A childhood friend of mine recently flew to Portugal and did one of the Camino trails through Portugal and part of Spain. She flew into Lisbon on 31st May and arrived in Santiago on 13th June.
She walked 280km, averaging about 20km per day. Mike and I like the idea of doing a walking holiday but I’m not sure we need quite as long a distance to get it out of our system! Perhaps a ramble in the Drakensberg will work.
Today was such a beautiful day in Cape Town and work was quite quiet. With the sun shining and hardly any wind, being inside a gym to exercise seemed the wrong thing to do, so I decided to walk to Fish Hoek. Walk to Fish Hoek, mind you, not even jog. Mike said he couldn’t join me as he had work to do, but by the time I was ready to march on out, he had changed his mind. Yay! Glad of the company, we decided to walk to Echo and see if Werner had started on the kerbs. It was just a fraction short of a 10km round trip. We didn’t rush, we stopped at Echo for a few minutes and stopped for at least 5 minutes on our return while I sent an important email! Amazing what work you can do while walking with a cell phone!
The idea of arriving home and that only being the half way mark of a Camino walk bought into reality just how taxing walking 20km a day for 12 days would be but we really enjoyed it. It made me think that working 4 hours a day instead of as much as I like or as much as the company needs may be a nicer way of life. It’s in my hands. I just need to suggest it.
Werner hadn’t started on the kerb, so I could get photos of the before. He’s going to take down what’s there and change them so we can park all the way along the front of the property.
On our way back, we watched the big earth moving equipment moving tons of sand from one area behind our house to another. It’s apparently to change the gradient of the bank.
Home again and back to work before we walked to the Mall.
It’s been a good day.
Nugget from my journey. It was 1987 and I was pregnant with Stacey. My doctor was my GP. I loved being pregnant. I had terrible morning sickness for a full 20 weeks. Yet it was the most wonderful time. However, the pregnancy was not without worry. At about 16 weeks, I went for an ultrasound. The radiographer did the ultrasound and said the baby looked healthy. She asked us if we wanted to know the gender. I said no. She said it would be very easy for her to tell me. We elected for it to be a surprise. Everything seemed normal until she dropped a bit of a bombshell. She said that it looked like she may have an amniotic band around her wrist. This is when part of the baby becomes entangled in fibrous string-like material called an amniotic band. If it wraps around the baby’s wrist and the baby grows normally, the amniotic band can cut off the blood supply to the wrist and the baby could be born without a hand. The radiographer wasn’t 100% sure and suggested we have another ultra-sound at 6 months. By the time I got to that ultrasound, I was told all looked well but Stacey was now too big for them to see if there was an amniotic band and we’d just have to wait until she was born. On our knees, praying to the Lord that all will be well with our baby. Sometimes in life there are things entirely out of your control. This was one of them. We had to leave it firmly in the Lord’s hands. Thursday 3rd December 1987 arrived and I felt the start of labour. In the late afternoon Mike took me to the hospital (Paarl General Hospital). I was examined and told to go home…this is going to take some time. The next morning, we went back. Labour had begun. I laboured all morning and into the afternoon. At 3pm the Dr came to see me. No sooner had he left the ward I asked to get him back. I wanted an epidural. Dr. Johan Slabbert was both my GP and (conveniently) a Anesthetist. He came back at about 4pm, gave me an epidural and said, “see you in an hour.” He wasn’t wrong. Stacey was born by forceps delivery at 5-30pm on Friday 4th December 1987. It was her due date. Stacey has always been accurate from birth to now! She was nearly 4kg at birth. She was perfect, but the most noticeable trait was her hair. It started with “It’s a girl!” followed quickly by a chorus of ‘look at her hair!’
3 months old
After she was born and the placenta was delivered, a most amazing moment happened. The doctor and the nursing staff all left the labour ward. Mike and I were left with our new first-born baby and I got to feed her. It was just a marvellous few minutes of wonderment and gratitude. When everyone returned, Mike left to go and spread the news, Stacey was taken to the nursery and I was stitched up. There was no amniotic band. All was well. We were so grateful. The preciousness of this day will stay with me forever.
2 Samuel 22:31
God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true. He is a shield to all who look to Him for protection.
These are the days.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂
Gym:
That 10km walk was enough! I’m at 19500 steps.
Braces:
Day 223