Dorje and I spend way too much time locked up in the house. Literally.
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Occasionally we need to make a break for it.

Thirty seconds into a walk, Dorje can be complaining he’s tired. That is, unless he’s looking for treasure, or being chased by baddies.

I wasn’t sure how our walk up to a lookout point on Table Mountain would go, as it’s mostly steep uphill all the way. I needn’t have worried, as we were both looking for treasure and chased by woses, so we were up in no time.

Dorje seemed to enjoy taking some pictures of me.

But we weren’t safe on the mountain. There were woses, trolls and all sorts of nasties chasing us back and forth.

Luckily we found time to eat.

That’s more than can be said for a couple of Americans we met. Descending at about 15h30, we met the two of them on their way up Platteklip. They asked how far it was, and told us how hungover they were from their night of drinking. One of them was celebrating a birthday. After they left, I realised that, though they were only about a quarter of the way up, their bottle of water was almost empty, and their small bags didn’t seem to have to enough space to carry much warm clothing.

I hope the woses didn’t get them.

Dorje and I recently bought a kite. He was a little shy of the kite man, and all the strange flapping paraphernalia, but eventually chose one that looked like a bat.

OK, a large, bright, multi-coloured bat, but still a bat.

After a few near misses with the trees in Observatory, a few weeks ago we decided to take it out to wild open spaces of Noordhoek beach.

I wanted to walk to the wreck from the Noordhoek side, forgetting how far this is, especially for a 5-year old.

The beach is quite different from when I was a regular living near there. The lagoon has shifted to the south, so we spent much of the walk wading through the warm water. Then there was a large river crossing the beach, courtesy perhaps of all the Port Jackson clearing that’s been going on. With some convincing, we managed to cross the torrential stream.

The shoreline was also covered in bluebottles, but luckily, on the vast expanses of Noordhoek beach, there was more than enough sand to spare.

Finally we made it.

The sand around the wreck, being quite close to the sea, was also covered in bluebottles, which interfered with our treasure hunt. There were ample washed up plastic boxes which looked like they could contain treasure, but sadly, none of them did.

I was worried about getting back, as Dorje was already tired from the long walk, but, with the bat chasing us all the way, we made it back in no time.

A few weeks later, we headed out again with Kirsti and Jemima and their kite. By this time, Dorje had managed to get the kite string so tangled that the weakened bat could only lift itself about 6 metres off the ground

Dorje’s latest is “I love you bigger than infinity .. the numbers bigger than infinity are zulu, shulu, kulu and hulu” (:lol:)

Dorje had a wobbly this morning because he said I made him rooibos instead of Ceylon tea. So I said, “But you have never had Ceylon tea? And, Ceylon tea is tea for adults!”.

PMSL so he replies that I am fibbing because there is no wine in Ceylon tea (:lol:)

Everyone got very excited recently when the Ethical Co-op started offering unbleached toilet paper. Actually Dorje’s mom was probably most excited of all.

Dorje seemed impressed, but didn’t think it looked pretty enough. After all, brown toilet paper may be more exciting than its toxically bleached white counterpart, but it’s still not that exciting, is it?

Never fear! WIth a little bit of love and attention, the toilet paper can be brightened up. Mushrooms, guinea fowl, seals and tortoises…

You can see the last of the additions on the far left of this photo.

It’s his friend’s name, Leo (misspelled). I’m sure he meant well adding his friend’s name to the toilet paper.

A few weekends ago I took Dorje and his friend Jemima to the lake at Silvermine.

In spite of the freezing midwinter water, Dorje was quite keen to wade in.

And so was Jemima.

It didn’t take long for the wading to morph into soaking. Jemima, sopping wet, was sitting in the shade. I asked her if she was cold.

“No”, she said, firmly. “Are you sure you’re not cold?” I asked. “No!” she said, more firmly. Since she was shivering, I decided to stop asking and change her into the spare clothes I’d luckily been provided with in case she got too hot.

If I remember, at this point she was hungry, and helped herself to some of my cacao beans. See the clenched fists.

They didn’t remain so for long. Soon the beans were duck food. I hope they at least appreciated them.

When you’re cold, (and her replacement clothing wasn’t exactly warm) there’s nothing better than a little physical exercise to get the circulation going. Jemima led me (and Dorje) back and forth across the bridge a few times. The third time, Jemima decided to keep going, round the lake, into the trees. Dorje lagging behind me, Jemima racing in front. Trying to keep them both in sight, asking Jemima to slow down, and Dorje to speed up, was fruitless.

Soon Jemima was lost amongst the trees. After a few fruitless minutes searching, I asked Dorje to stay where he was, and went running off to try find her. Assuming she had run on, I charged off around the lake. Only to hear a scream to wake the dead. Back across the bridge, exactly the furthest point from me around the lake, Jemima was not happy.

I went racing back, again asking Dorje to stay where he was when I passed him, and crossed the bridge to fetch Jemima.

“Is she yours?” asked one family. “No, but I’m looking after her, and not doing a very good job” I joked. They laughed.

The next family gave me the evil death stare, and I decided not to crack any jokes and hurried on.

Having retrieved Jemima, and Dorje, we now had to find our bags, which I’d left somewhere in the all the chasing. Luckily some other children had found them, and they too were retrieved, a little less noisily.

Jemima’s mom was having an afternoon off to get some last-minute packing done in peace. I’d planned a meal on the way home, but decided to skip it. Jemima wanted to go home, and I wasn’t ready for any more trauma.

I spent most of the time from retrieving Jemima focusing on her. With her dropped off, Dorje and I drove home, about a 45 minute trip.

It was only when I was almost home that Dorje mentioned that he too had been scared. Left on his own (twice) as I charged around the lake, he’d been quite frightened, and I realised I hadn’t even noticed, or considered it.

All is well, but next time I’ll insist on at least two adults per child, not the other way around!

Last weekend Dorje and I took a break from killing baddies around the house, and went for a walk to the waterfall on Kasteelspoort.

I’d gone up along the previous weekend, and after the recent rains it’s been flowing quite strongly.

We started at the Camps Bay entrance to the Pipe Track. I wasn’t sure if we’d make it all the way up, and it wasn’t looking hopeful, with Dorje “tired” about 100 metres into the walk, and wanting to stop.

Luckily there were enough helicopters and mist and flowers just around the corner to keep him occupied. It also helped that, with the thick mist, we could hear the waterfall, but not see it.

Every flat-looking rock was an excuse to stop for a snack. And some not-so-flat rocks too:

After our lunch break we crawled off again. Just as it looked like we’d never make it, we heard some baddies coming up fast behind us on the path. Dorje charged off to outrun them. Leaving me in the dust (mud). Dorje ascended the last half of the distance in about 1/10th of the time he’d taken for the first half.

Out of breath, we made it to the waterfall, well ahead of the baddies.

Instead of sitting by the path, Dorje decided to climb a little higher, up the actual waterfall. Up he went, higher…

And higher…

After that walk, I’m not going to believe his “I’m tired” excuses anymore!

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