Winter is in full swing down here at present, and our wood-burning stove in the lounge is the only heating source we have in the entire house, so it's a joy to see the fire roaring inside it on days like today.
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The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
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Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together -
The Gathering -
Baptisms at The Gathering -
Preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen -
Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
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Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng -
Thankful Thursdays -
HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
Staying fit as a family -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
It should have been ready for bottling around the 25th - 28th of August but it didn't stop gurgling until a couple of days ago. The guys who supplied the kit said this was fine and encouraged me to leave it for as long as possible before bottling, so after a mammoth wait it's a case of job done.
All I have to do now is wait for three weeks for the last bit of magic to occur in the bottles and it will be ready for drinking.
He has now been re-homed and will grow in to yet another spectacular Jade plant to join the many others already growing in the garden.
I do like the variegated nature of this one, the contrast between red and green is quite striking.
Read more about Jade plants here: Jade plants and Trees.
Recently, the gate got so bad at opening that it actually jammed open halfway on Monday. On inspection I discovered that the bearings in the front wheel were shot. In fact one bearing had totally disintegrated! (see left pic)
Having stripped it down and got the bearings out I dashed off to a local bearing supplier only to find on arriving at 3:01pm that they closed at 3pm. Nice work if you can get it! So having been back yesterday morning for replacement bearings I was able to refurbish the two wheels on the gate and get it working nicely. The gate now opens and closes a little bit quicker than before and is a lot quieter too.
I have to confess to the fact that I am really struggling not to write a ranty piece about the ineptitude and inconsistencies of the SA govt and their ham-fisted approach to the coronavirus, but I shall resist and rather talk about our garden...
After neglecting things for far too long I finally got around to some serious pruning and a number of other jobs over the last few days, including moving our dilapidated swing seat from the front garden to the rear.
Life doesn't get much better than listening to a bit of Jeff Beck, the sounds that man can get out of a guitar are mind boggling and an utter delight to behold.
After a couple of days of non-stop rain I had checked the local weather forecast and it said the rain had finished, so I hung the washing out, only for the heavens to open and leave the washing saturated.
I was not amused!
There was no way I was going out in that to get the washing in again, and so most of it ended up on the airer being dried by last night's fire, so I guess I shouldn't grumble.
Then this morning, the storm has cleared and we are blessed with wonderful clear blue skies, and we now have two loads of washing out on the line drying, which means we're fully caught up with the washing load (let's not mention the ironing pile).
... About My Home
This post was inspired by those social media posts about 10 of this or 10 of that, and I got to thinking that it was time to write a really positive post along similar lines, and what could be more positive than talking about my 10 favourite things that make my home the best home ever.
So here it is; 10 things I love about my home...
We have always been very clear that we would not home school whilst serving overseas. It's a common choice for many that do serve overseas but we've seen too many stressed and frazzled mothers (let's be honest it's always mum who does it!) to believe it's a good thing.
Sadly however, like much of the rest of the world this is no longer a choice but something that has been foisted upon us.
And so today is *officially* the start of Term 2 for both boys. To say that there's a degree of reluctance on their parts would be an understatement, though to be fair they have knuckled down in these first few minutes, hopefully that will continue.
I said in Thursday's post that I would talk about exercise, so here it is a day later than planned...As I said on Thursday, the frustrating part of the Police Minister's statement is not so much the ban on booze sales but the ban on being able to go out for any form of exercise. I had planned to go out for a 5k run every other day, but will now have to settle for running around the house. Thankfully we're blessed with a big garden and setting out a running track around the house will be an easy pleasure.
We had planned on doing a certain amount of fitness stuff at home anyway, with Joel & me planning on boxing in the garage, so we also stocked up of a few other bits to turn our garage in to a makeshift gym which will allow all four of us to workout.
I'm not quite sure how this happened, but recently Paula was seduced by the idea of getting a second dog. Having been resistant to the idea for so long, I was amazed because this is something I've been trying to do for ages and have previously attempted to sneak a puppy into the garden. Sadly I was busted and the puppy was banished, albeit to a very good home.Anyway, just before we left for holiday Paula showed us all a picture of Daisy and it snowballed from there. So having been approved by Animal Welfare and having passed their home inspection, they neutered her over the weekend and said we could collect her this morning. So we did.
Suddenly the clouds rolled in, the sky went dark and an almighty thunderstorm unleashed itself right above us. Thank you Lord!After a few minutes of messing about in the rain enjoying its cooling touch (it was 35°C just after lunchtime), we grabbed every available bucket and got busy harvesting as much rain as we could. In the end I reckon we got about 200Lts, which isn't a lot but it will keep the loos flushing for a while longer. 😃
It was fun to watch Eli revel in the rain and even funnier to see him get pelted by the brief hail storm.
Until two days ago I had only ever seen one chameleon in the wild, or at least in my garden, then suddenly today I came across another little guy (maybe it's the same one) and decided to get some better shots of him.This is a Cape Dwarf Chameleon indigenous only to the Western Cape and close to Table Mountain, though they have been found as far out as Agulhas.
Personally I'm thrilled to have this lttle guy in my garden and would love to see him again sometime.
Finally after a few weeks I managed to get hold of a big enough piece of netting to finish off Eli's football goal and he's really pleased with it.The completion of the goal nicely coincided with him finally getting his new De Beers football shirt which has his name and favourite number on the back and if I'm honest, he's a little bit more excited by the kit than the goal.
Oh well, I tried!
"On Friday 3 March 2017, a local disaster was duly declared and promulgated in the Provincial Gazette".Finally the City of Cape Town is getting serious about our two year old drought!
It's good to know too that they are now targeting the highest water users and visiting their properties to issue fines. Sadly however, it's all too little too late, they should have been taking serious action six months ago.
Here's wishing our baby a very happy 11th birthday.When Paula first met him in Bloemfontein hospital at a mere 12 hours old he was simply labelled "Baby number 9".
This total world-changer, Eli (the Lord is my God) Thomas Finnie, is destined by the King of Kings to bring light and life to all he comes into contact with. This unique,
We've taken a big step forward in recent days in terms of harvesting as much of our grey water as possible.The first picture shows the attachment for taking water from our bathroom to the garden, it's just waiting for the hose to be connected.
The pics below are of our slightly Heath-Robinson method of harvesting the water from our washing machine and dishwasher.
2016 has been a great year so far, and to be honest it just keeps on getting better and better!It was prophesied in The Gathering early in 2016 that this year would be a "year of blessings" and this has certainly been our experience and we're deeply grateful to God for the blessings poured out in our lives.
Today marks another major blessing for me as I've been married for exactly half my life today.
The last 24 hours or so have been horribly wet and cold but mornings like this make it worth it. I took this earlier this morning whilst walking Rosie in our local park.
Sadly despite all the rain of the last couple of weeks our dams are still desperately low and we need some serious downpours before summer begins.
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