Horse

So this is Horse.
She is an 8 week old Rhodesian Ridgeback and is the newest member of our household. She is a typical puppy: cocky, confident and naughty.
But she is just TOOOOOO cute. We cant decide who was cuter as a puppy between her and Mahindi. Horse makes these funny grumbling sounds when you tickle her or pick her up and when she sleeps which are just adorable! And as you can see she has the cutest little body with strong legs already. Her dad is the size of a horse, hence the name... but also just cos we found it SUCH a funny name.
Horse and Mahindi seem to be getting on well... if biting and scuffling with each other constantly counts as getting on. Horse is already becoming the leader the two... although Mahindi is such a pleaser and follower that its not surprising. Horse has already explored the garden more than Mahindi ever has. Horse has even done a roof tour. (It was very worrying to find her there after I lost her for 10mins)
Horse sleeps outside now, as of last night. Its SO warm here still and they have a cute wooden house which we've made nice and cosy. They seem to like it in there.

So it seems like our goal has been achieved: find a friend for Mahindi to play with while we play with our baby :-)

Kenyan Wedding and our birthdays

So last friday Benedikt and I went to a cycling friend of ours' wedding. Alex is Ugandan and Ruth is Kenyan. We got there at 11:20 as it started at 11am and we knew it would run late.... well, it only got started at 12:30! We were sitting/standing in the blazing sun until 2:30pm which is when the ceremony bit finished! Not good for this grumpy pregnant fairy :-)
The vows were all pretty standard and pleasant. But they had 3 priests!! All going off on their own tangent and speaking nonsense. The churches here do tend to be a bit evangelical. Apparently the louder the speaker is into the microphone, the more religious he is :-)

Then lunch was served which consisted of some interesting dishes. And chapati of course. Then we waited a further 2 and a half hours for the bride and groom to finish their photos and stuff... but they had a very impressive arrival. They headed up a 30 minute dancing train! People were really getting down! And this was all without alcohol, we were quite surprised that none was served.
We sat at one of 2 Mazungu tables and the entertainer dude who had a unique violin type instrument made sure we were welcomed in all his songs - he was quite funny in his leopard get up.
All in all it was a pleasant day out... albeit a very interesting one!


It was also our birthday week last week. Mine was on Wednesday and Benedikts on Friday. We each took each for dinner and were nice to each other for a change.
But our main celebration was on Saturday night when we had a dress up party. People had to come as a German or a South African and if they chose neither then cycling get up! Funnily enough we had lotsa non cyclists who didnt mind prancing around in cycling gear.
Benedikt and I were busy all day making typical german and south african food which turned out really yummy. We had the party at the sundowner deck which is a communal lapa type thing in our compound. Really cool people came, everyone dressed up and it was a fun evening. Although everyone except our die hard neighbour faded before 12... kids and cycling mean early nights! So I guess Benedikt and I are never going to see past 12pm from August onwards ;-(

Easter Break

So we went to Diani for the Easter weekend with good friends of ours, Mike and Sabine and their 2 kids. Diani is just south of Mombasa. It was our first time heading in that direction. We flew there which was great as the drive can be a real drag - there is a ferry to cross at Mombasa which I think on average takes like 3 hours to use! Good ol Africa.
Mahindi endured her first flight too, no problem - we were way more stressed about it than she was. She is such a cool dog - just so relaxed all the time! And she had an awesome beach holiday yet again. In the pool 5000 times a day and she had another puppy to play with for the 4 days. She has been sleeping ever since!
Mike and Sabine have an awesome house there, right on the beach on the quiet side of Diani. And RIGHT NEXT door to a Kite surfing center which Benedikt made a beeline for and immediately booked himself on a course. I was very jealous...I wanna learn to kite surf too! Benedikt has promised to look after Cecil when we go to the beach in December or Jan and let me do the course then... so lets see if that works out :-)

I had such a super duper weekend. Just totally doing NOTHING. Being pregnant means I feel zero guilt about not going for a run or not being active like I used to be! The most movement I made was swimming away from Mahindi in the pool. Benedikt and Mike went cycling every morning for a couple of hours. I would sleep in and then have an hour long massage followed by a dip in the pool and a long yummy breakfast. Bliss!

One of Benedikt's school friends (and ex girlfriend!) happened to be staying about 500m up the beach from us which was a big coincidink. So we met up with her and her boyfriend one afternoon which was cool.

On Easter Sunday we had 2 other families around for the day. There were 12 adults and 6 kids so it was a hectic day! And I was the easter bunny!

Being preggers

This being pregnant lark is not fun. I can't cycle, I can't run (well I could run a bit but I’ve become a couch potato now), I can't do the jumpy moves in yoga, I can't DRINK, I can't sleep on my tummy and I can't touch my toes anymore! I actually don’t mind most of those. Its the putting on weight and losing all my fitness that is really getting me down. I feel like a lump of lard! Even though I am still doing lots of yoga (3 times a week), going to the gym 3 times a week, (easy) spinning twice a week and walking almost everyday in the forest with Mahindi.... none of this comes close to what I used to do dammit!
I do LOVE feeling Cecil move though. And I am feeling him a lot now. Whenever I am at my desk or lying down I feel him. He is having a party in there I think. Ooh, there we go, he just rolled over!
And I love getting special treatment cos I’m ‘The Pregnant Woman’. Like in the shops everyone helps me carry stuff or pick up stuff... and if we are out, a chair always appears magically for me. People look at my belly alot now too. I am wearing tight clothes again so showing off my bump. Well the clothes aren’t supposed to be tight, they are my usual tops that are just getting stretched over my belly.

We’ve just had a bit of a worrying 10 days though... the blood results from my triple test came back as high risk for a Down Syndrome baby. My ratio was 1 in 120, which is nothing scary, but apparently everything under 200 is considered high risk. We decided to find out for sure and went ahead with an amniocentesis. It was a pretty gruesome procedure. First the ultra sound dude and my gynie located Cecil and the placenta and then found a spot on the opposite side of my uterus to drill into. After careful marking and measuring they agreed on the point of entry. Then out came the 2metre fat needle and before I knew it my gynie had stabbed me! Right through my belly into my uterus. The needle went in about 5cm! They drew some amniotic fluid and pulled out. All in all it was a very quick procedure but quite painful. I squeezed Benedikt’s hand to death.
It stung for about an hour afterwards but then I was all fine. Just had to endure the long wait for the result which took 10 days. Anyway, we got the result yesterday – Cecil is 100% normal. YAY YAY YIPPEEE YAY YAY!!! All his chromosomes are accounted for and are in the right place. I was kinda disappointed they didn’t tell us he is a super genius with amazing good looks too. But hey, he is normal, way cool! So no more drama now hopefully. As Bonnie said ‘Its plain sailing from here my friend’!

So on Wednesday I went for lunch with 4 South African girls (and one American). It was so cool! We laughed and chatted non stop. I miss my girlie lunches SOooooooooooooo much! Vicky and Leanne please come here for lunch next Saturday?
The following day we had a yoga lunch. All the girls who do yoga with our crazy, French teacher Orianne, stayed after our 2 hour session (she made us work for it) and had a very cool lunch. And again, lots of laughs, skinner and good chats.
I have a 3 week holiday from German coming up so I am going to make sure I make more lunches. I was on such a high this week after those 2 lunches – one forgets how much fun a group of girls can have!

So Benedikt and I are ADDICTED to the Epic. We sit on the cape epic live site and twitter ALL day. And get up early every day to watch the highlights on dstv! We have 2 teams from here that are competing and of course we are watching them closely. One of the teams, the PooPots, used my entry actually. Good job cos I’m a bit fat to do it now. Then we have the girls team– Daniella and Erica (Daniel and Eric) who have been finding it really tough. We mock and scorn them and have taken bets on their times.... but really, its so easy to forget how darn hard that race is. Day after day of pain and torture! Man it was fun!
But Nolly and I both agreed we had SUCH a perfect epic last year that we are glad not to be doing it this year. We would be miff not to receive all of our (deserved) podium attention if we didn’t get top 3 again!

Unglaublich!

We went to the St Patricks Day annual Irish ball last Saturday night. It was really good - there were like 150 mazungus in a big hall, (both) well decorated and the organisers put in a really big effort. It was at the Hilton hotel which is surprisingly like a real Hilton. The same purple dress that we for bought in Italy for Nina’s wedding still fitted me – what a bonus! We sat at a table with 8 other saffas and had a lot of fun – not an Irishman in sight! There was a bottle of Jameson on every table (besides 2 baileys bottles and loads of wine) and once the boys had finished our bottle they spent the rest of the night concocting plans on how to steal the whiskey off other table. They were very successful actually – managing to pilfer 2 other bottles.
Needless to say Benedikt went to bed more than a little pissed and we both had to get up 3.5 hours later to go and do a race! I obviously wasn’t hungover but felt like it – that was far too little sleep for me - I need my sleep boy. Especially now I am 'the pregnant women'. I am DREADING Cecil’s arrival for that reason. Being sleep deprived just SUCKS so much doesn’t it?

Anyway the race went REALLY well for Benedikt. Something I have observed many times - the less prepared you for a race the better you do! Benedikt feels his form is really returning. So watch out Dieter! He beat a well known fast guy who has beaten him a couple of times. And he also finished very close behind Peter Viljoen – who not only is a saffa, but is also the fasted Mazungu in Kenya!

I did the 25km at a REALLY leisurely pace. I rode with a 9 year old who was doing his first ‘long distance’! It was really quite cool riding with him and encouraging him and seeing how well he did... Sasha is swiss and is the son of good friends of ours here.

VERY exciting news now – I’ve joined a library! Its the Muthaiga club one and is really quite decent. Quite similar to Linden Library actually, which I used to frequent. I was really happy to find they had 6 of my favourite author books, Ian McEwan. So I am not going to run out of reading material while being here thats for sure. YAY YAY YAY

Then how FUNNY is this. Benedikt and I heard about a ballet that being held last Thursday. It was Romeo and Juliet and was reasonably priced so we decided to go. We invited Roland and Naoko as well because Naoko is ballet befok. Anyway, we all got tarted up and hyped up for our evening at the ballet.... only to discover on arrival that it was just a DVD of the royal ballet from 1984 that was being played on a big screen!!!!! We couldn’t believe it! Unglaublich! Only in bloody Kenya!!!!!
Anyway, we sat through it and enjoyed our meal afterwards. And giggled alot about the evening. But really - they could have said it was just a DVD showing on the flyer!

I’ve been having the odd nightmare about cecil. Like how I forgot to feed him for a week. Then the next dream I’d never once bathed him and he was a couple of months old. And when I did get round to bathing him – we had no baby products. And he kept slipping down in the bath water while I had to reach for things. Eventually I propped him up with my foot in the corner of the bath while I jumped around on my other leg reaching for a towel etc. And the shower gel I used on him made his skin very red and burny! Shame, this poor boy doesn’t know what he is in for!

Temporary retirement

So last weekend I rode with the ‘men’ for the last time. I’m just getting too fat and too slow now and my thighs hit Cecil on the upstroke :-( I also cant crouch down in the aero dynamic position anymore, so downhills are no fun. So I admitted defeat and announced my temporary retirement from the group. As you can all guess, the guys cried alot and are most upset. I just hate to think of how the conversation level is going to deteriorate without a girl’s presence. So now I plan to get all WAGs together once per weekend for a girlie ride. They are quite keen so lets see. This weekend we have a race..... yes yes, don’t worry I am not racing. I’m doing the short distance with Aida, who is nice and slow ;-)

Benedikt has to train like mad these next 2 months as he is doing the Trans Germany at the end of May. (I had an entry too until Cecil came on the scene) So he is off doing long rides while I stay at home. It is REALLY weird to not go riding! And the day is just SOooooooooooooo long without it man. It goes on and on and on and on. Once I’ve taken Mahindi to the forest, been to the shops and done some work and some gardening... Benedikt is not even half way through his ride. So last weekend I even did some baking. I haven’t baked since I was a kid I don’t think! It bought back all sorts of memories!
I made oatmeal cookies and zucchini muffins. The former were kak but the latter were v yummy. We had a sundowner evening at the lapa in our compound that Saturday and my muffins went down a treat. As you can imagine I am now inspired. Hausfrau here I come!
Benedikt’s ride last Saturday took SEVEN hours... so obviously I was glad to have missed that one. But as his way of saying sorry he took me maternity clothes shoping. I wasn’t complaining! The very first shop we looked in was Truworths. Yes it is the same Truworths as in SA, but the clothes are from 5 years ago and they are 10 times the price. LUCKILY they were having a sale, it seemed on all maternity clothes. So we got me 2 dresses, 2 ¾ pants, 1 pair of combat pants and 2 shirts. So now I’m sorted. The pants are just SO funny though with the whole rib trim waist that launches over your belly. Benedikt was fascinated with the clothing! I must say its all VERY comfortable and so easy to wear. I’m also glad I’m going to be at my biggest when its slightly cooler here.

I promptly wore one of my new outfits the next day to Sabine’s birthday lunch. Her invite said it was a casual pool party... we should have known better judging by the amazing parties we have been to here already. It was no casual affair! They had caterers and a full bar, complete with waiters going round topping up drinks and offering yummy snacks. They had clowns for the kids. Plus they hired a soft serve machine which went down well with the kids and the pregnant ladies. We stayed until 8pm. It was a good lunch! I would have loved a pims or two tho :-(

We also went to watch Avatar last weekend. Its brilliant hey! I’m sure everyone reading this has seen it too? Really spectacular. So creative and novel.

This week has been a seriously busy one for me. I even had to skip my forest walks, german, yoga and spinning. Missing yoga is SERIOUS business. But a site that I have been working on for months went live so it kept me very busy. Its stable and running well now, but I still have a couple of small bugs to fix. Oh joy, I can work all day Saturday while Benedikt rides.

Aah, our little girl is all grown up now. Mahindi is on heat! Sorry for her but she cant meet up with any of her boyfriends this week... we don’t need little mahindis plus little us’s running round.

ITS A BOY!!!!!

Yay, we’re very happy that Cecil is a boy. We weren’t keen on the name Cecelia. As Nolly said ' dont you love it when a plan comes together?'. Yip, we do! We want a boy first and a girl second. So that the boy doesn't grow up a pansy.
And we’re especially happy that Cecil has long legs and short arms (according to the scan), rather than the other way round. We don’t want an orangutan. Although Cecil’s face looked just like a monkey’s when we looked at it in 3D. Yes, even here in deep Africa they have excellent ultra sound machines - we were amazed as you probably are! But lets see if Cecil becomes more handsome over the next few months, we don’t want a boiled monkey either thanks. I know we should just be grateful if its healthy blah blah... but who doesn’t want a good looking child dammit?!

So now we can start buying stuff and decorating the baby’s room. Plus I’m starting to need maternity clothes. But...um.... where the hell do we get these things here?! Slight problem. There is one baby shop that we know of that is seriously expensive and I have yet to see a shop selling preggie clothes. So I guess I’ll continue to wear Benedikts clothes until we find something. But ja, I’m 20 weeks now and pretty much look pregnant. People are looking at my belly now!

Benedikts parents left last night after spending their last week here in Nairobi. They were very happy to just relax, I still had to go to german lessons and Benedikt had to work. But we still got lots done. We went for a really nice meal at Lord Groll as a belated celebration of Irene’s birthday. We went to Lake Elementita which is a beautiful salt lake in the spectacular Great Rift Valley. We went for a lovely authentic Ethiopian Meal with Naoko and Roland. We had Sabine and Micheal over with their 2 cute girls. (Those 2 couples both speak German so it made socialising easier)
I took Heinz and Irene to the museum, the Kiambethu tea farm, Karen Blixem’s house, to the craft market, the forest (with ALL the doggie people!) and to yoga....see what an excellent tour guide I am.
Now its time for YOU to visit!!

Oh yes, Irene was AMAZING in the kitchen. I would turn my back for 2 seconds and all the veggies would be chopped and all the dishes washed and dried! She made us some yummy puddings, spätzle pasta, and some lovely fruit jam. As well as getting lunch ready for my return from German every day! I will miss her help alot. I have warned Benedikt not to expect me become SUPERhousewife like her ;-)