Wounded Soldier Update

Thanks to all for your prayers. Joel is coping much better today. This may be in part as he's relishing the time off school and getting to watch a bit more telly than he would otherwise.

This morning I took him for a blood test, just to rule out the viral possibility. I was dreading it as the last time we took him for injections he was a nightmare. Thankfully however, whilst I was riding in the Cape Epic last year I discovered a local anesthetic cream called Anethaine which was great for my bum (long story which you really don't want to know about!). Anyway, I smeared a generous dash onto Joel's arm a few minutes before the needle so that when the nurse attacked him he couldn't even feel the needle going in. Fantastic!

Irritable Hip

Please pray for Joel. On top of his broken arm which is almost healed, he's gone and got something called Irritable Hip (never heard of it before now) which is causing him a lot of distress.

The Dr said he needs complete bed rest for a week and must not put any pressure on it. Tomorrow he's going for a blood test to rule out any possibility of an infection and at some point he needs to go for an MRI to check that there is no serious underlying thing going on.

Top Gear Live

What a great evening we've just had with our good friends Jo & Mark at the Top Gear Live show in Cape Town.

Fantastic show with Jezza on top form form rudeness and crass comments. Priceless!

We were some of about 6 English folk but we certainly made our presence felt when England scored during the 'football' part of the show.

All in all a great show and a must see if you get the chance.

Palace R.I.P.

Palace went into administration last night less than 24 hours before their date with the tax man at the High Court to settle a winding up order over a 1.2M unpaid tax bill. We already had a transfer embargo slapped on us over unpaid fees to other clubs. Not that that really had much impact as we couldn't afford to bring any new players in anyway.

If God Shows Me A Miracle I'll Believe!

I guess most Christians have at one time or another heard the line: "If God shows me a miracle I'll believe". It's actually complete tosh but for some reasons many non-believers feel comfortable hiding behind it.

As Christians we know this line to be complete rubbish as we have a wealth of historic examples down the centuries of God pulling some amazing miracles and yet still people fail to believe in him.

ID Doc's

This morning was quite a monumental moment as we were in Paarl to collect our "Green ID books" which are the key to so much of South African life.

It's felt like a long journey getting to the point of having these documents and we're really grateful to have them! At last we can open bank accounts, get local a driving licence etc etc. Amazingly, your first ID book is completely free. Now there's something the so called 'developed world' could learn from!

Someone in the UK asked whether having permanent residency means we're now South African citizens and the answer is no. We could apply for citizenship in a year's time but that's a bridge we'll cross then.

New School Year

Another milestone was reached today as our boys seemed to literally grow up overnight. Joel started in P7 (English Year 2) and Eli graduated to Reception, straight from pre-Nursery last year because of his birthday falling in late December. We can't believe it, but they certainly looked really proud this morning in their uniforms.

Eli has a teacher we knew from Joel's Reception days and Joel as a new one, so it's all very exciting. They both came home full of it and with stories to tell (which is quite something for Joel) so we pray that it will continue in this vein. Joel told us tonight that there is one new rule (he seemed quite proud of this) - only one break time instead of two. We don't think he has put two and two together yet that this may not be such a good thing!

Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters?

Not my choice of a title for a blog post or a headline for a news article, but the Beeb are running the headline: Why does God allow natural disasters? in the magazine part of their news website.

I find the arguments quite interesting and am always keen to know what the world makes of our Lord.

Fish & Chips By The Sea

At the start of the school summer holidays we asked the boys what would their one special wish each be. Joel immediately asked if we could go and play on Gordon's Bay beach at sunset and eat fish and chips! Well, it has taken us almost 7 weeks, but tonight his wish was our command.... and we had a ton of fun. It was a beautiful, warm, not windy late afternoon/evening and, as you can see, the beach was almost deserted - yay!!

Ouch!

We were just off for a walk with Rose when Joel put his arm through the gate moments before it opened. Ouch!

Having managed to get the mangled arm out of the gate Daddy bundled him into the bakkie and shot around to the medi-clinic where we were seen immediately. Thankfully the medi-clinic is a stone throw from our house.

We were whisked off for an Xray (see left) which showed a fracture in his right upper arm. Thankfully the fracture is only on one side of the bone so it should heal well and quite quickly.

Joel was a superstar at the hospital and with his usual charm was much admired by the staff.

Weekend

We had a lot of fun at the Nature Reserve on Saturday. Once again the boys led the charge to the 'climbing tree' and are getting bolder by the week! Joel has discovered that the bit of water he once considered a river is, in fact, a tiny stream and very good for paddling in!!

The exciting news for the weekend for Joel was the loss of both his front teeth! One fell out on Saturday and the other on Sunday, so now he looks very different. He has been waiting for this for so long and the tooth fairy did not disappoint him - although we had to do quite a lot of explaining that that amount would not buy the next Star Wars lego!!!!

We also enjoyed a very nice curry cooked by our good friend Charmaine. It was great to go to her house 'en famille' and to enjoy time with her and our friends Gary and Nicky too. I don't think Joel stopped bending anyone's ear about Star Wars though - sorry guys!