Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World from Sparks

How well do you know your next-door neighbors?   Do you like them?   (credit to Cyranny for the question)

This is a good question. We have lived in Struisbaai for almost six years. The neighbours on one side were only in residence once or twice a year. We knew them vaguely to say hi, and then we ourselves would be leave for the holidays so never got to know them very well. There is now a young family living there and we are on friendly but not visiting terms with them. The little boy is six and we chat over the fence. Sometimes he deliberately drops a toy or kicks a ball over and then asks to fetch it. He is really cute.

We have had three different neighbours on the other side and got to know the first lot briefly. They worked for the airforce and were renting. When the house was sold, they left and we never saw them again. Then a single man moved in, made some renovations and then sold. While he was in residence we got to know him fairly well but we weren’t great buddies. Then the latest neighbours moved in, a fellow fishing enthusiast and his partner. Johnny’s daughter also stayed there for a while and we became quite fond of her but she has subsequently moved on. We have become quite friendly with Johnny and Anneline but they are often away and so are we. This is the nature of our lives. But we like our neighbours and recently have got to know them quite well.

Do you have a full length mirror?  (credit to Sadje for the rest of the questions)

There is a full length mirror in my spare room which I like to use every day. It’s important to check that I’m not to scary when I go out to face the world.

However, when I’m camping I don’t have such a luxury unless the ablutions stretch to such an item. This is rare!

(for the men)  Do you shave every day or do you like the ‘stubble’ look, or a beard?

My husband has a beard so does not shave every day. However, it’s not a full beard so a bit of trimming and shaving is necessary from time to time

(for the ladies)   How long do you spend putting on make-up in the morning?

Not long. I put on base, blush and lipstick and that’s it.

How many items of clothing are in your bedroom (or closet) and not hung up?

All my dresses, trousers/jeans and shirts/blouses are hung in a cupboard/closet. Shorts, t-shirts, scarves and other items are folded in drawers. As I no longer have to dress up to go to work I have a very practical wardrobe. I wear skirts and dresses at home and shorts, tee shirts and jeans on camping holidays. I adore clothes but try to resist the temptation of buying more until what I have falls into rags. LOL

---

GRATITUDE QUESTION (as always optional)

Do you have a happy place?

Yes I do. I love being in my caravan and I am there right now. We’re on a road trip with some new friends who have the same Gecko off-road caravan as ours. We will be travelling for two weeks and this to me is bliss. I am generally a happy person but being off on a trip with the caravan is just the cherry on top and I love it. The best place in the world to be is Kruger National Park but that’s a once a year thing. Righ now we’re visiting other national parks in South Africa as well as visiting small places along the way. It’s just another ‘lousy’ day in Africa!

Some interesting questions from Sparks this week. Here are my answers.

QUESTIONS:

Do you feel you ask enough questions or do you settle for what you know?

If I want to know something, I ask or I go to that know-it-all called Google. She has all the answers.

I don’t ask too many personal questions though. If it is none of my business, I’d prefer not to know.

When did you fail to speak up when you feel you should have?

I regret not following through with something that happened to my step-child at school. The brief for a assignment was to write to a friend whose parents were getting a divorce. I think what she wrote was excellent but the teacher commented that she did not show empathy and clearly didn’t understand the situation. Well, how dare he. My child was coping with the loss of her mother, her step-sister (my own child) was a product of a ‘broken’ home and she saw the effects of that. We spoke about our problems in our home, dealt with them and moved on! Her advice to her fictional friend was sound. Don’t blame yourself and get on with your life. (not those exact words but you get my drift) I wrote a letter explaining that his pupil was a very caring girl, who’d coped with grief and was kind and loving toward her siblings, and how dare he judge her when he didn’t even know her! I never got an answer and only later found out that it was because she wouldn’t give my note to her English teacher. She feared she would be picked on if she did so I let it go. This was many years ago (she is 50 years old now) and I still in my head, I play out the conversation I wanted to have with that idiot although now I can’t even remember his name.

When was the last time you felt lucky?*

I feel lucky all the time. It would be awful if it finally ran out!

What is a boulder?

It is huge, smooth rock which comes in different hues and can be rather fun to sit on and stare out at the view below. They are found everywhere, on the mountain, beside the sea and even in the garden of the house I lived in as a child. It must have rolled down from the mountain behind us many, many years before. I loved that boulder and would climb up on top of it and lay down flat on my back and watch the clouds and dream.

*If the lucky question feels like a re-tread, sorry. 

---

GRATITUDE SECTION (as always optional)

Feel free to share your gratitude with everyone! 

See the lucky question – I am hugely grateful for things usually going well in my life, for the lovely seaside village I live in, for my and my hubbies health, for good friends, children and grandchildren that still live in the country and are close enough to visit, enough money to live comfortably and the energy to still enjoy the remaining years of our lives. 

Here are my answers to this week’s questions posed by Sparks

In your opinion, do May/December (older partner with much younger partner) romances ever work?

Yes, of course it can work but I don’t believe it is something that should be the norm especially if the age gap is more than fifteen years. There are things to be considered. If you are very young and energetic with plans to live an active and adventurous life don’t expect your older partner to be raring to go with you. He/she might be able for a few years but then the ravages of old age are going to set in. Having said that some oldies can be way more energetic than some youngsters. Also if you’re the younger partner, be prepared to become nurse and purse when your octogenarian becomes frail!

What physical action or gesture do you find romantic?

Holding hands.

What is your idea of a romantic dinner?

Picture the scene – a calm, warm summer evening on a tropical beach, the candlelit table with a white cloth set at the edge of the water. Champagne and seafood served by a butler, barefoot but dressed in bow tie and tails, my love and I in our finery, enjoying the moonlight when Lady in Red is sung by Chris de Burgh himself and we dance cheek to cheek on the sand.

Well, that’s the dream but something similar will do.

Is ‘love’ a real ‘thing’ or merely a physical chemical response and brain activity pulling our emotional strings?

Love is real. Of course there are physical chemical responses in the brain etc but it’s still real. True love comes when you find a partner who you can live with forever in spite of their faults. Love is a verb. You have to do love as well as feel it. When you can live through troubles, hardships and dramas and are drawn closer together through them, then you have true love. It takes two to have true love. It is definitely not a one-sided thing. If your love is not reciprocated, get away fast – it won’t last.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION (as always optional)

How do you show your loved ones that you love them?

I’m sure they know because I’m so nice to them but just in case – I tell them!

Here are my answers to this weeks Share Your World questions from Sparks

QUESTIONS:

If the government offered to suspend all laws, and law enforcement for 24 hours, letting you (and everybody else) do whatever you wish… Would you be in favor of it, or not?  (Credit for this question goes to Cyranny and her Daily Quickie Question)

Well it would be great to be able to get away with murder. There are one or two people I know in this world that should not be allowed to live for their own sake and for the sake of others and I although I probably wouldn’t take it upon myself to do the dirty deed I would not be averse to hiring somebody else to do so. The executions would definitely benefit the country and the world. Of course other evil crimes would be committed and those offenders would get off scot free. Crimes are committed every day. Offenders get off scot free every day. So for just one day to have lawlessness only to go back to order the next? It could work. Look how we recover from war which is a kind of lawlessness isn’t it?

What would be the creepiest thing you could say while passing a stranger on the street? (We’re suspending the whole social distancing and Covid involvement in this scenario)

I know what you did and I know where you live.

As a child, what did you think would be great about being an adult, but isn’t as great as you thought it would be?

As I child I thought it would be wonderful to be in charge of my own life, choose a career and earn my own money. All these things have come to fruition and I prefer adulting to being a child. Of course it is not as glamerous as I imagined and the selfish lifestyle I envisioned didn’t quite turn out that way as I had to consider the needs of husband, kids and grandkids but all in all it’s been pretty darn good being an adult. I wouldn’t change a thing.

What, in your opinion, has been blown way out of proportion?

Lots of things are blown out all proportion. People thrive on sensationalism. What the media makes an issue of is usually best ignored in my humble opinion. If everybody is making a fuss about it I tend to just ignore it. Blow it out of proportion and the problem will try to live up to its undeserved reputation.

Gratitude Section (Optional as always)

Where is your ‘happy’ place?  

My happy place is without question the Kruger National Park. Any game reserve will do it for me but Kruger is the ultimate. The minute I enter Malelane Gate I enter an ecstatic state which does not leave me until I leave.

Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World from Sparks

Is it necessary to trust someone you like?  (friends, acquaintances or co-workers with whom you have no familial ties)

It all depends on what you are trusting them with. You can like a person you don’t trust and you can trust a person you don’t like. For example I employ a young man in my garden and he does an amazing job but he needs careful supervision because of an addiction problem he has. I like him but I don’t trust him. There are plenty of people I like very much but I can’t depend on them to perform the smallest task. Then there are those who would give up their lives for me and I can trust them completely. Sometimes we need to trust people we don’t like. You might not like a hard-hearted surgeon with a horrible bedside manner that but he is excellent at his job so you have to trust him in order to live.

Do you hold grudges?   What do you do when someone really irritates you?

No. I move on. But that does not mean I have anything to do with a person who has wronged me. I cut toxic people out of my life and completely forget about them.

I think I handle irritating people properly but apparently I don’t. Once, at one of those ‘wildlife rescue places’, the guide was trying to convince the tourists that it was not cruel to keep animals in captivity. I asked a few questions, very politely I thought, but afterwards my grandkids said my contempt was obvious. Really? Me contemptuous? Never!

What’s the most sensible thing you’ve heard someone say?

Don’t worry about the things you cannot change.

Is crying a sign of weakness or strength in adults? 

Crying is an expression of emotion. What brings some to tears might not have the same effect on others. It should never be seen as weakness when somebody cries. The best thing to do when somebody cries is to cry along with them.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION  (Always Optional)

What small things were you grateful for this week?

I am also grateful that I live in this wonderful place at the tip of Africa where even the stingrays come to visit.

Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World from Sparks

Why do we dream?

I believe that our minds are free during the dream state. This can cause us to be receptive to a calling or answers to problems that we would ignore during our wakeful state. I had particularly vivid dreams before getting back to writing my book. All these dreams indicated that I should ‘complete something I’d started’ or that a project needed to come to fruition and that it would be successful.

Do you think a person’s name influences the person they become?

It could do. When I was growing up it did not help you to fit in if you had a strange or unacceptable name! I was teased mercilessly about my Greek surname, However, I was proud of it and the teasing only helped to toughen me up and to ignore kids who were mean. These days kids seem to be far more accepting of strange names. I was once very worried that the Grade Ones in my class would pack up laughing when they heard the name of a new child I was about to introduce to them. They didn’t flicker – simply greeted her by her odd name and welcomed her to the class! I don’t know why I was so surprised as most of them had ‘odd’ names too.

A famous name can also help or hinder you in life, I suppose. If your parents are known as high achievers it might be expected of you to follow suit. On the other hand you could totally rebel against your famous name. It all depends on how you handle your circumstances doesn’t it.

Does hardship make a person stronger?  (example:  What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger)

I honestly believe in most cases it does. On the other hand if the hardship is really bad it could be permanently damaging to that person. Post Traumatic Stress is not to be sneezed at.

In my own life I have found that when we as a family were going through tough times it drew us closer together and definitely made us stronger.

Why do we judge ourselves by our intentions, but judge others by their actions?

Well, we plan for things to work out a certain way and when it doesn’t we make excuses otherwise we would beat ourselves up with guilt and go into a deep depression. But when other people’s actions impact on us we just can’t see why. Understanding things from another’s point of view is not easy and requires a lot of work. It is just easier to judge than to understand. But when you really know somebody else’s story then you understand why they act the way they do.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION  (Always Optional)

Feel free to share some gratitude in the form of images, photos or writing.  Thanks! 

This week, Sparks asks some interesting questions. Here are my answers.

What should you get rid off, that would make your new year better, and why? (Don’t say Covid-19, we all want to get rid of the dang virus)   I snagged this question from another blogger, but failed to note who thought it up.  My apologies!  I KNOW better than to trust my memory any more.  If it’s your question and you’d like credit, please let me know!  Great question too, in my opinion!

(I added this question after leaving it only realising it after I published.)

Well the stuff I should get rid of is packed neatly away in a deep dark cupboard. There’s a coffee maker that I never use and several other broken electronic things. It’s just not the kind of stuff you can throw in the bin. It must be useful to someone and I need to make the effort to advertise it on some site or other.

Anybody out there want my coffee machine?

What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

I gave 24 hours notice before I had another job to go to. At the time I was a single mother and I needed to pay the rent and put food on the table! I was unemployed for three months before I got another job but I managed on my minimal maintenance and meagre savings. It was the best thing I could have done. It gave me time to spend really good quality time with my child and to fix my broken spirit. My next post was awesome.

I think resigning from a job is risky. How do you know you’ll find another one? The next time I needed to resign from a post I was older, wiser and a lot more confident. I also had a husband who could support me if I didn’t find another job so it was not quite as risky as the first time I was so bold. But still it was scary. I would not recommend flippantly quitting your job until you find something else. Perhaps I’m in the fortunate position of having a career that is a calling and not a job. And those calls usually come via the telephone – “We urgently need a teacher – are you available?”

Actually come to think of it – it’s pretty daring being a teacher.

Does your family have a “motto” – spoken or unspoken?

We all have our burdens to bear and in our family there have been many things we’ve had to deal with but we face our problems head on and try not to feel sorry for ourselves. My kids are used to me saying things like, “There is always somebody worse off than you and whatever is going on in your life it won’t be forever. You will get over it.”

On a scale of 1-10 how funny would you say you are?  (this does not mean ‘smell’ or looks; because this is a judgment free blog!) 

This can be interpreted as being humorous or being strange. I think I’m a bit of both. I have been told that I’m crazy and I’m proud of that. Sometimes I say things that make people laugh and they say I always cheer them up. But actually I’m being perfectly serious – I have no idea why I make them laugh. I suppose I’ll give myself a 6 for this one.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION

Tell everyone something that you found personally lifted your spirits!  

Watching the birds in my garden always lifts my spirits.

The last Share your World for 2020 – Here are my answers

QUESTIONS

Pick three words to describe this past year.   (please keep them PG. Thanks).

Weird Challenging Frightening

What were the best books you read this year?   Or the best movie you saw? 

“Becoming” by Michelle Obama – loved this inspirational book.

“Eve’s War” by Evelyn Shillington. I really enjoy stories about World War II when they’re written from the civilian point of view. I found this diary very interesting and it gave me fresh respect for how ordinary people coped in very trying times. Our grandparents and great-grandparents did not complain, they simply ‘did their bit’ and supported each other through great hardship. Coping with COVID is not half as stressful and we have so much to help us through it.

“The Louder I will sing” by Lee Lawrence – Another inspirational story about a young boy who witnessed his mother being shot during a police raid of their home. He and his family suffered greatly as a result of this but he rose above it, took care of his mother and fought for an apology and compensation after her death. It’s an awesome story.

On a lighter note – “I’m just a Teenage Punchbag” by Jackie Clune really made me laugh. It’s a book that does not end the way you would expect. Just loved it!

My best movie is “The Life of Pi” – but I watched it on an aeroplane last year. I read the book years ago and have seen the film two or three times but I only really ‘got’ it this time. It is deep!

Because there was lots of time for looking inward, what is one big personal lesson you learned this past year?

You never know what might happen. A rumour that you dismiss as nonsense could well turn out to be true. Sometimes the unbelievable becomes a reality.

Do you think Covid has strengthened or weakened societal bonds?

Social bonds have weakened. It isn’t easy to connect with friends and colleagues. Children have not been able to connect with their friends because there has been no sport, no playdates and no attending school. We are all social distancing and keeping in touch via social media is just not the same.

But it hasn’t been all bad. Families have spent more time together and given each other support. Some kids have enjoyed online school and have become more focussed on their education.

Coping with this pandemic has its positives and negatives. It’s harder for some than others but in the end this too shall pass.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION (Optional of course):

I am grateful that my daughter tested negative for COVID. I am grateful to be surrounded by all my children and grandchildren over the holiday season in spite of the restrictions that are now in place in South Africa. We are fortunate to be in a safe place where we can still enjoy each other.

What is a New Year’s Wish You’d Like To Share With the World?

May the New Year bring an end to this Pandemic and may the world have the wisdom and strength to do what they need to do to flatten the curve. May 2021 have us all adapting positively to a new normal.

Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World from Sparks

What news event do you vividly remember hearing about as a child, and where were you?

I can’t quite remember where I was but President Kennedy was assassinated at 8:30 pm South African time on my 11th birthday so it would only have been the next day that I became aware of it. I know that I started collecting magazine pictures of him and put them up on my bedroom wall. I also remember watching a drive-in newsreel of the funeral and the image of John Jr saluting made a lasting impression on me.

What is a Christmas song that makes you cringe?

I don’t cringe at Christmas songs. I quite like them. I love “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus” and that might be cringe worthy to some.

What is one place you shop(ped prior to Covid) that might have surprised people?

When I lived in Cape Town I patronised the usual chain stores like Pick ‘n Pay and Woolworths for household stuff. Most of my clothing came from Woolworths or small boutiques. Quality was important in my working days. Now my clothing purchases are limited to Mr Price Clothing and Tekkie Town which would surprise many of my friends, I think. These stores are inexpensive and provide the basics.

What is your least favorite holiday side dish?

I love all holiday food. Maybe brussel sprouts are my least favourite but I will eat them.

---

GRATITUDE SECTION (Always optional)

Share something heart warming that’s happened to you lately.

Lots of heart warming things are happening right now. We are visiting our rural family in Kwa-Zulu Natal. We are with the patriarch and matriarch of the family but have had frequent visits from their grandchildren (our great-nieces and great-nephews). At the request of Grandma, the Earl gave four of them aged between 10 and 15 a basic lesson on electrics and it was heartwarming to see how well he presented and how enthusiastically they responded.

It is also heartwarming to see how after a very premature birth which their brother did not survive, the ‘miracle babies’ are thriving. They are now two years old and doing well.