FIVETRIBE

Surprisingly 0530 arrived and I was not grumpy at having to suit up and head out in the crisp morning. My overwhelming thought was gratitude for the fact that there was NO wind AND I was actually going to run a race with the man for the first time in 14 months. I decided 2 weeks ago to bite the bullet and enter this race having finally conquered an injury that has seen my running consistently hampered and interrupted for the last  two years.  While time on my legs lately has been short; I have spent many months doing rehab strength training as well as learning to run more efficiently. I was excited to see if this effort would show itself in my run today.  Before ..... After... Suffice to say it was wonderful. Challenging but not uncomfortable. Lots of soft sand, rocks and views for miles - just picture perfect. There was very little elevation which resulted in my being able to keep a reasonable pace over most of the terrain.  I ha...

Greyton Classic The day finally arrived! We had been so looking forward to spending a night in  Greyton  and then competing in the  Greyton Classic MTB and Trail Run challenge. Traffic was bad. Like intensely bad so we eventually pulled over to the One-Stop for a Wimpy dinner and waited it out. Shortly before 8pm we pulled in at  Zebra Moon Hikers Hostel ....a bit of roughing it for us all tonight. We found our dorm and then headed off to Rockhoppers to register and get our numbers. By now we were all lus for something hot n sweet so we ducked into a cute little bistro for coffee and malva pud. Nom By 9pm we were back in our dorms unrolling sleeping bags, filling hot water bottles and getting our kit ready for the morning. I have to say - sleeping in a bag is an acquired skill! I havent done it for YEARS but thankfully I was warm, toasty and got a few zzzz's despite the noise of the other hostel dwellers. :-/ Race day dawned and it was just perfect! We...

Lulu started school last week. Today she plucked up the courage to speak to a second grader. The conversation apparently went like this: Lulu : Wow, you have the same rollerblades as my sister! Nasty girl : Do I care? No I dont! (and stormed off) Lulu was aghast. When retelling me the story she almost sounded like she wanted to cry. I got all mad and furious (inside my head) but I gave her a hug and asked her how it made her feel. And she said: She looked like such a nice girl and I just dont understand why she had to be so rude. Suffice to say I did the mom thing and we had a lovely chat about life ( and its crappiness etc) but I encouraged her to keep *unwrapping new friends ; to not let this one rude person ruin her engaging attitude. * Unwrapping new people : Hooli started school again today and many of his mates have gone to Grade 1 so he was very upset by all the new faces. I spoke to him and explained that new people are like wrapped presents. Just like you have to unwrap pres...

Summer Celebrations happened at our place today - the kids were all missing their mates and we decided to have an impromptu party today. Cape Town's weather has been begging for us to celebrate the arrival of true summer! We hired an inflatable slip n slide, fired up the solar heating on our pool and invited 25 kids to come join the fun. True to form, Lulu spent the first hour in her room, utterly overwhelmed by all the noise, kids and general rowdiness. I was so touched when I saw Honey sneaking party food upstairs to her and eventually even coaxing her out to come and join the rowdiness. I really enjoy doing this kind of thing - even though it thoroughly depletes me it is so worth it to watch the kids all interacting and having a blast. Mam Honey is showing definite signs of domestic goddess-ness. She has been sewing as well as making us muffins and fresh (delicious) lemonade. Hooligan is back to his perky self and was our star dj today. So good to have him back on form! This wee...