We divided our R85 lettuce into four meals. The first meal with the most delicious salad, including rocket, baby basil, mustard and parsley all planted by moi.
The next evening another lovely salad with real potatoes, mashed, and a hamburger. We are not always able to buy real potatoes and usually have to rely on Smash when we can get it.
Because we managed to buy a 5 kg bag of potatoes, I bought a masher. What a terrible design. I had my doubts when I bought it but it was this one or this one in plastic. Every time I pushed down, the masher part folded up towards the handle!
It is Ghana's "Winter" season and now that the rains have abated, it is getting hotter again. One knows its hot when even the mice are trying to eat their way into the fridge.
The cupboard surrounding the fridge.
We opened the door and saw this inside the fridge!
Porks was sad whenever he saw me either standing over the sink sieving the weevils and goggas out of the flour and other dry ingredients or watching over a container with a wet finger, touch-catching them as they crawled up the side to the light. So he bought me a combined Christmas, birthday, Valentine's, Anniversary and just because present.
This brand new refrigerator arrived with one of its feet missing, so I had to place a piece of polystyrene underneath to keep it balanced.
I filled it chock a block with soup and spice packets, biscuits, all sorts of flours, popcorn, macaroni, spaghetti, oats, bisto and cereals. This has allowed me to free the other fridge for fruit, vegetables and all our cold drinks.
Happy Whatever Day, Me!
Before Deon arrived on Saturday afternoon, we went to their house to see if everything was in order.
Their dining room......an abundance of space for visitors!
The open-plan lounge and television room.
These new houses have air-conditioning in all of the rooms as well as their kitchens so I don't think that they will have the same weevil problem as we do.
The master bedroom. There are three bedrooms in this house all en suite as well as a guest toilet.
One of the girl's rooms.
The other spare room. Deon thinks that one of the rooms might have to be turned into a classroom for the girls. The plan is for Roz to come and spend a few days here in November and then come back with their daughters for the first and third terms of next year. That means that they are able to spend time with their Dad as well as being able to play sport in South Africa. She will be home-schooling them with input from their little school in Eston.
Arno invited us for tea on Sunday morning as it was a pay weekend and not too much was happening. He has succeeded in making his home and the office very welcoming. He and Fernando share a two-bed roomed house. He has planted seeds from his home village as well as some we brought for him from South Africa.
Arno and Fernando's lounge and television room.
An extremely happy Porkles.
Jose`, who has a wicked sense of humour and has always made me feel part of the company.
Fernando, whom I don't know very well as he doesn't speaka da English and I don't speaka da Spanish. I wanted to ask him if he could hear the drums.
Arno, who brought me that little cactus, is an intelligent scientist. He is in charge of the cloning and growing of the seedlings at the nursery. Arno's unassuming and quiet nature compliments his non-complaining and get-on-and-do-the-job attitude. He has one weak spot though - Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate! He had gone to the trouble of baking some chocolate muffins and a cake from one of the Pillsbury boxes we had managed to get for him in Accra.
Porks holding tightly onto two of his favourite things.
Arno's little orchid hot-house. He is the man who grew Robbie's little tomatoes for me. He has also planted fruit trees near his house.
Deon spent his first night with us and then took his luggage and the groceries we had bought for him to spend the second night in his new home. He is still unaware of what a massive positive difference he is going to make in both our lives.
Deon, as the Ghanaians commonly and appropriately say, "You are welcome!"