Blog for Tuesday 18h March 2025

(I love this person’s sense of humour!)

I rolled out of bed at just after four this morning, and the early hours were decidedly nippy today. So strange after all the heat we have had recently.

I fed Shamara who is delighted to have her normal cat food again, poor dear.

While I was having my Quiet Time, in the background was the desperate bellowing and lowing of some poor mother cow calling repeatedly for her straying calf. Sometimes the calves are naughty and just do not reply or come to their mums when called. Ah-ha! I now hear a bleating of a calf, I pray it is the one looked for and that they are hearing and listening to one another now and will soon be united!

Silence. They have found one another! Hallelujah!

Paddy and Matt’ are coming up to the farm on Friday morning which is good, as it seems like forever and a day since they were last here! Not true, but after their regular fortnightly visits were interrupted by their trip to Thailand and then the flood here, they have been kept away for a while.

Ah no! Matt' cannot come to the farm as he has just been given three assignments for his uni', to turn in by Monday! End of that plan!

I was happily continuing my sorting, de-cluttering tidying when Ken came through to where I was working to tell me that he had invited some guy plus whoever - there would only be two of them - to come and see our Bonsmara cattle today - they would be arriving in mid-afternoon and would probably stay overnight!

I cannot begin to describe my feelings at that particular moment but the easiest way would be to say, had there been a cliff nearby I would have jumped off it! ’My world then became a blur of activity - in fact I did not know where to begin. To add to my woes the water pump stopped working, then the hot water was not working, plus Ken could not get the lawn mower to start and the grass is ridiculously long and the toilet cistern definitely was not working and to think we were to host two perfect strangers here in a few hours.

Theunis and his son Andries arrived in the afternoon and came across on the tractor nog al! They were such nice people just wanting to see some South African cattle. They live south of Adelaide working as potato farmers in a huge concern there. They have only been in Australia for four years and are delighted to be here. Theunis and his wife have six children.

While they were here sipping on coffees and chomping brioche vanilla custard buns and biscuits I offered them a bed to sleep in,  but they had already  decided to go back home tonight. They are on holiday down on the Central Coast or there abouts.

I made a new chicken recipe (I had had to quickly de-frost the chicken as the food I had available was just enough for Ken and me,) and served that with rice, butternut and peas. I had to serve that early as these guys had a long way to drive back home!

When Ken took Theunis and Andries back across the river to their vehicle, Theunis gave Ken a packet of South African sausages to thank him for the day. Very kind of him.

I crawled into bed absolutely finished.

What lesson did I learn today? Slow and steady wins the race.

What am I grateful for today? Progress, no matter how slow or how many times interrupted!

My saying for today is … and it is one especially to me