Twopenny Rainbows

Twopenny Rainbows

Anna Jacobs

I have read this book maybe 10 times, the story is amazing, and I love books set in the 1800’s so this book naturally fell in my category. To be honest before my aunt bought me this book on one of their many trips to the UK I have never heard of Anna Jacobs (well to be honest at that stage I was more interested in the babysitters collection). The book is set in 1863 when two Irish orphans Ismay and Mara are sent to Australia to live in one of the convents there. This was against their will since both the girls was promised by their older sister Keara that she will come and get them out of the orphanage. The girls were extremely mad at Keara since they started to believe she abandoned them.

They went unwillingly on the boat to Australia to their horror on arriving in Australia the sisters was separated, Ismay was sent to work on a farm as a maid miles away from her sister while Mara has to stay behind in the orphanage. Lonely and longing to be reunited they run away from their respective places. Ismay stumbles across an old man and his help, on their trading wagon; they agree that she can go with them. And this also has its own dangers.

Meanwhile older sister Keara arrives in Melbourne to find both girls have vanished and the trail might be cold. At this point you feel that nothing goes right for these siblings, but then a miracle happens, Keara’s fiance finds Ismay and after several further attempts they find Mara. Still danger lurks when they go and live with their sister Keara.

I am not going to give away anything further since I feel this is a must read for all book lovers.

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Weekend Update

Weekend update

So this weekend was great I enjoyed it thoroughly. On Saturday morning I worked as usual, and it wasn’t that bad a morning.

Saturday evening the boyfriend and I went to watch Puss in Boots, it was my second time but he really wanted to watch it, so I obliged. I must say I enjoyed it just as much the second time as I did the first. We then went out on the highway and stopped at the Wimpy and got ourselves an ice cream and just sat and chatted and watched the sun set.

My sister had to sit at home all alone that night, since she did not want to go with my parents to visit the family, I did somehow feel sorry for her, so we cut it short and went home to have coffee and watch Top gears Polar special.



On Sunday we spend the day at home, we just went to this great new place in town that sells plastic everything. So we got a bunch of new Tupperware and just enjoyed walking around in that major warehouse. Afterwards we went to one of our friends whose daughter turned one yesterday and had lovely cake. Forgot to take a picture, will get one from the proud mommy.

Now for those of you who don’t know me, I am one of those people that like to read several different books at once. At this very stage I have 3 that I am juggling, on my bedside table I have Lesley Pearce’s A lesser Evil, in the living room I have The Help and on my phone I have Pride and Prejudice. Sometimes it takes some I can’t understand why the book isn’t carrying on where I left it, but that’s how I like it, I am a total book collector, I haven’t got a lot on my bookshelf at the moment, but like all collections you have to start somewhere. (a review will follow)

I wish you all a wonderful week, and I hope all your dreams come true.

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Week in a nutshell

My week in a nutshell

This has been a very slow week, even at work it hasn’t been as busy as it is usually, but I have a suspicion it might just get busier this coming week, since half of the staff will be on the road. I always look forward to those weeks. Why you might ask, because those are the weeks I get to prove that I want to be here and that I can handle stress. As you know I don’t have a permanent position this means that I have to prove myself, I just hope it will works out.

I hate to admit it, but we don’t go to church as much as we should, don’t get me wrong, we are Christians, I believe, it’s just since we have a channel that has a service on television every Sunday morning, in the same time as our regular church so we usually end up watching that. And lately we started liking the reverent of this particular program, sometimes it just feels like he is talking directly to you.

Anyway I got sidetracked, the reason why I brought this up, the one thing most people do every new year is make a new year’s resolution list, a small to large list, in my case a medium oneJ, the list usually comprises of things like lose weight, get a better job, etc. The one thing this reverent brought up was, most of the time you don’t put God on the top of your list, or worse don’t even make the list. I was ashamed that on my list of things God wasn’t on top. So I rearranged my list and have since been making time to do my personal time with God, and make it long and really experience Him. I have bought myself a notebook in which I write my prayers and this puts things into perspective. You can see what God does in your life.

This week I have also finally after a year finished paying of my student loan, I can’t wait to have that extra money next month, now it’s time to safe for a car, can’t wait to have my own car.

So I wish you all wonderful weekend, enjoy your time with your family, in one week I turn 24! I can’t believe it.

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Happy Birthday Annien!

Happy Birthday Annien!

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So on the 14^th of January my sister turned 21, the big 21. It was on the Saturday, so we decided to celebrate we would just go out as a family on the Friday and have fish and chips at one of the best seafood restaurants in the country. We always enjoy our fish and chips, but I must admit the platter for two with an assortment of seafood dishes on is still our al time favourite.

Annien and Roxy

Mom and Annien

Dad and Grandma

Mom and Dad

Roxy, Annien and I

Roxy, Annien and I

Just one thing to remember, Annien never wakes up before 8 on Saturdays, holidays and we struggle during the week to get her out of bed. So to our surprise that morning she was awake at 5:45! This ruined all our plans.

We planned on blowing up balloons and putting up banners in her room before she woke up. Needless to say, my mom had to send her back to bed, and our late Saturday morning was spoiled. So we got up and starting blowing up 21 big balloons, getting out the banner and setting everything up. We finally woke her up at 6:30. And she was really surprised.

 

My mom got her a pearl necklace, Annien is an old soul at heart and she just totally loved it. Now just to clarify its not one of those that has a bazillion pearls on a string, it is a beautiful fine gold chain with a pearl. She loves it and hasn’t stopped wearing it. I got her a great watch from American Swiss, if I didn’t get it for her, I would most likely have bought it for myself. That is one thing about us, we are not those girls who go out shoe shopping, we go out and stare at watches all day long if we can. We just adore watches.

I went to work for the morning, and when I got home we started setting up and prepping food for our guests who would arrive for a braai and some cake.

Probably the only bottle of champagne in the house

My dad giving the nicest toast

Annien showing off her 21 balloons

21 cupcakes with 21 on

This turned out to be one of the best birthday get together we had in a long time

I wish you all the best for your future, you are now a young lady and the best sister a girl can ask for. You always know when to cheer me up, you hold my hand when I am in pain, you laugh at my jokes and listen to all my stories. I love you so much

Random funny pictures

Funny Pictures

Thought on this sunny Friday some people might need a laugh so here are some funny pictures that have been doing the rounds in emails. Enjoy!

Book Review Sarah's Key

Sarah’s Key by Tatian de Rosnay

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I have been obsessed with all stories surrounding the holocaust and everything that went with it. Maybe it is because I grew up in a world of technology, maybe it’s because I am still young (only 23), but I still can’t figure out how one man got away with killing millions of people and other countries didn’t realise it in time, I know in some countries it still happens daily that such acts of inhumanity occur, I just don’t fathom how someone can get away with it. So it was no surprise that when I stumbled across this book and read it was set in 1942 that I set my heart on having this book and reading it. Sarah’s Key is a book by Tatiana de Rosnay and I recommend this book to anyone out there who enjoys reading a thrilling and compelling book.

Now the book has two separate parts, the story of Sarah in 1942 and Julia Jarmond in 2002.

The part of Sarah is set in Paris, July 1942 and starts where the police is banging on the doors of homes rounding up the Jewish families during the French police Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup. Sarah’s family was also round up and her father was hiding with other men, since rumour had it that the police will only be getting all the men in Paris. When the police came they took Sarah and her mother, but before she could be taken away she hides her brother in their secret cupboard promising him she will be back, she placed the key in her dress pocket and went with the police. When they got downstairs her mother started screaming for her father and he came out of his hiding place and went with them.

Now the thing is Sarah is a ten year-old girl, so she didn’t understand what was going on, she thought they will be back by the time the sun went down and she will get her brother out of the closet, she thought he was safe.

The story of Julia Jarmond is that she is an American who fell in love with a French man, she moved to Paris and they have a daughter together. Julia was responsible for writing a story for the newspaper, on the 60^th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup. And with her research she discovered shocking secrets in her husband’s family that connect her to Sarah. With Julia’s discoveries she feels compelled to trace Sarah’s steps all the way from the stadium where they were held to the concentration camps. With each new discovery Julia finds herself reassessing her marriage and her place in France.

This book is definitely one of the books that I recommend as a must read.

This is what my copy looks like

Total Randomness

Total Randomness

So today I decided to put up some total random photos, I also still need to do a post about my sisters 21^st the past Saturday.

First things first on Tuesday Nic and I went to the cricket, South Africa vs. Sri Lanka, at first I thought how can this sport that goes on and on be fun to watch live? For those of you that don’t know me, let me clue you in, when I watch Cricket on television, I watch for about 10 minutes then resume my normal programming, I have never watched a cricket program from the start to the finish, and yes I know that I might miss some action but that is okay by me. Well so now you know why I was so sceptical about watching the whole game live, well I was pleasantly surprised, there was music playing the whole time, people doing the wave that went around the stadium twice! Don’t forget my guilty pleasures, watching other people. It also gave me and Nic time to get to know each other better. I didn’t take that many pictures but got some of the action on my Blackberry.

Sri Lanka playing

South Africa playing

Tarps coming out when it started raining

I forgot to mention that it started pouring at about 22:00 and South Africa won thanks to the DL system



I also decided to post some of the funny things our cats do, we have a Main Coon that loves to hang out on our roof, and my mom’s cat (the black and white cat) loves to curl up in the most awkward places to sleep.

We call this lovely cat Seuntjie (meaning little boy in Afrikaans)

That's a bird bath incase you were wondering

This is princess Cassandra (Cassie for short) on the chimney

He loves you when you scratch his tummy

One of my other guilty pleasures is looking at Anne Geddes pictures, I just love them.

And of course looking at Jack Vettriano paintings, I have some prints of his in my room and just adore it.

I am still looking for a print of this one

My favourite breakfast is flapjacks, or I guess what they call pancakes in USA? The thing is just that in South Africa we know pancakes as something else, you pour the batter in the pan and spread it around the pan, until it paper thin and flip it, enjoyed with cinnamon sugar on it, wonderful stuff. So that is why it’s confusing to us. Any way pictured below is some flapjacks from a couple of weeks ago, loved how they turned out. Missing it already since we are now on an official diet, and going to lose lots of weight.

Yummy...