Happy Australia Day

The Aussie boys including Christian went off at 7 this morning -I had suggested a cup of coffee in bed might be nice but instead I got asked for a pencil at the unearthly hour! The good thing about waking up in Africa is that the sun is nearly always shining in your window which makes it a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning. We were in the main office for an 8 am meeting bang on time but as you might have guessed there were not many others there....Africa time is so different from any other time in the world!

We started work soon after....Alison and Steve in the office with a long list of things to sort out and Craig and I went to playgroup but not before I had the chance to say goodbye to and give a big hug and a kiss to one of my special children..a little boy who I have known for a long time who has many special needs  who was off today for his first day at a special school. It is a boarding school where he will live during term time but he will come back home to BG during the holidays. He seemed confident and happy to start his new adventure and it was quite emotional to see him drive off in the car with his suitcase packed. My thoughts and prayers went with him and I hope that he is enjoying a good night'so sleep as I write this.

Today is the first day of the new school year so some of our children started preschool for the first time today . They seem to all enjoy themselves although many came back with the wrong little backpacks and one child in my house came back minus her pants!

Playgroup has changed quite a lot for the better which is great. The soft play room which was set up last year is in full use and the older children do slightly more structured activities which is brilliant.  I did leave Craig to deal with snack time on his own because Alison and I needed to go and buy some meat for dinner tomorrow which we did efficiently and successfully without even forgetting where we had parked the car.  We couldn't buy the beef we had planned for tomorrow so our roast beef and Yorkshire pud dinner is going to be beef casserole and yorkie puds instead.

Craig and I stayed in playgroup will lunchtime when I took him to my favourite house to share in the lunch time feeding time experience...I thought we did rather well - we had 5 children fed and down for their nap before 12.15! quite a result we thought. That left us free for lunch ourselves so we prepared and ate that back at our house before all heading off with ice cold drinks to Beautiful Gardens where Christian and the Aussies were busy finishing off the kitchens and putting handles on the door. Of course, like all good builders, when we arrived they were on a lunch break but we admired their handiwork before heading back  home.  We decided to stop at a little store for an ice cream as it was well over 30 by this point and we found an ice cream counter which sold either a choc ice or a chocolate cornetto! The lack of choice made choosing easy and it helped to cool us down a little before heading back to playtime in the garden. Playing with the children took up the rest of our afternoon while Steve continued with the IT list and Alison started to attack the long neglected store room which finally we have been allowed to touch....it is a bomb site so I think that project will take her and probably Craig the rest of the week.

Quite tired and quite hot and sticky I made it back to the house at 5.30 where the Australian flag was proudly flying outside.  as I mentioned in the title of this blog it is Australia Day today....the day that they remember the arrival of the first fleet from Britain back in 1788. What better way to celebrate this auspicious day than to share a barbie with their English friends.  It was there turn to cook tonight and steak, sausage and a couple of lovely salads has raised the bar.  They even gave us dessert which mean there will be another shopping trip tomorrow to make a dessert for them!,,,We sat out under the stars with a storm flashing lightning a few miles from us and had a wonderful evening together.

We joke that in our house we are the commonwealth  and across a wire fence are the Americans. There are 2 Americans living in our house but they seem to have retreated to their room not being able to stand the banter of the other 2 nationalities.

Anyway a good and productive day was had by all. I gave a little girl a chance to build her conffidence on her feet and hopefully brought a little bit of light into the life of someone else and the others have all made a difference to another person's life. We cannot help all 360,000 orphans in Lesotho but we can help the ones who are here and that is the reason for our being here. It is lovely to be back among people who are so pleased to see me and who recognise me and know my name.

Another day dawns in 8 hours......I am tired and very hot and need to sleep. I have managed to write this still sitting up and chatting with Chris and Steve and I think I may have fallen asleep half way through so I hope it makes sense.

Goodnight all

Jenny x