Born Free

I finished my book Born Free by Joy Adamson, what an amazing book, I could not put it down.
It is the story of Joy and George Adamson who came to acquire 3 lion cubs. George had shot their mother when she tried to attack him but found out she was only protecting her cubs. They sent 2 of the lions to a zoo and kept one cub Elsa.

The story is of Elsa growing up with humans and living their lives, at 3 years they decide to release her into the wild and have to act as her pride, teaching her how to hunt and live in the wild without them. Else has 3 cubs while living in the wild, as she does not belong to another pride of lions there is no one to hunt for her while raising her babies, so Joy and George feed her and her babies while Else can not hunt for them. Else dies from a tick bite when her cubs are still to young to hunt for themselves, so Joy and George carry on feeding them.

The cubs then start raiding the locals livestock and so for them not to be killed Joy and George capture them and take them to the Serengetti National Park and release them there. They carry on feeding the cubs but soon after their release the cubs disappear and Joy never sees them again.

One of the aspects of the book that intrigues me most is the time in which they were living and where they were living. In 1956 there was no cellphone or computers, no xbox or ps3, they lived in rural Kenya which was not civilised. If they needed to go to the doctor, they had to travel for miles. There were no roads so getting a couple of flat tyres a day was normal and they fixed the tyres themselves. They lived off the land, there was no corner Spar to buy food. If they needed to correspond with someone, they had to write a letter and sent it with a runner, or send a telegram. They lived in tents where lions, elephant, rhinos etc also lived. It also amazes me that both Joy and George are no longer alive today, they were both murdered but not by dangerous animals but by man.

8 Reason I feel good today

1. It is the first day of spring, time to plant my veggie garden.

2. I have had 2 weeks off work for FREE and enjoying my time lazing around at home.

3. I bought myself an awesome book Born Free, a true story about lions and I can not put it down.

4. I have 5 amazing little doggies who woke me up with big kisses this morning.

5. The new Blackberry Bold 9900 will be released in South Africa in September (hopefully by next week)

6. The 3rd season of Vampire Dairies and 5th season of Gossip Girl are coming out this month.

7. I got 10 gigs of Internet cap today.

8. The sun is shining and the weather is great.

Spring fever is in the air, picture of my puppy Spider trying to get a piggie back ride from his Uncle Piglet.

Southside flat tyre.

Today is my last day off, next week I have to supervise my Au Pair kid full time for the rest of his holidays. This means I wont be able to do any home school work with my brother until Au Pair goes back to school.

So today I took a drive to Alberton to get his new home school books as he only has Afrikaans books left and he cannot work on those by himself. I stopped at a Caltex petrol station on Jan Smuts in Rosebank to fill up my car (PAY DAY TODAY YAAAY) and put air in my tyres and then off to the South I went.

When I got to my destination and climbed out my car, I heard a hissing sound from the front of my car. I checked my tyre and found that the cap was missing from my drivers side tyre.
The guy at the petrol station didn't put the cap back on my tyre when he put air in it and I drove over 50 kms like that! I am very lucky I didn't damage my tyre.

Anyway off to the South again tonight for a bit of a celebration as I passed one of three assignments for my carbon footprint analyst course :)

Au Pair kid cutting himself and taking extra meds!

After my boss gave me the week off work because Au Pair kid decided to spend the week with his mom, I got called in to have a meeting with my boss.

So apparently Au Pair kid (15) has been cutting himself on his wrists (not bled to death kind of cuts) and taking extra medication (he is on a whole bunch on natural stuff)

I think this kid is just playing everyone, he does not want to live with his dad anymore, he wants to go back to his mom so he makes some scratches on his arms and stashes some pills in his room. There was no cuts on his arms last Thursday, the last day I saw him and the day before he went to see his mother. My BF who gives him extra maths lessons, confirmed he had no cuts on his arms on Thursday. So he cuts himself before he goes to visit his mom and then shows it to her and tells her how sad his little life is!

I just dont understand how a kid who has everything can think his life sucks so much. He has the best schooling, everything money can buy, dinner on the table every night. He should thank his lucky stars that he does not have my brothers lives where they are so broke they are re-using teabags!

The conclusion to all of this, is that I now have to supervise him at all times, wake him up in the morning, keep him busy through out the day, boss him around etc etc