Happy Birthday!

Time flies, hey? Remember this post?
Of course you do.

That rusk-loving chick turns a whole 15 years old today. And she is our younger child.
Scary, scary numbers.

Ironically, at the time of writing, and despite us being on a family holiday together, I’m not sure if or when I’m actually going to see her today, duty (potentially) calling some way up North. Oops.
So Happy Birthday, Scoop. Party hard. And I look forward to celebrating with you… er… at some point.

Notes: That post was from March 2009. Yes, she did get some hair soon afterwards. Yes, I did get a camera that was able to focus better soon afterwards. Yes, she still likes rusks. I mean, which South African doesn’t?!?

Day 251 – This new world

We watched our daughter perform on stage tonight for the first time in… ages.

The end of year school concert. Marvellous.

Obviously, we weren’t allowed to be there to see it in person, but thanks to the miracles of technology, it was streamed on Youtube this evening. And so the family huddled around the Samsung Curved TV in the corner and enjoyed a stunning rendition of Colours Of The Wind from Disney’s Pocahontas.

Some proper rainbowism in a difficult year for racial relations.

Tomorrow (no concerts) I have to find time to bang in a couple of extra blog posts because I am away for a couple of days next week at a place with… no internet.

I was reminded of this album title:

I’m not into digital detoxing. I don’t need it. I’m a reasonable user. I just like to stay in touch.

But weirdly, I am also kinda looking forward to it.

More of that later though. Right now I’m off to share Youtube links with proud grandparents.

Heave

I’ve been regularly hanging around my Flickr account for a little while recently, for reasons which will become clear real soon now. The downside of this is the massive lack of any sort of productivity, but there’s a upside as well: old photos.

Like this one.

That would be my daughter (in the pink), pulling a huge length of washed up kelp (brown, becoming black, straggly holdfast stage-right) across Suiderstrand beach. And thanks to the magic of EXIF (Exchangeable image file format), I can tell you to the nearest second when this photo was taken:

This would then be a week or so before Little Miss Pink’s 6th birthday, and I think we can all agree that that’s a lot of seaweed to be pulling around when you’re just five years old.

I can also see that this image was taken on the old PoS (point and shoot, people, be nice) Sony DSC-HX300 camera with its amazing 50x digital zoom (not used on this occasion) which according to this blog last from about September 2013 until September 2015. Lovely device, but I grew out of it rather quickly.

And it was still in use by my boy until I upgraded again earlier this year to my 80D and passed the 700D down the family line. Now it becomes one of those pieces of technology that isn’t worth selling, but that will be worth holding onto only for the sentimental value in a few decades time. Although looking at the recent hipster resurgence in SLR and film, maybe there’s actually more reason to pop it safely back into its box and into the attic.

Blogging advice

“Whatcha doin’?”

That was Scoop who wandered into the room and saw me at the computer.

When I explained that I was going to write a blog post, she asked what it was going to be about. I told her that I didn’t know (this is often the case when I start a blog post) (and sometimes when I finish one too) and asked for suggestions.

“Something about Christmas!” she replied, instantly.

Well, ok then. Her wish, my command and all that:

There’s Aalsmeer (just south of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam) (literally translated “Eel Lake”) Brandweer (it’s Dutch for “Fire Station”, in case you hadn’t guessed) and their interpretation of the best Christmas song ever (don’t @ me).

Lovely. The best part being that they didn’t aurally torture us for more than 62 seconds.

Tomorrow: possibly more offspring-suggested blog topicary. Or possibly not.

Scoop is Five

Happy Birthday to our younger bundle of fun, who reaches the milestone of five years old today.

Here she is looking rather peeved. She has been known to smile as well though, especially when given a rusk.

As with most 5-year-olds these days, she is already well on her way to becoming a proper independent teenager, but thankfully, she still needs her Dad’s hugs from time to time.

I going to cherish them while they’re still on offer.