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….