Good Excuse For A Bottomless Hot Chocolate!

The plot thickens with our phone provider. Telkom are the local phone monopoly and generally their service is good although very expensive. Apparently, on the 26th of August someone -it now transpires that it was our ISP- requested that our DSL line be cancelled. Very helpful!

Then on Monday out landline went dead, yes the bill was paid on time. Following a few trips into the local Telkom office, several frustrating calls to our useless ISP we remain without phone line or internet connection. The explanations given for this debacle are complex, varied (in that they constantly change) and very very frustrating as no-one seems to want to take responsibility for it.

Curry Night In

On Friday night we enjoyed our long anticipated 'Curry Night In' as part of Paula's ongoing birthday celebrations. we had 22 of our good friends around for a sit down meal in the lounge and were catered for by a mum of one of Joel's school friends who happens to be Indian and a very fine cook!

The evening was a lot of fun with everyone mixing well and having a relaxed but superb meal.

Internet Down

If you've emailed us recently or tried to make contact then we must apologise as we currently have no internet. I'm sat in a local coffee shop (hard life) using their wireless network to post here.

Unfortunately on Wednesday last week Telkom (like BT) cut off our DSL line as apparently we requested the service be cancelled. Then on Monday they very helpfully cut off our landline. Brilliant! Yes the phone bill had been paid.

We're now trying to get it all back but things are rarely simple so all we can do is sit and wait.

Ho hum.

Planning Ahead

About two weeks before we were due to leave SA for Blighty, our line manager at church informed us that they were terminating our contract with them. This came as a bolt out of the blue and the timing wasn't great but that was the reality we had to deal with. Sadly over the next two weeks things were said and information was made public which never should have been and this lead to a lot of hurt on the part of our friends here who (like us) simply didn't understand the reasoning behind the decision. For our part we didn't agree with the decision and were very unhappy with the way in which the situation was managed. However what has been done can't be undone so we've tried to act as graciously as possible and attempted to ensure our words and actions remained honouring of the gospel. If we've failed we can only ask for forgiveness.

School Run

So here's the latest mode of transport for the school run. The boys are really excited about this new contraption (it's a Raleigh trail-a-bike), especially Joel as he'd outgrown the child seat a while ago.

I've been taking Eli to play-group on the child seat for a while now and Joel has been desperate to go on the bike again as I used to take him on it to school quite regularly.

Top Gear

We're alive and well but don't seem to get much time for blogging at the moment so you'll have to excuse the silence.

Just to prove we're still here, here's a photo of Joel playing 'Top Gear' (a well known TV program in the UK), he's re-enacting the episode in which the Hamster races a Bugatti Veyron against a Eurofighter Typhoon of the RAF.

Routines

We've been back for just over a week and it feels like we've hit the ground running in terms of following up on contacts, establishing new contacts and working out a plan of attack as to what we do, where we go and who we see over the next few months.

The boys have slotted back into their routines smoothly and they're both delighted to be back with their friends at school & playgroup.