England 32 South Africa 16

We managed to watch the rugby with some good friends and needless to say they were gutted by the result. The South African team have been very arrogant calling their UK tour 'The Grand Slam Tour' which of course it isn't. Still, it made trouncing them all the sweeter.

Where Did That Week Go?

The flies are still with us and are becoming a major problem. We now have so many different traps etc around the garden and in the house that it's a wonder they can get in. However, for those that do make it in they run the gauntlet of Dean's 'Fly Gun'. This gives Dean endless hours of amusement shooting flies (with what is essentially a spring loaded fly swat) and Joel now laughs when he kills one. We'll not describe Dean's particularly nasty treatment of the ones he catches alive!

Swings

Today was great in CNP as the team from Penge came in and repaired/replaced the swings for the children. The previous swings were old tyres that had been cut to shape and then turned inside out and hung on chains. Needless to say they weren't good quality and had been broken for quite some time. The kids were delighted as the 6 swings now have solid wooden seats and sturdy chains holding them. They were also hung at slightly different heights to accommodate all size of children (and adults!).

CNP Update

I've just heard this morning that Brian has died in CNP. He was a lovely man suffering with TB. Please pray for his family, his death will hit them hard, emotionally and financially.

The church currently have a team out from Penge in London and they're looking at what the church is involved in. As part of this some of them will be spending a bit of time in CNP with one of their main jobs being to fix the swings for the children. Hopefully this will be a real blessing to the community.

Back On Line

I'm on a bit of a 'high' as I write as I've just watched Palace hold Arsenal to a 1-1 draw, they were lucky not to get beaten! Having watched the Birmingham game last Saturday in which we won 1-0 things are quite sweet at the moment.

We had a great time away with our friends Mark & Leanne and their two children, Kelly and Matthew. We'd not seen each other for almost 2 years so they'd not met Joel and we'd not met Matthew.

Friends From Zim

This will probably be our last update for just over a week as our dear friends Mark & Leanne have come down from Zimbabwe. We're all bunked down at ours prior to going to Cape Town on Friday for the following week. We're really excited as Mark & Leanne have never met Joel and we've never met their youngest, Matthew. Also, we're God-parents to Kelly (in the pic) and it is frustrating not being able to be an active part of her life due to the distance, but at least RSA is closer to Zim than the UK. We're planning all kinds of trips and stuff but more importantly just want to spend time chilling out and chatting together about life etc!

This Week Shot Past

This week seems to have shot past leaving us no time to update the Blog.

The highlights have been Roger & Shirley's visit on Tuesday including a trip into CNP. Roger was soon playing cricket with some of the lads (he was out for a duck!). We visited Patrick & Katrin, Aunty Poppy, Mama Jane and Dina each of whom said they really appreciated meeting Roger & Shirley. In the evening they took us out to a seafront restaurant in Gordon's Bay which was great. We really enjoyed meeting up with them and it's always good to see people out of context.

Oh Dear!

I was in CNP this morning and bumped into Sandra, she was in a foul mood and was extremely derogatory about Dina. Sandra alleged a number of things about Dina most of which I know to be untrue. What really saddened me was the fact that she turned against myself saying that I had put Dina up to getting the police to visit herself warning her about intimidating Dina. I had no idea that this had happened, although I did happen to know that Sandra had verbally abused Dina in my presence and later threw stones at Dina as she was walking to work. The long and the short of this is that Sandra is clearly not wanting to make any effort to befriend Dina despite indications that things were about to improve.

Sunday

This morning in church we had the privilege of hearing Paul Reid from Northern Ireland speak. He and his wife Pricilla are currently in SA. Paul was excellent and spoke about 'getting out of the boat' as Peter did when Jesus walked on water. This was really challenging and at the end when Paul asked to pray for those feeling challenged by his sermon, over 90% of the church stood up!

Family News

A week ago Joel was sat in his paddling pool and we were able to host Dean's birthday party outside as the weather was so hot. A week is a long time in politics -as they say, and the weather has gone totally pear shaped in the last few days. The rain is back with a vengeance (which is a good thing) and the North Westerly wind is blowing wildly. Maybe it's because an Irish couple have just arrived at Helderberg and they've brought the weather from the Emerald Isle with them?! Dean was quite chuffed as he got to fly his kite properly today (and has friction burns on his hands for his troubles!).

Rasta

Dean was in CNP this morning and heard the Rasta died at 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon. Whilst this death was far from unexpected it has still shocked the community following the 5 deaths last month. Rasta's death is the second death in October with only seven days gone. The other significant impact these deaths have on the community is financial. Most people don't pay into any kind of death policy and so the funeral expenses must be covered by the community and with so many deaths the community are feeling the strain financially. This is compounded by the fact that the community is already impoverished and most people are barely getting by, as such they really don't need this added burden.