Tag Archives: School

The number of times I have…

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It has been a strange week. Started off with doing the monthly business accounts and that of course always depress’ me.


On Tuesday someone smashed into the back of my vehicle (dick!). Anyway I have some paint damage – not serious and I will get this touched up at my next service. His vehicle though was very damaged with his front bumper being totally smashed and his bonnet was totally crunched. I am so glad I drive a 4×4! I was stationary at the time sitting in peak hour traffic.


Then on Wednesday I got a speeding fine – at virtually the same place as the accident. It is my own fault. I am usually quite good when it comes to obeying the speed limit as I usually have kids in the car and this in only my 4th or 5th fine in almost 30 years. It was only a small fine of R125 (around US$15).


As these two events happened in pretty much the same place, I started thinking about how many times I had driven on this stretch of road. This is the road I take to drop kids off at school everyday and is around 8km from where I live.

There are 200 days of school a year (on average in South Africa) and I travel this road at least 4 times per day – to school and back in the morning and to school and back in the afternoon. 
I have done the school trip on this road for 19 years. Therefore 200 days x 4 trips x 19 years = 15,200 times.


I have done at least 15,200 school trips on this road – this excludes the times I have used this road for extra-mural activities and other purposes. I could take the kids to school in my sleep!

Other statistics:

Parents Evening’s attended at school: – At least 2 per year + additional information evenings – So let’s say 3 per year for each child on average
Son 1 – 12years at school x 3
Son 2 – 12years at school x 3
Son 3 – 8years at school x 3
Son 4 – 5years at school x 3
Total of 111 Parent’s evening’s attended to date.

Number of combined years my children have gone to the same primary school:
Son 1 – 7 years (less 1 when we were based in Brunei)
Son 2 – 7 Years
Son 3 – 7 Years (less 1 year when we were based in Dubai)
Son 4 – 5 years (less 1 year when we were based in Dubai)
Total = 23 combined years attending the same Primary School

Number of combined years my children have gone to the same high school:
Son 1 – 5 years
Son 2 – 5 Years
Son 3 – 1 Years
Son 4 – N/A
Total = 11 combined years attending the same High School

I could go on and calculate the number of nappies changed and school lunches made , but I am sure you are all bored stiff by now….

Welcome to a New Year

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Christmas is finally over and the New Year is well on its way already. I was glad to see the end of 2011 – this having been one of the worst years in my life. Saw 2 sons leaving home and having no work for almost 12 months took some strain on our finances. Finances are still an issue as our savings are all but depleted and not enough business coming in at the moment to live off of income alone just yet.  I am fairly positive things will improve this year.

The holidays were fairly uneventful. We don’t usually go away and this was no exception. Days were spent doing nothing – relaxing and occassionally dipping into the pool. The weather has been great with temperatures of around 30 degrees.

My mother-in-law, who lives with us, has spent 3 weeks in Cape Town and is arriving back today. She lives in a cottage on our property. Her cat has spent the last 3 weeks here. She is quite sweet but our little white cat, who is very timid, has not taken it well. So we have had to feed her in a seperate part of the house and keep the 2 of them as far away as possible from each other.  I am looking forward to having some peace back in the house as my mother-in-laws cat moves back in with her.

Life is slowly resuming back to normal.

Son no 3 goes back to school this week on Wednesday so have booked haircuts etc for Tuesday. Got to deal with school stationery and the packing of school bags as well. He is going into Grade 9 this year. Son no 4 only goes back to school on the 18th so he still has a few days left.

We are back in the office tomorrow morning. Not much to do yet but at least we will have some time to do a little housekeeping in the office. Haven’t collected the mail for 3 weeks so am expecting loads of bills. We have one event which we need to start working on. The office should be bustling by Friday with a bit of luck and hopefully this year will see us having loads of work again.

Been reading a book a day in bed these last few days. Sadly this will come to an end as I will be up and about at the crack of dawn again from tomorrow so will not be able to read till all hours of the night.

I trust you all had a break over the festive season and arrived back home safely if you went away. 

Let me know how you spent your holidays and what you have lined up for this year …..

Jingle Bells

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Well It’s almost Christmas.  And how do I know that – well….  

We live down a panhandle and the chap who normally delivers our weekly local newspaper has lowered himself to walk down the driveway and actually deliver the paper to my gate and not leave it at the top of the drive-way to get blown all over the place.  He is sucking up for his annual bonus!
Now each year we have a conversation with him about delivering the paper to the right place and each year he promises to walk down the driveway.  But we all know he will only do this in the months of November, December and January.
Son no 2 has his last official day of classes tomorrow.  He is then on study leave and then starts writing exams for 2 weeks.  Son no 3 writes all his exams in 1 week – all 10 subjects.  He finishes his exams on the 18th of November.  God only knows what the kids are supposed to do at school between the 18th November and the 9th of December when schools close for the year.  We have to put up with demotivated children who don’t want to go to school because they are so bored.  The teachers do find things for them to do such as school plays, sports events etc, but once they have written exams, they switch off and want to go on holiday.  For them the year is done.
It is going to be a strange Christmas this year.  I am normally surrounded by my 4 sons.  But this year I will have Son no 2 in Dubai and Son no 1 is working for a company who does not get time off over the Christmas season.  I am looking forward to the time off but I know I will miss my sons terribly.
Skyping just isn’t the same thing!

Jingle Bells

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Well It’s almost Christmas.  And how do I know that – well….  

We live down a panhandle and the chap who normally delivers our weekly local newspaper has lowered himself to walk down the driveway and actually deliver the paper to my gate and not leave it at the top of the drive-way to get blown all over the place.  He is sucking up for his annual bonus!
Now each year we have a conversation with him about delivering the paper to the right place and each year he promises to walk down the driveway.  But we all know he will only do this in the months of November, December and January.
Son no 2 has his last official day of classes tomorrow.  He is then on study leave and then starts writing exams for 2 weeks.  Son no 3 writes all his exams in 1 week – all 10 subjects.  He finishes his exams on the 18th of November.  God only knows what the kids are supposed to do at school between the 18th November and the 9th of December when schools close for the year.  We have to put up with demotivated children who don’t want to go to school because they are so bored.  The teachers do find things for them to do such as school plays, sports events etc, but once they have written exams, they switch off and want to go on holiday.  For them the year is done.
It is going to be a strange Christmas this year.  I am normally surrounded by my 4 sons.  But this year I will have Son no 2 in Dubai and Son no 1 is working for a company who does not get time off over the Christmas season.  I am looking forward to the time off but I know I will miss my sons terribly.
Skyping just isn’t the same thing!