Hockey and other sports!

Lydia being the sporty one in the family, tried out for the Rep Team of new castle. Harald organised that before we even got to Australia.
On one fo the hottest days in January, being the hockey is a winter sport in South Africa, it was a little weird to put those long socks and shinpads on. Anywho, there we were.
Lydia was playing  well and easily got into the team. Then someone mentioned that she didn't write down to which club she belongs... well, maybe because we did not even know she had to have a hockey club. We had no idea that school children had to belong to clubs to play hockey.
Now, which club to choose? there are so many? One of the parents said we could just as well belong to the Newcastle Club as the club coach is one of the people who picked the Rep Team, and so, that's how Lydia became a member ofthe Novacasstrian hockey Club.
Luckily all the competitions were played at these fields which made it easy since I now knew where they were. However, the Rep Team had a little weekend planned in Canberra where we would play interstate hockey.
With new school, new hockey clubs and new tennis clubs and tournaments in all of these plus school sports carnivals, Lydia was more than a little busy.
She would come home from school and tell me that footy is a stupid game or she doesn't like soccer, but move did she move.
And so winter came and the weekend to Canberra arrived. Harald in all of this, was really a bit of a missing link as BHP always had him flying off to some other country or state. So here I was, gathering my whits to take the 5 hour drive to Canberra on my own. You know, when you get that wild look in your eyes, and someone says: "ah don't worry it'll be fine..."  Well this one morning at the Bible study, Cathatrina saw that my eyes were a little wilder than normal and she said, I love driving, I will go with you!
Wow, at first I thought, she just said it, but wow, she actually did it! Thanks Catharina, I really think you saved my life and Lydias that weekend.
Driving, then wasn't so bad, but when we got there, as everyone warned us, it was freezing! Canberra gets that way. It felt like home, almost. It rained most of the way down and I prayed that everyone will be sensible and cancel the weekend. But I forgot we were in Aus. The sport is king!
The Friday night games were WET and SLOSSHY! but Lydia is a trooper and she did wat had to be done!!
Then Saturday mornning it the whether cleared and we had wind all day long. Not the breezy wind that you can handle, no winds that take your breath away. Come Sunday  morning, it was jsut cold and not so bad at all, until we got to the hockey fields and they turned into ICE. O boy, did these girls struggle to stay on there feet! crunch, crunch all the way through the match! And the team did as was required of them, they lost so we could all go home!
Well that was the first year hockey down and hey, we saw Canberra at its best. Thanks Cathatrina!

Learning to Drive.... again!

Nici decided to take the year off, maybe she just realised that I might really go bonkers if she doesn't. But the excuse is that her results came out too late to apply for Uni in Aus and so she had  year with me.
I really enjoyed having Nici around and we had lovely times, driving up to Starbucks and back. Nici had to redo all the learner hours for her drivers licence and in order to do that legally I had to get my license first. What a strenuous time, to put yourself in that ball of fire and redo your drivers test. Yip driving in SA is apparently not good enough. Well let me tell you, they have no idea. The drivers test is so much easier in Aus that it really doesn't matter whether you can drive or not, you just have to spent 120hours behind the steering wheel to be able to get your test done. Luckily for us, at we jumped in early and we could do 50hours of driving only.
Anyway, I got mine, Harald got his, Talita got hers and Nici got hers and finally a few years later, Lydia got hers. Wow at that point with South Africa and Australia together I spent no less than seven years continuously driving with a learner driver next to me.
No wonder I am a little ratty these days!!

So in the process of driving Nici and I discovered that Starbucks made the best Coffee and we became Customer of the week, B'day Bucks Girls and special guests at the Christmas party and later on Nici worked at Starbucks! O and then they closed... what a shame...not because Nici worked there, no the world economy just couldn't face another Starbucks opening up.

Morning People?

So there I was, after all the hype of leaving and all the important things I had to do and say and play. So much to do so little time, deadline after deadline, using every skill God ever taught me from running, to banking, to organising and negotiating. Following the man to the ends of the earth as they say.
What to do now?
The days are long everything is new and exciting and scary, but there is no one you know to share it with on this side of the earth.
So we start planning school and everything that goes with that, eager to get into life "on the otherside", to meet people and find things. HAHAHA
School only starts in February! How is that possible that silly season can carry on for so long! I could have spent another month in South Africa, its not as if I have chairs to sit on or as if the kids have real beds to sleep on. Now this is a new type of camping experience. A good one, but a new one.
Right, so we sit January out and wait for February.
We went to see the Head master of the school  about 2 weeks before, to get all the clothing and other requirements sorted out. He then told us, school start fairly early in the morning and he would appreciate it if we could arrive on time at 8:30am on the first day.... my mouth fell open, what?! I though you said early?
Well on the first day, Lydia and I got up early (6am) to get ready as we always do.... man was that a long wait. Don't come to Aus if you are a morning person, not many of those around.
This was one of the hardest things for me to get used to, because I was raised to get and go and wake up later. So to have people around me until 8:30 in the morning and not being able to get going myself, was really a struggle.

The Morning After

It was the morning after we landed in Sydney that I realised, I am back in this 'funny' country where the birds wake you up from trees so close to your house that you feel as if you are in the nest with them.
Now the Magpies really struggle to hold a tune sometimes, but you can see that they don't have a clue. To them it is really the most beautiful sound they have ever heard. To a South African, used to neat little tunes of Pietmyvrou's (dont' bother trying to say it if no one ever taught you how) and hoep hoeps and lovely song birds, this is really very funny. But wait there's more... what about the Kookaburra (!) man, do they have a great sense of humor. I have never heard such loud laughter from a bird and no matter how depressed I feel on the day, they pull me through. It sounds like baboons barking. Then you get the Bell Birds, they make the sound of a U-boat... PING! Its great to hear them Pinging through the woods.
Now I am really not a bird watcher so I haven't learnt too many more names, but these birds are my favourites.
In the woods near our house in Green Point, are the most beautiful  pathways to cycle, run or walk. The pathways go along the lake and through the bush, this is something you have to experience to understand how beautiful it really is.
Running any other pathway, is just not as nice after that.

Leaving, is so hard to do.

After selling everything at home. The Cars, the camping trailer and the home itself. We had the day in which we moved Talita from Pretoria to Johannesburg and Mom and Dad from their home to Darrenwood Village. Some things had to go here and some things had to move there... that was fun! My brain was never so switched on in my life! I negotiated deals and put people in their place who might want to take advantage of the fact that I am a women. I dealt with children and exams and Harald overseas. Constantly thinking, do I make this decision myself? Can I phone him or is he sleeping or in a meeting or on an aeroplane to some faraway place?
Saying good bye to everyone and everything, that was too hard to put in words. Over and over again, saying the same kind of words and realising that life is going to be very different. I played the harp one last time here and one last time there. The "Circles of Life" closed one after the other and then there were the ones that you cannot close because you have to keep them open for your own survival.
Someone asked me how much I cried, but I think I cried on the inside, there wasn't any time to cry... only to organise and move... move on, move out, just moooove!
In some ways it was really good too, because I could see how many people God let me touch in my life and maybe I should be a little kinder to most people as the ripple effect is so much bigger than you realise yourself.
At the end of December with the last Christmas behind us, we were ready to leave and I think the family was ready to let us go! Wow, what a great lot of people to leave behind! Or, do I leave them behind? No, they are coming with me, you cannot break that chain... isn't that great!? that chain stays, the love stays.
And then we arrived in the new place!

Take care, what you say could come true.

In 2001 I came over to Australia... 38 years old, first time overseas traveler, wow, so much to see so little time.
First we popped in to meet some friends in Perth. What a nice place! A little flat, but nice. very new, modern and growing.
Then we popped over to Melbourne for a Chem Ing conference. That was a buzz! I got the royal treatment and could see the city with all the wives and partners of the conference attendees. I could experience the tours on the Yarra and around the city and when I learnt about the FREE TRAM! wow this was the place to be.
And don't forget the limo rides and great hotels and the flames in the evenings at South Bank with people you know from the conference!
Hey, now that's how you market a place!
Then we went to Sydney, because you can't come to Australia without going to Sydney...
Limo rides and tour guides again! O boy, how spoilt can I be.
But I had a bit of reality in my mind left and we booked a Maui Van to go and see the Blue Mountains... At first we thought, what mountains, but now that we are living here a few years on, now we know they are beautiful!
Anyway, the experience was great except for the "canteen" that closed early (3pm) and so we had no food. O well, its all about the experience. The spring roll I had was a little on the "off" side so I felt a little less hungry for a few days. Good for the budget, don't you think.
Well, I did not know where Harald took me too, I was just the passenger and enjoyed every moment of it.
We landed up in Newcastle, what a beautiful city! At Bar Beach is where I said it: "Wow, if you want to take me away from South Africa, bring me here, this is where I want to be."
Well, in 2005 that's where we went, straight to the place that I fell in love with on my first visit to Aus!
It is so beautiful and it is right next to the sea. Real people live there, with real issues and some with not so real issues, but I loved every moment of my stay in Newcastle. Until...