The miracle we were hoping for has happened.
Edward T Bear – together with hubby’s suitcase – had gone missing somewhere between Santiago (Chile), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Johannesburg (South Africa).
Thankfully, they (well, the suitcase…) were located, and soon made their way home. The prodigal bear was welcomed home with much cheering!
Hubby travelled to Chile in April 2014, in order to visit the Atacama Large Milimetre Array (ALMA) Telescope in the high mountains of northern Chile. He had a great time, met some friendly people, and even experienced an earthquake! It certainly made the trip a memorable one!
But the main reason why we will never forget this trip is that, when hubby finally reached OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, after more than 24 hours of travelling, he was dismayed to find that his suitcase (containing a certain Edward T Bear) had not returned with him. 😦
While my blog has been rather quiet for the last few months, Flat Kathy’s blog has seen a flurry of posts and updates. If you haven’t yet popped on over there to read about her latest exploits and adventures, please do. She’s a friendly, sunshiny kind of gal.
Things have been a little quiet at home since she flew to England with our friendly neighbours a couple of weeks ago. In fact, we’re missing her so much that we’re going to go and visit her there.
Flat Kathy has asked for permission to write a guest post on my blog, because she has some very exciting news: Do you feel like receiving one of these Very Special Flat Kathy Postcards?
It is not easy to walk around with Flat Kathy.
For all strangers, or rather, people whom Flat Kathy hasn’t yet demanded I introduce her to, she is simply a sheet of sunshine yellow paper on a stick. With a couple of buttons and some woolly hair sewn on. She is, I freely admit it, “a bit odd”.
It was only a couple of days ago, that I told you about our visitor from overseas – Flat Kathy. She arrived here from Nova Scotia, Canada, last Friday.
She immediately asked me to help her create a blog for her: http://flatkathy.wordpress.com/. And much to my amazement, she has been a prolific writer, having just published her 21st post. At first, she was keeping me very busy with all her dictation, but now I just switch on the laptop for her, and let her tappity-tappity away as much as she likes.
Last year, I wrote and submitted a number of articles to the Pinelands Muse community magazine and the Reserve Force Volunteer magazine, as well as the Equestrian Express and the Sawubona in-flight magazine of South African Airways, our national carrier. In order to update my CV at the start of January, I compiled a list, which I thought I’d share with you, in case you are curious.
After our relaxing hikes at Bernheim Forest on Saturday afternoon, we drove further south to the town of Bowling Green, where we stayed overnight. If you are a lover of fast and shiny cars, you may be interested to hear that Bowling Green is best known for its National Corvette Museum, which documents the world…
After bidding farewell to our friends in the beautiful Victorian neighbourhood of Old Louisville, we took the I-65 southbound, soon leaving Louisville behind us. We were motoring nicely along the interstate, when I saw a sign up ahead for a Rest Area with a Welcome Centre. I was curious to see what this was, so…
When my penpal Bobz and I recently met in person (an unforgettable and totally wonderful experience that I shared with you here), we spent some happy companionable hours going through all my old letters and postcards and assorted things I had sent him over the 25 years that we had been penpals. I was so…
The Bluegrass region of Kentucky is famous for its magnificent horses and its superb bourbon whiskey. Do you know why Kentucky’s nickname is ‘the Bluegrass State’? It is so named because of the bluegrass (Poa pratensis) that grows in the fertile soil of its pastures. Incidentally, this has also given its name to the distinctive…
In our defence, we were only intending to shoot them photographically. So I don’t know why they were playing hide-and-seek with us. All along the highway between Hazard and Hindman, Kentucky, where I was staying with my friend Bobz and his family during our little American roadtrip earlier this year, there were signs warning of…
One day, Bobz, Dana and I visited the Challenger Learning Centre for Space Science Education on the campus of the Hazard Community and Technical College in eastern Kentucky. This is one of 48 such centres around the United States. They were created by the families of the seven astronauts who died when the Space Shuttle…
When travelling to a foreign country – even one as familiar from the movies and the television as the United States of America no doubt is – it is helpful to remember that one is not at home. Some things work a little differently across the pond. In case you are willing to brave the…
Sunday, 26 February 2012, is a day that will forever be etched upon my memory as the day on which Bobz and I finally met each other, face to face, for the very first time. In that one instant, he had become more than his distinctive scrawl on a postcard or a letter that had…
Grains of Sand 
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