Learning through Living - Fish Hoek Part One

My sisters and I have had a very full life and we have learnt so much over the past few years. We have lived almost all over South Africa and if we haven’t lived in a certain place, we might well have visited it on our travels!

We have seen beautiful countryside, long stretches of ocean, busy towns and hectic cities! We have seen so much and sometimes we forget to take moving around the country as a blessing – we have learnt things most of our friends haven’t!

I decided to take you through our travels, showing places in beautiful South Africa that you might not have visited before. I want to show you crazy things we have done but enjoyed so much! So now sit back and enjoy looking at the heap of photographs I have to show you! I know it might or might not inspire you to step out of your front door and tour the beautiful countryside that you live in! But we learnt and we are learning about life and the world around us through living!

Each week I will show you a different place we’ve lived in.

This week I am writing about Fish Hoek, Cape Town. My dad got a job as an Instructional Designer at a company in Cape Town. He worked long hours, compared to teaching. There were fewer holidays, but in the evenings we looked forward to his homecoming. Before he came home though, we cleaned the house and made sure we were bathed and had supper ready. That way we had more time to spend with him! This is part one of Fish Hoek, in part two I shall tell you about life when my dad got retrenched and how he got a teaching post at a high school.

Gabrielle playing in her sand pit.

Nancy and Beth built many tents out of doll blankets and towels!

Gabrielle insisted upon going to sleep with her new ball!

“I can’t see anything!” Beth trying to see the bird...

Beth on her 4th birthday with the hobby horse my mom made for her which she called Rosy. Rosy is also often also called Chester, her thoroughbred gelding!

I started selling fudge around town.  My dad would walk with me and I would try sell in order to pay for my riding lessons.  After a month or so we got into the local market and I started selling a few other products! 

Me at my first proper riding lesson on Chariot.

On a hike in Betty’s Bay

The view of Betty’s Bay from the top of the mountain.

Nancy and Beth pretending to be monkeys...need they pretend...?

Gabrielle and Beth doing some sort of acrobatics on the grass!

Gabrielle and I playing with my pet rat, Rupert.

My mom and dad with me on my 12th birthday.

Gabrielle eating watermelon.

Beach babe.

Gabrielle and Beth planting seeds.

Nancy planting her seeds.

Learning to jump on Nando.

Gabrielle on her 3^rd birthday.

Gabrielle doing art.

Nancy on her 9^th birthday.

Gabrielle on the tractor at Peregrine Farm stall, Overberg.

Four sisters on the tractor...a little while later and we took another photograph of five sisters on the tractor!

Beautiful Nancy on the swing

Beth on a picnic.

Gabrielle bundled up for the chilly weather!

Beth doing a craft...

And Nancy doing her craft...

...the finished products!  The tourist and the blue elephant!

My Granny’s stall at the Teddy Bear Fair.

Beth with her teddies on their way to the Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

Gabrielle getting stuck into the picnic lunch...who cares about the teddy bears!!

Nancy and I on Elsie’s Peak (Elsie’s Peak was the second blog post I ever wrote!)

Beth and I posing for a photo!!

The beautiful sunset

We had many adventures in Fish Hoek and I shall tell you about the rest in part two! A lot of these pictures I am sure you have already seen because I had started my blog already. I love going through old photos and reading my old posts so under each already used photo I will give a link to the post I did and you can go through the old ones too!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Kelly-Anne

A Blog Award from Sarah!

Today, Sarah from ‘Walking in the Narrow Way’ left me a comment saying she had given me an award!

Thank you very much for this sweet award, Sarah!

For this particular award, I must thank the person who gave it to me, write seven things about myself and pass it on to seven other blogs, so here goes!

I love writing whether it is for school or for my blog. Anything to do with English I enjoy, like poetry and reading novels, one of my favourite being Pride and Prejudice!

I love playing Scrabble with my mom or Dad and card games with my sisters!

I have way too many guinea pigs, twelve of which are babies and another few that will be born soon!

I love my family and I am delighted that my mom is expecting baby number six!  They are the best family ever!

I enjoy photography and I especially love to take photographs of moving subjects!

I am passionate about horses and love to be around them whether on the ground or in the saddle.  I love to learn more about training them using natural methods and how to do things from ‘their point of view’, forming a strong bond while doing so.

And here I am at number seven already…I love to dress up in beautiful dresses, hats, jewelry and shoes, so whenever my sisters and I have a chance, we pretend we are young ladies from the old days when we wear gloves and have tea parties!

So now I must pass on this award to seven other blogs that I love, and I’d like to award:

Emily from Practically Pink

Moriah from Uniquely Fashioned for His Glory

Sherrin from the Drew Patch

Emily from Life with Emily

Claire from Mother in the Making

Mercy from My Weekly Photos

And Izi from My Pointe of View

Please hop over to these fantastic blogs and leave them some love!

Many blessings,

Kelly-Anne

My Granny's Cottage in Bain's Kloof

My mom had a lovely week with her mother in Bain’s Kloof, going for hikes, relaxing and listening to the birds singing. My granny stays in a tiny log cabin in the Bain’s Kloof Mountains near Wellington, Cape Town. Although only fynbos are her ‘flowers’, she manages to grow some veggies as she is a passionate gardener!

She has a mongoose that she calls ‘Monty’ and she feeds him and thus he has become quite tame. There is also a tortoise called ‘Speedy’ and many people laughed when they saw him because my granny had glued patchwork hearts on his shell so that she would know him whenever he came to visit her!

Her cottage is decorated in patchwork hearts, curtains, duvet covers and more! It is really beautiful and she has made a cute garden as well by growing plants in old boots and shoes and by putting out bird feeders to attract the birds!

It is quite an experience to walk into her cottage and I thought I would put some pictures of her cottage here on my blog.

The front of my granny’s cabin.

One of her little gardens (she has quite a few in different parts of her plot to follow the sun or shade).

Her braai (barbeque) area.

Her kitchen is so cute and she keeps it alive with bouquets of fynbos.

Her lounge with the stairs leading up to her bedroom in the attic.

My granny makes traditional jointed teddy bears for a living so don’t be surprised if you find bears in every nook and cranny in the house!

On my granny’s deck where she does her sewing and bear-making.

She managed to grow some Hubbard squash!

The beautiful Bain’s Mountains.  My granny’s cabin is built on a game park and there are several other cottages in the park.  Most people go there on holiday, but as my granny’s fiancée is the park manager, she stays there permanently.

So now you know where my mom was staying...

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne