Big swim at Midmar - Part 3 - The conclusion

Last night was crazy!  We had all had a fantastic supper of pootjie and rice and were relaxing comfortably by the now dying fire and admiring the beautiful lightning over the hill when the wind began to blow.  And did it blow!!!  We all ended up using our bodies as sandbags trying to keep our main tent from becoming the next and cheapest weather satellite as the wind pounded us...that settled, now for the rain!

Needless to say, we all woke somewhat bleary eyed and not in the mood for the last day of swimming.  After all the rain, the water was a lot colder than that of the previous three days, but once the skin goes a little numb, it seems to insulate rather well!

We completed the day by swimming across the front of the dam wall (a seriously unnerving experience) and were then met by the thunderous applause of the camping grade 5's on the slipway.
Well, I have to say: well done to me!  I took the average number of strokes that I usually take in a 25m length of the pool, and did some sums and came to the following conclusion: I took around 18000 strokes over the four days...and my shoulders seem to remember every last one this evening...OW!!!

One lap under the belt...
How many big laps have you done?

Big swim at Midmar - Part 2

Days 1 and 2 down and we are half way.  Little bits of me are strating to peel off and I am losing kilograms as fast as the kilometres tick by.  I must say that the children from grade 6 and 7 at Howick prep are swimming out of their socks.  They really are soldiering on despite the rather nippy water.  Anyways, 13km down, twelve to go.

The day's swim, just a hair under 7km.

Day three...things should have completely fallen apart by the end of this day with there being little more left of me but my spirit...this sort of thing wasn't made for people like me!

Big swim at Midmar!

Tomorrow is the day that my complete lack of training has set me up for. 
About a month and a half ago I agreed with a collegue of the GoodWife's that I would accompany him and some of his school pupils for a marathon swim.  As the days have drawn nearer, I have been more and more convinced that this decision was not one of my better ones. There is a large dam not too far from here called Midmar.  It is the home of the Capital K and Midmar Mile swims.  Incidentally, the Midmar Mile won a Guinness last year for being the largest inland, open water swimming event.  It saw very close to fourteen thouand swimmers last year!

Well, to complete the Midmar Mile, you swim across one of the bays, which is ...yes, a mile wide... we, the brave are going to swim around it in four days.  It is not a massive feat, but it's not easy...

Here is a map of the dam,

Compliments of Google-third-rock, this is day one.  We start at the big red square and finish 7km (4.3miles) later.  Yes I am sure I will have enough energy at the end of the day to keep you updated, so follow along.  If you are in the area, stop by, the kids and I would love your support!

What challenges do you have for the week?

Christmas cheer...are we doing it right?

If ever there was a time to feel jolly, it would be now. December is in it’s first few days and the festive season is in full swing. The ornaments and decorations that people have been making all year finally hit the shelves and go flying off just as fast as they can be price-tagged. “Christmas Specials” in red, white and green letters adorns every shop window in sight and the masses flock to their attention.


Sundays used to be the day for church, family brunch or lunch and a relaxing afternoon walk with the dogs. For tea and cake and a snooze in the shade of a big oak tree. Shops weren’t open on this day, because it was holy. Then the demigod of consumerism began to grow and the time in the week was simply not enough to possibly find a gap for church and family in between the shopping and malling. The retail clerk and his menagerie of things to buy became more popular than the creator of all things…ALL things. Should we not be going to church to thank God for that sales clerk and rather visit the store during the week? Should we not be spending that Sunday with those we love, to secretly find out what it is that they really want for Christmas?

I will must say that the spirit of Christmas has not hit me yet. I think it has been smothered by all the wrapping paper that society is so obsessed with at this time of the year. I should actually mention, and it is quite obvious, that it is not really the paper that most people are worried about, but the size and worth of the package contents. “I hope this is more expensive than the gift I got her last year…”, “If I get socks again…”, “This better be what I asked for…”


Please, we need to remember that the score was settled around 2000 years ago, we have no need to keep it. We need to choose what type of Christmas we are going to have this year…are we going to worry about the little gifts we are going to get, or are we going to give thanks for the one big gif that we have already got? Yes, the gift of our Lord Jesus.

At the end of the day, this is why we celebrate…

Message from the stars...

Greetings fellow bloggers.


It has been a difficult week or so. As I wrote before, my great granddad passed away on Saturday the 21st of November, two days before my birthday (Mon 23rd) . The stubborn old fart wrote in his will that there was to be no service, no memorial, no funeral. This really bothered be because I really wanted to just say goodbye and have some form of closure.

People say that seeing the coffin at a funeral is probably one of the hardest things to do. Many have been reduced to puddles of tears at the sight of the casket of a loved one, but I really feel that that is what is necessary. You, as a person, need to break down and have a really good cry in order to have that finality of a real farewell. With his will in place, that seemed bound not to happen.

We gathered at the Botanical Gardens in Durban, a place where Pops and so many people had spent hours mooching around, searching for that giant snap-dragon flower that would respond to a careful squeeze by opening its ‘mouth’. We had tea and a snack and then left…


I battled with that, big time.


That evening as the GoodWife and I were doing the last bits of packing in prep to move house on Sunday I cam across some items in my bedside drawer.

Nana had given Pops a watch for their 25th wedding anniversary, which he had in turn given to me on my 21st birthday. It is a Seiko Automatic, one of those watches that has a pendulum thingy that winds the spring as you move. Obviously, if you don’t wear it, the spring will eventually unwind and the watch will stop. On the silver dial of the watch are two little windows, one that displays the day of the week and the other the date. I hadn’t worn the watch since our wedding day, over a year ago. When I picked up the watch and looked at it, I fell apart, sobbing. It was exactly what I needed, that last and final goodbye, now knowing that Pops is in the good hands of our Lord.

The watch had stopped, and the day and date on it stood: MON 23.



Pops had wished me a happy birthday for the last time.