End of an era.

All good things come to an end eventually. After nine years of teaching Drakensview Primary School, the governing body decided that all teacher 65 years and over had to go, well I was nearing the end of my 68th year so I was one of three that had to go. The first two years that I was there I taught English and History to grade 7, at the beginning of 2009 I took over the library. I have had no formal teacher training, lots experience though (been teaching since 1996) but I do have two library degrees a B.Bibl degree in Library and Information Science, a four year degree, and I have a post graduate Honours Bachelor of Library Science (B.Bibl Hons) from the University of South Africa, (UNISA) a distance learning institute. 

I enjoyed every day that I worked at Drakensview, I can't remember one day where I thought I'm not in the mood to face another day at school, work was a pleasure! Actually I can't remember one job in my working life that I didn't enjoy.

Come end of year and at the last assembly of the year for the Foundation Phase, gd's 1 - 3, I was invited to attend and given a certificate and a gift bag full of goodies.

Click on image to enlarge.

Above is the certificate I was given, if you enlarge the image and look in the bottom left hand corner you will see Worm Fixations and right at the bottom left Glow-worm. This refers to a comment I made in November. On the 3rd of December I had to go to hospital for what the medical profession calls a "procedure", in real English an operation. The "procedure" was Brachy-therapy, which is where they implant radio active pellets into the prostate glad to combat prostate cancer, (seems to have worked). Well before I went in for the "procedure", I told everyone in the staff room during tea time one day that when I'm radio active I will have a Light Sabre like Luke Sky-Walker in Star Wars, and at night when I go to toilet I won't have to switch on any lights, all I need to do is take out my Light Sabre and light my way. Someone muttered under their breath, "he means his glow-worm". Who needs enemies when you've got friend like that.

Above is the gift bag specially made for me, the fish and the lettering were cut out and carefully pasted on to the bag.

At our year end function at one of the posh Berg hotels I was presented with this clock. Here again all the letters and numbers were carefully cut out and glued onto the clock face. This was done by one of the school secretaries, Lindy Naude, in her spare time at home. To say that I was deeply touched by these tokens of affection would be putting it mildly.

I will write about my new career in a following post, just to say I'm now a member of the SAVF. What is the SAVF? The SAVF is an NPO (non profit charity organisation) that has almost 400 institutions under it's wing, old age homes, frail care centers, orphanages, creches, etc,. And what do the letters SAVF stand for? Suid Afrikaanse Vroue Federasie, translation South African Women's Federation, founded in 1903. Google SAVF South Africa for the whole history.

How come a man is member of a women's organisation, as I said more about that later just to say I'm still involved in education.

Photography.

When you look at a photo sometimes what you see is not always what really was, with photo editing programs you can do wonderful things.

Click on photo to enlarge.

The photo above is actually the blending of two separate photos, I also enhanced the colours  a bit. Below are the two photos I used to create the one above.

This is the flower on the left in the first photo, here the change in colour is very noticeable.

This is the flower on the right.

This photo is as it was taken. 

Garden flowers.

These photos are of flowers that grow on the edge of my front veranda, how they got there I don't know, but I enjoy them very much. Don't ask me what the name of this flower is, I just don't know, maybe someone out there can tell me.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

The photo above was taken two weeks ago. The rest were taken day before yesterday.

All these photos were taken in the middle of the day in bright sunlight. Not the best time of day to take photos according to the experts.

The secret is to under expose, my exposure was set for the light coming of the flower itself, not the background, which is much darker . I used a Canon  85mm zoom lens with the camera on a tripod and zoomed in up close.

One can't believe that a common fly can have beauty, but enlarge this photo and look at the fly in the middle of this flower.

My F stop for all these photos was F20, gives a nice depth of field, with a very high shutter speed. The fast shutter speed excludes most of the background clutter.

For most of the photos I was down low, actually sitting on the ground.

Bella, a happy pup.

Bella is a small Scottish terrier, not a pup any more, but a dog of at least a year old, she belongs to my land lord's grand daughters. Bella knows that every afternoon, +- 4 pm,  I take my three dogs and Bear, my landlords Alsatian, and go for a long walk around the farm, 4 - 5 km every afternoon. At about 3:30 Bella turns up at my cottage and watches every move I make so that when I walk out the back gate she's there with me and the other dogs. 

Small, I doubt she ways a kilogram wet, but plucky. She should be sitting on a velvet cushion with a pink bow in her hair,(the normal picture of Scotties) not her, the African veld is her heaven, loves to hunt and chase things, no matter how big. Her cuteness is all put on, in her heart she is a killer dog.

Bella in a rain puddle after a hot 4 km walk. Click to enlarge picture. (Photo by Enrico Bucceri aka the Italian Leprechaun). 

  

Life.

No comment needed.

My photo, Mother Teresa's words.

Doreen.

Doreen that's the name of the scale model steam engine pictured below. 

While my friend Jane and I were staying at Lemon wood, we went to a place called "Pigley Wigley", I kid you not that's it's name. One of the tourist spots on the Natal Midlands Meander.  

There was a time when the smallest "Dorp" (village) was connected to the national railroad system. The South African Railways was a state owned railway with thousands of kilometers of railroad track covering the whole country. Until the 1970's most of it was used by steam trains except the mainlines between major cities which was electrified.
  

By the 1990's most of the branch lines had closed. In most small towns you will still find old forlorn and dilapidated station buildings, a sad reminder of the golden age of steam.

I still remember the excitement of my brother and I (we lived in Durban, early 1950's)  when our parents took my brother and I to visit my mothers grandfather who had a farm near the small town of Donnybrook in  the East Grigualand land area of southern Natal. We loved to ride on the "Donnybrook train". Today the trip by car would take you 3 or 4 hours, back then it was an overnight journey, nothing beats sleeping on a train. These trips were made two or three time a year and could hardly wait for the next one.

On the side of the side of the locomotive is the emblem of the South African Railways. During my lifetime I have traveled thousands of kilometers by train.

One of South Africa's tourist icons is Rovos rails passenger steam train a five star hotel on wheels. Google Rovos rail and see for yourself.  

Cosmos flowers.

The cosmos season only lasts a few weeks here, but while it does there are thousands of photo opportunities.

Click to enlarge.

I can almost imagine fairies dancing around this flower.

They appear suddenly in the 2nd week of March and by the 3rd week of April the show is over.

You hardly ever find these flowers out in the open fields but always next to farm and country dirt roads.

Profusion or prolific doesn't even begin to describe the the billions of these flowers that line South Africa's highways and byways in autum!