My Father

I've been meaning to blog about this for a long time, but I haven't yet. Perhaps because I don't think it will work.

I want to find my biological father again. The last time I saw him I must have been 12 or 13. So that would be 14 - 15 years ago. We always tracked him down via his mother, but this failed the last time we tried. I wanted to track him down when I got married, but we couldn't find my grandmother in the phonebook as we always could.

All this being said - there isn't a hole in my life where he should be. My grandfather has filled the male role model role as much as he could. My stepfather was also there, but not necessarily someone to look up to. Lots of other stuff behind that as well. My father also tried to legally disown me at some point, but I don't think it was for any other reason besides the fact that he couldn't afford to pay maintenance and knowing My Evil Mother she was probably trying to milk him. I don't remember him ever being well off financially. I remember I was on his medical aid for a while too when I was younger.

All these years I have only ever heard one side of the story. Now that I have learnt that My Evil Mother is not exactly the best source of information, I'd like to hear his side of things to. Nobody else in my family has ever really spoken badly about him, in fact just recently I heard how helpful and accomodating he was. The worst thing my grandparents mentioned was that he was always trying to start some or other business and failing. Maybe he was just trying to find his own success.

So now I don't know how to get hold of him. Here is what I know:

His name is George William James
He has a brother names Hentie
His mother's name is Wilana De Vries
Last known location: Bloemfontein
Last known job: Driver for Blue Label (according to his mother)
Last known wife: Isabelle (as far as I know)
Other children: Nicholas and Johnathan (that I know of)

So if anyone out there is in Bloemfontein, or has a contact at home affairs...or knows what I should do to find him, please leave me a comment and let me know.

What a Weekend

Happy Easter Everyone! I hope you guys all had a good long weekend.

I certainly had a good long weekend, but I'm not going to braai (BBQ) again for a long time. We had a braai on Friday, Saturday, Sunday AND Monday. I'm so sick of potato salad, toss salad and garlic bread it's not funny.

On one of the days we were chilling at the neighbour's (the days sort of flowed into each other to the extent that I'm not sure what we did on which day), we suddenly noticed a ball of black smoke rising from behind the wall of our complex. Being the curious creatures that we are, we hoofed it over to the wall (a mere 3 metres or so) where we saw the last thing we imagined - a burning car! A burning car on the road? Is that so strange you may ask...why...yes. It was quite strange since there was no crash, no explosion, no bang - no anything. The car was standing close to the curb as if it had pulled up there and spontaneously combusted into bright orange flames. Within about 5 minutes the entire car (an Opel Astra) had burnt out and we were treated to intermittent popping sounds as the tyres exploded one by one. Quite frightening since we all watch too much TV and were waiting for the petrol tank to blow. It didn't. I think one of the neighbours managed to get a photo - I'll ask him if he can send it to me.

Other than that we went to braai at Nic's house for the first time. He is lead singer of Feedback. Nic and his wife have an amazing house and beautiful pets. They have two Great Danes. One is an albino and is white with blue eyes. The other one looks a bit like a cow as he is white with black patches. They also have two cats - fluffy cute kitties that you want to hug! Both Rudi and I enjoyed it very much...although...Rudi was already drunk by the time he got there (that means it was Saturday because he went to play darts) and he ended up in the pool. It wasn't that hot, so we assume it was just driven by the drunkenness and craziness that accompanies that.

Brad and Sarah were away the whole weekend. They are actually still away - they went to Bloemfontein to visit Sarah's family. They are probably having loads of fun, but we miss them. There's a gap in the neighbourhood get togethers when they are not there. They'll be coming back on Wednesday...I can't wait to hear all the stories about what they got up to.

Is it wrong that I was just at home for 4 days and I can't wait to stay home again?

I finally bought a bee sting for my car. I've been meaning to do this forever, but kept putting it off. All in all it cost over R300 for the aerial and the installation, but it was worth it! I now have crystal clear radio reception and I can listen to people talk kak whenever I please.