whether they can afford it or not.
I shall refuse treatments to patients who are too poor to afford my fees.
My personal need and wealth comes before those of my patients at all times.
I shall not be held responsible for death or suffering as a result of my treatment.
All treatments received under my care is given at the patients own risk.
My patients are, at all times, the means to my financial rewards.

The Hippocratic Oath (Modern Version)

“ I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Hippocratic Oath (Original English Translation)

I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.


Perhaps it is time that people in charge of governments honor workers who heal the sick so that they can feel worthy again and live up to their highest ideals.

Super Hen Power

(Original post from: white_granny.iblog)

Supper Hen Power

(Please note that Winnie’s photograph has been added and that there is, to my knowledge, no such an alliance and never has been.)

If our three female politicians can pool their resources together, South Africa will have a force that is hard to beat.

They all have skeletons in their closets, but so have most of the world leaders, today.
If our three ladies can put their differences aside and form an winnie-helen-patricia sisterhood no army will be able to stop them.

They will have, behind them, the powers of the black, white and colored communities.

So Winnie murdered a few people and Patricia threatened to take the houses from the white people, and Helen got on everybody’s nerves at times, But together they can bring South Africa to unity.

Patricia “is nie op haar bek geval nie” and I shall never forget how hard Winnie fought for Nelson to be freed.

I lived overseas and all we read about is Winnie’s campaigns to free Nelson.
Helen is our ‘weergawe” of the British Maggie Thatcher.

I would like to see a photograph with all three ladies drinking a cup of tea (or a glass of mampoer) while planning South Africa’s future.

I can imagine my husband mumbling: “God forbid” , when he reads this post, “rather the devil you know than political hen pecking”

Of wat praat ek alles

(non related article)

What the eye can see makes the mouth waters

24-02-2010

(original post from http://white_granny.iblog.co.za/)

My front door was open.
We never have the front door open anymore, because if we leave it open every vagrant that passes by comes and ask for something and we have to listen to untold stories of sadness.

It was a bit stuffy in the room and I decided to open the front door just for a short wile to get some air in the room.

I was 'smagging' for something to drink so I took the last lovely cold fruit juice from the fridge.
I was standing well back, facing the security door and enjoying the fresh cool breeze from the door, while sipping my fruit juice, when the dog's bark alerted me to the free-paper delivery boys.

Knowing that begging is a side line for them, I hastily hid my cool drink, not wanting to put any ideas into his head.

I was hoping he did not notice the open door and deposits the stuff in the letterbox as he normally does.

No chance, he was on the doorstep and still hoping that he would just greet me and deliver the newspaper, I went to the door with the normal smile and greeting.

He gave me the newspapers then asked for a cool drink.
How in the warm place did he see me sipping the drink?
My last fruit drink.

I said that I only have half a bottle left, and he said its OK he will have it.

I gave him the hidden drink and closed the door.

I long for the days when I could leave my front door open in peace.

Later we found the empty cool drink bottle together with other junk next to the flattened plants in our front garden where he decided to picnic.

En nou praat ek nie twak nie.

Ag man! Dis lekker in die Army,

Original post from the white-granny blog

When I lived in Australia, my father used to send me some Afrikaans tapes which he recorded from the radio.
When I worked the 9-5 shift the traffic from our home was first gear and stop all the way to work.
A 10 min journey took an hour.
It was the best time.
I used to make flask of coffee. Put my vehicle in first gear and drove it like an automatic car.
No gear changes. It was a straight road so there was no need to turn. Just stop and start.

I rolled down the windows (No crime in Brisbane in those days)
Poured my coffee;
Spread the newspaper over the steering wheel. (No cell phones back then)
Then I turned the tape recorder on and listened to my Afrikaans songs while I read the newspaper and drank my coffee ……… and drive.

Here is one of those songs from Chris Blignaut (I think). I am not 100% sure of the words.

I shall have to scratch my old Chris Blignaut tape out somewhere.

—————————————————————-

Ag man! Dis lekker in die Army,
van Tempie tot Grootfontein!
In ‘n ratel op Otavi,
of hoog in ‘n bos aeroplane.
‘n Rang wil ek nie dra nie,
net ‘n R1 hier styf langs my sy.
Ag man, dis lekker in die army,
en ‘n troepie die wil ek graag bly.

Een Woensdag het ek ge A-wol
Die rugby offisier was vies
toe laat hy my pale toe leapard crawl
en ek word vir die DB gekies
‘n rang wil ek nie dra nie
net ‘n R1 styf teen my sy
Ag man dis lekker in die Army
net’n troepie wil ek graag bly

As jy van die kos dalk siek word,
wat jy innie army kry.
Wees bly dat jy daarvoor betaal word,
hulle moemit jou danger-pay.
Ek spaar dit en vergeet dit,
in ‘n bank en daar lê dit doodstil.
En as ek uit ge-clear het
oop ek wat ek begeer het,
dis ‘n ding wat hier onder my brul.

Koor
Ag man! Dis lekker in die Army,
van Tempie tot Grootfontein!
In ‘n ratel op Otavi,
of hoog in ‘n bos aeroplane.
‘n Rang wil ek nie dra nie,
net ‘n R1 hier styf langs my sy.
Ag man, dis lekker in die army,
en ‘n troepie die wil ek graag bly.
As my pa wil dan sal ek hier bly!

---------------------------

The song in this post is about voluntary army training in order to protect the country against terrorism.

The thought that comes to mind is that many things that is normal during war time, becomes crime during peace time.

The enemies of war become your friends of tomorrow.

So why do people not just skip the fighting and resolve their differences.

At least you will have more chance of living out your life to the full.

Of wat praat ek alles?

My "koffie lus" is gone.

I have been having writers block for about a month now; Ever since before my operation.

I think they removed my brain with the gallbladder. Those little ‘klippies’ in the bottle is possibly my ‘verkalkte’ brain.

Luckily I can eat anything now. Even curry. I ‘het die dokter die dood voor die oë gesweer,’ if I could not eat curry.
The only problem is that I can not get a taste for coffee.
I really ‘lus’ that coffee, but it does not taste nice. I even tried it black.
I tried Ricoffee, Nescafe and Jacob Kronen but in vain. My coffee taste buds are gone but my brain does not want to accept it.
I am an addict.
Perhaps I must get my friend to hypnotize me into thinking it tastes nice.

My little ‘coffee and muffin’ stolen moments are gone: poof – ‘in sy glorie’

So what is the moral of this story? There is none. I write rubbish because of my writers block.

Die ou bees. Old cow?

So I am fat. I am a happy fat person. I love cooking and eating. I have a fat husband and a fat cat and a fat dog and we all like to eat nice food.

What I don’t like is the medical term the doctors give to fat people.
OBESE!

Well, being Afrikaans obese sounds like an “ou bees” which might as well be an old cow.

So whenever I go to the doctor with some medical problem or another that he can not solve, he says it is because I am such an old cow. (Obese)

Of wat praat ek alles