TWO WEEKS TO GO

Hi all

Due to huge demand ( well at least one person suggested it) here is my first blog entry

Hard to believe it but just 2 weeks to go before we fly off to Durban and I try to get to grips with South African PAYE and VAT . How exciting is that!! Oh and Manda has to spend a year trying to look interested in football. Tee hee!!!

My list of things to do is getting smaller and I am worryingly up to date with admin matters such as tax returns. Most of you would not recognise me as Mr Efficiency even though I have been married to Mrs Efficiency for 30 years.

Whilst Manda keeps on working to the bitter end I'm the admin husband slaving over a hot computer. The biggest problem has been getting the visa and hopefully that saga ends on 16 July when I go for my 3rd visit to the South African consulate so that the lady behind the glass screen can sneer at me and treat me again (as she does everyone )  as if I am a complete imbecile. Welcome to South Africa? I think not.

For those I haven't amazed already then how is this for a coincidence. We have a chimney sweep who comes once a year to sweep our one working chimney. I got him about 3 years ago at random from Yellow Pages. He is here for about 20 minutes and I have a brief chat usually. This time I said we would be away so his next visit would be after a bit more than a year and explained why.
 "I've got a friend who I grew up with in Bristol who runs a charity there. What's the name of the charity?"  "Whizzkids United" said I.
 "Old Marcus!!" in distinctly West Country accent said he.
 It turns out that he grew up with the founder of the charity and is still in touch. Can somebody please tell me the odds of that. Must be a many millions to one chance

If you would like to see details of the charity we will be working for then go to the Whizzkids United / Africaid website

So as not to bore everybody silly I will try to update this blog every 2-4 weeks and hopefully (assuming I can master the art of uploading) put some of Manda's photos on as well.