I mentioned that April is a month of many public holidays in South Africa and it was lovely having 3 days off last weekend and another day off on Thursday and nothing to do except whatever I wanted to do. I did a lot of gardening in the mornings on the first two days while it was still relatively cool (compared to later in the day when it almost hit 30℃). On Monday it was lovely and cool all day unless you were sitting in the actual sun (and I have not sunbathed since 1997). Thursday however was cold and rainy and then today is gorgeous again.
I spent a lot of time thinking about reptiles over the weekend. My childhood nickname was Lizard because when my dad’s cousin teased me my response was always to stick out my tongue. I have a very long tongue apparently or he just wanted yet another reason to be an arsehole.
As a child I loved reptiles and had a variety of them at various times. I have written before about my childhood snake and the funny experiences around him, but I also had other random critters.
In my garden I am mostly seeing skinks. I read that “In southern Africa 338 species (in 48 genera in 9 families) of lizards in the suborder Lacertilia are known to occur. One of these families is the skink family (Scincidae). In southern Africa 10 genera and 74 species of skink are found.”
I’ve been doing a deep dive on skinks. Some of them lay eggs in a nest and some of them have live births and the mother often leaves the nest after giving birth. Most species of skinks in southern Africa give birth to live young. Some of them have a nursery where multiple mothers may lay their eggs. I wondered why we had so many tiny ones so it must have been a hatch in the area. I watched them leap as if flying from one thing to another. I watched them chasing each other around on trees and on the wall. I spent hours trying to spot them and then watching them.
I sat outside with my binoculars (ummm unoculars? what are these things called?) waiting patiently for a glimpse of movement so I could zoom in to see what type it was. I felt like I was on safari with very small animals being spotted. Much like being on safari you have to rely on noticing a change of pattern in the landscape or a flash of movement to know where to focus. Especially with vision as bad as mine.
I observed so many different lizards in the garden! I finally named them based on where they seemed to live. There is a large guy who lives in this tin. I thought he was visiting the first time he startled me but I have seen him walking around on the outside of the tin a few times now. His name is Tin Lizzie. He is not a dark skink with the bright blue stripes like most of the others I saw this weekend, he is brown and I think is a Cape Skink. You cannot see him in this video so you are not also poorly sighted.
There is Ted, the Shed Lizard who lives, you guessed it, in the shed, he is a dark coloured skink with what looked like a blue stripe. There are 2 different groups who live in the nooks and crannies of the olive trees, I just call them Tree Things One and Tree Things Two and there seem to be a lot of tiny little fellows of all sorts. Then there are lots of lizards in the vines who disappear at the top of this column.
I saw a few of them climbing up Ganesh and disappearing. I assumed they were using him for warmth. Sure enough, towards the end of the day I spotted one climbing up and then sunning himself at the top. You can see his reflection upper left of Ganesh’s chair. I think he looks like a dinosaur. I was attacked by Poppy at the end of the video and have no clue how to crop it so apologies for that extra drama.
As usual I woke to the dogs on my head most mornings. I am used to Poppy sleeping on my pillow as well as Finn, but not both at once. Finn was happily chilling there and Poppy was asleep at the foot of the bed, she saw him cozying up to me and she dove into the middle of us. They are both so jealous.
I did so many little things I have been wanting to do for a while over the weekend. I made a little wedding bouquet for the girls’ dress up box using scraps from the wedding gown from my first marriage.
I planted loads of clippings taken from the front gardens into some pots I have put at the back. I bought a pot to replace the one Norm broke when he was trimming the neighbour’s weeds. I planted clippings in the new pot and set it back on the wire shelf.
We cleared out our pantry and a few kitchen cupboards full of randomness, threw out loads of expired foods, cleared out baking things I will never use and loads of tins and put them into the box to donate for DARG yard sale and Norm dropped them off this week. I saved the two smallest tins to put clippings in.
I put out my new bunnies but forgot to mention one of them. It is there, who can spot it? I moved so many things around.
The next day I moved it all around again. I told Norm it is like my adult dollhouse. I sit on all three patio seats and look at the garden and then make sure that I can see everything from every seat. If not I will microscopically adjust it over and over until everything is balanced.
I have mentioned my crazy garden pigeon before and he was obviously not pleased with my rearrangement. He went into the fairy garden, knocked over a small rabbit, then knocked off the fairies from their little home. He was very deliberate. He then did a poop on one of my rose quartz crystals and flew off. When he came back I tried to have a reasonable discussion with him but he was not interested in what I had to say.
As mentioned, Thursday was also a public holiday in South Africa. I lay in bed until almost 11am drinking coffees delivered by my gorgeous husband and playing games on my phone. Eventually I got up and showered and dressed and had a piece of toast then headed over to Tamlyn’s for coffee. She had made a delicious coffee cake. We chatted for a few hours then Norm collected me and we headed home and I relaxed outside.
I have made good progress on my work deliverables this week and completed data profiling of the biggest data set. I am so thankful that I enjoy my job and can work from home. The animals can sit with me or near me. I would hate to be miserable for the majority of my day, instead I am grateful. Gratitude makes a huge difference in our lives, we get back the energy we put out.
Friday I was back at work and forgot that my managers were off for the long weekend and spent the morning preparing for a meeting which did not happen. Never mind, I still made good progress.
The weather has been overcast and chilly with occasional rain, it is feeling very much like winter has arrived even though it is still Autumn. Today we woke to clear blue skies and a cool breeze, pretty much my perfect day. I am going to do my usual pottering about all day.
If you can spare some prayers for my mama I would appreciate it.
Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxox
Kitten in the City 