The Rocking Horse
The last 2 posts I have made were a bit devoid of emotion and our experiences. I tried to plaster them together with information and photographs, but even when I read them the author seemed very detached.
There is however a good explanation, which you will find a bit later in this blog.
South African flavours in Hyderabad
We had a wonderful week, with many “tastes” of home and other exciting things happening.
On Saturday we were “braai”ing (barbeque-ing) with 3 other South African couples (and 2 kids) = 10 South Africans together in Hyderabad. Roasted chicken, lamb chops, potato salad and lots of other wonderful SA-style “braai” food were devoured with gusto.
Thanks to John, whom we will dub our braai-master hence forth! And also thanks to Sian, Lorenzio & Letitia (and their 2 children) and Calvin & Liezel for a superb Saturday braai experience.
Familiar sign
On our way to the braai, we did not only spend loads of time in traffic (around 3 hours!), we also noticed a familiar sign along the way.
A Spar had their grand opening in Hyderabad on Saturday. We made sure to investigate on Sunday and aided the significant cashflow they were raking in over their opening weekend. The more people from South Africa we encounter and the more “familiar” stores and products we see, the more we feel at home in Hyderabad.
We’re not kidding ourselves though, this is not South Africa, but the changes we are seeing around us and the more people (from our home country) we meet, the easier it is to be positive about our surroundings and experiences.
Golconda Light Show
About 2 months ago we met Parag and Manisha in Hyderabad. They are from the US and recently moved to Hyderabad.
On Sunday we had the privilege to enjoy their company again when we visited Golconda Fort at night to enjoy the light show. We had a great time, which was slightly dampened for Marga when she discovered that she sat in some bubblegum. My spirits were also dampened a bit the next day when we discovered that most of the bubblegum were successfully transferred to the passenger seat in our car! However, it was an en”light”ening experience with the history of the fort given through a light show.
Hyderabadi sightings
Being stuck in traffic for 3 hours, and with a general desire to try and capture more Hyderabadi sights, enabled me to take a few snaps of what we see everyday. A camera however is no match for the eyes and I wish I could record all the fascinating things we see and experience, which either elude the camera or where the camera simply does not do the scene justice.
Here are a few of my snaps over the weekend:
Hyderabad Traffic (3 looooong hours on Saturday):
Life in Hyderabad:
Hussain Sagar Tank – the large lake in the middle of Hyderabad that we are planning on spending some time at in the near future.
How things are delivered in India:
Motorcycles = multi-purpose vehicles
Interesting sightings:
There are also 3 other blogs that gives a wonderful overview of life in Hyderabad.
Camerons in India
The Fluegges in Hyderabad
Webb’s World in Hyderabad
They are all wonderful reads about life in Hyderabad.
Where does the blog title come from?
Marga and I discovered this beautiful rocking horse in a shop in Hyderabad several months ago. We could not resist purchasing it, because we believed that it could come in handy in the future.
Now, this blog is also a social experiment to test whether our friends and family have the stamina to read a very very long blog. The main purpose of this blog is to announce that the “future” has arrived.
Over the past 3 months our thoughts, actions, fears and dreams have been centered around the fact that our family is about to grow in about 6 months from now. We kept it a secret until now, because of the high risks involved early in pregnancy. However, this morning we went for a scan and everything seems to be just perfect.
The prospect of our first child was both a source of great joy and anxiety for us, and the secret we kept consumed our hearts and minds to such an extent that I could not really “blog from the heart” on any other subject.
Our Fam-tastic news
Meet the newest member of the family. He/she will hopefully be a more visible part of our world in May next year.
We are extremely happy, and we are glad we can finally share the news with friends, family and the world. I know that there will be a lot of questions around the practicalities of being pregnant in India and a lot “where” and “when” questions are to follow. We have the same questions and once we have the answers I will be happy to blog about them.
Marga
Marga has been very brave and had to endure two separate bouts of flu without the ability to take any medication to relieve either the flu or its symptoms. She is as beautiful as ever and you will not be able to tell she is pregnant by her ever stunning looks (except perhaps from an extra glow and a sparkle in her eyes).
She has been equaling or bettering my records between the bed and bathroom (compliments of morning/afternoon/evening/never-ending nausea – and I had some pretty impressive records after a few attempts at Indian “street food”).
Other than the occasional mood swing she has been the perfect lady she has always been, and I’m extremely proud of her.
I must confess that I am very glad that we are in India at the moment. With the number of staff around the house there are so many targets for the unexpected mood swings. Raju in particular is much shorter than he was a few months ago after being cut down at the knees a few times ….
Thanks for reading all the way through this marathon blog – until next time.
Main bahut bahut khush hun. (I am very very happy)
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Chantal Smuts
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Chantal Smuts
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Arnold Terblanche
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Arnold Terblanche
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Roxy Harrison
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Roxy Harrison
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http://www.vwd.co.za Francois Botha
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http://www.vwd.co.za Francois Botha
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Petrie Kleysncheldt
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Petrie Kleysncheldt
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Tim
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Tim
Theo Scheffler