Many of you know about my dirty little not-so-secret addiction to reality TV and how a phrase often gets ‘stuck’. This week the little phrase that kept echoing was about “not letting someone steal your peace“. I heard it on “The Valley“. Even for my low bar, this series is pretty bad. It is about narcissistic, horrid people and their annoying behaviour. I am sure they get together and laugh about these manufactured dramas in the attempts to reach ‘Scandoval‘ levels of notoriety. Ironically, Tom Sandoval is now trying to escape that notoriety. Anyway…..if you know, you know and if you do not know you are probably wondering what I am going on about.

I thought not letting someone steal your peace is a brilliant way of almost giving yourself the old slap across the face of reality. An abbreviation of ‘you have a wonderful life, a great job, a gorgeous family, your perfect home and a wonderful husband, do not let ‘this’ *gestures vaguely at the imaginary situation* upset your happiness’.

I relate to this as I often get annoyed, then hyper-focused on the very things that upset me. I have the typical ADHD response of things going around and around my head and distracting me from what should be a happy existence. I am trying hard to be more in the present moment.

This week I attempted to fix my cactus. It’s little ball cactus head was dead so I had removed it. I am the Culler Queen. I love to clip off anything that I feel is sapping the plant’s energy. I took one of the little clusters on another ‘head’ and used a piece of succulent to connect the two pieces together and we will see what happens.

I have spent a lot of time in the garden this week getting things back in order after being away for a few days. That always grounds me.

It has helped having Amelia here as that little firecracker is hilarious. Her and Poppy have been so adorable chasing each other around and around, playing ball and tug and just being silly.

I mentioned that Poppy had an op and Finn was on lots of medication, so my week has been spent doctoring everyone. I discovered today that Finn has some hot spots on his back. I am so worried about my boy, I suspect it is at least partially due to stress. I am putting coconut oil on his skin, feeding him the expensive kibble & giving him ostrich or venison sausages as treats to make it a bit less boring. Instead of his nightly achilles tendon his getting an ostrich knuckle. Spoiled beasts.

Last Monday I drove to the airport to collect Amelia and Lily. I had a busy day as Kim was at the house working in the garden, Chichi was cleaning, I was working & Finn was out with the dog walker so I had an itinerary like a well planned project, one slip threw everything off. I had managed to get everything done and was left waiting on the dog walker to return Finn. I did not have any time to settle him and left in an anxious state as I was late. The traffic was chockablock and there was an accident on the motorway, then it started to rain. I arrived and parked as her plane landed and then had to race to the gate, getting there just before she came through the gates.

I had done a large online grocery shop before they arrived so we have cooked most nights. We were very late for Mills to get to bed the night of their flight, so night one was just chicken strips and chips. The next night I cooked spicy chicken wings, mash, carrots & corn on the cob.

Wednesday night I made a cottage pie, corn on the cob and heated the remainder of the carrots. I had Vanessa pop by that afternoon to give me a pedicure and I had everything ready for everyone to eat while I was busy. On Thursday night I made macaroni and cheese with chicken schnitzels. Lily and Amelia had met up with Caitlin and Bree at a little play place so I had dinner ready when they got home.

Caitlin has come down with tonsilitis so we will not see them again this week sadly.

Friday afternoon when I finished work, Lily, Amelia and I went down to the harbour. Amelia was fascinated by the giant seals rolling around. She said one of them was ‘fat’ and he really was. One of the men had a seal he said he has worked with for 19 years and he was feeding it raw fish out of his mouth. I kept a wide berth, they scare the bejesus out of me.

We got ice creams and walked down the harbour towards the jetty, sitting on the edge to watch the birds and eat our ice creams.

After our walk we stopped at the new Thai restaurant and got take out for dinner.

Today after Amelia wakes we are going to the Cape Town Aquarium. They fly back to George tomorrow. I shall miss Amelia’s peals of laughter, her cries of ‘Elisi’ as she runs into my arms. I am the luckiest most blessed woman in the world, nothing can steal my peace.

Until Next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxo