Christmas came and went, too quickly as always.
We had a very nice, relaxed Christmas this year. On Christmas eve we celebrated on our own at home just the two of us and all the pets. We had made Swedish Christmas food (meatballs, pickled herring, beetroot salad, jansons temptations, ham etc) the night before and spoilt ourselves with a proper Christmas eve dinner followed by the opening of presents. I must have been very good because I got some lovely gifts from Santa and so did the dogs whom had to open up the parcels themselves but did not mind doing so since the parcels were full of sausages 
On Christmas day we went to Craig, Neurens brother-in-law and his family were we all chipped in and had too much food to eat and the kids to many presents to open but I suppose that is what xmas is all about.. The following day we visited one of Neurens aunts together with two of the nieces and once again we had a lot of food. The two girls came with us home and stayed for almost a week refusing to go back home. We made them work hard; painting, gardening, cooking but still they remained. We started to wonder what their dad makes them do at home which seems even worse than to work for us 
I went back to work on Monday and then off again for New Years which was celebrated at our house. Most of our friends decided to go away this year but we still manages to wrestle up a small gang. Unfortunately the sky was pouring down before midnight so the spectacular fireworks experience last year was not repeated but I know a lot of pets around were most grateful for this so maybe it turned out for the best anyway. On New Years day we just stayed at home, being lazy. I even stayed in my pyjamas the whole day watching movies and eating chocolates. How wonderful!
The day after we took a drive to Heidelberg, a small town about one hours drive south of Johannesburg. Unfortunately most little shops were closed during the holidays but we managed, after some hard work, finding the informationburea (hmm an information bureau alced in a residential house without any signs except for one that points to the towns library…) and got a map over nice old houses to see around the town. From there we took to our feet and explored the town. There are some really amazing old houses to see. We also went looking for an automobile museum mentioned in my book “1001 things to do and see before you die” hoping to be able to tick of one item on the list only to find out it ha been closed in 2004 already.. The security guard allowed us in to look at the old train station at least and the old passenger trains still kept there. What a waist to have this lovely old trains just dusting away… Well, I am going to tick off the museum on the list anyway, not our fault it closed down right? On our way back to Joburg we drove in to a nature reserve for a couple of hours and on our drive we saw monkeys, kudus and impalas. Before we reached Joburg again we passed some lovely sunflowers along the road and Neuren being such a gentleman jumped out and picked me some. The following day we met with the relatives in Pretoria and went to visit Ouma on her 85 birthday. She has now moved in to an old peoples home and although it was a private owned place which seems to care about the old it was still a bit depressing to go there and see Ouma who up to about 6 months ago stayed in her granny flat in the back of Neurens aunts place and was walking around and talking and laughing now sitting in a wheel chairs and sometimes not recognising the people around her. It all went so fast. Well hopefully she enjoyed having everybody there. Afterwards we went to the aunts place for a nice braai together with Philip (Neurens dad) and his family and Craig and all the kids. The evening ended with us listening to old recorded radio shows from 40 years ago thinking of Ouma.
Now it is back to work again and I suppose the Christmas decorations should be packed away soon. Neuren is still enjoying some leave since the factory is still closed and most people are away on holidays still. The schools starts next week and then the rush hour traffic will be back. Business as usual.
Hope 2009 will be a super great year for all of us!
