a brief entry?

Here's one of the few pictures I have of me here with the kids, I must get more done, but the ones I do have are often taken by kids and so too many people are looking away or off centre, out of focus etc...

This was taken when Jane was visiting, in creche early in the morning, the little girl in pink is a creche child, and the one in white being carried, the others are slightly older kids who are too inquisitive to stay outside!

They all have FAR TOO MUCH energy first thing in the morning... (I suppose anyone who's been a parent will know all about that!)

I'm still working on my next newsletter to send out for Nov/Dec, hopefully will get it out soon. The days do seem to fly by here, despite getting up early. I managed to get really sunburnt on Tues at a meeting outside, I'm so used to it raining here that I completely forgot to put any suncream on and it just shows how strong the sun is, even early in the day, as my legs and feet are still bright red now!! I'll remember in future though! Think I'm so settled here now that things like that I just forgot about...

Today, Michelle and I did some preparations for the Pre-school graduation ceremony to take place in 2 weeks. It's going to be a very exciting day at 26 kids move up from pre-school to Grade R in primary school. The teachers and parents are looking forward to seeing their kids 'graduate' and we have a whole cohort of 5 yr olds who'll be moving up in January so it will be great to celebrate with them. Pictures and a report will follow, of course. The little munchkins will be too cute in their graduation gowns...

I'm still struggling on a number of levels:
1. that the school year really does end in December, it's soon Summer holidays and everyone changes year/school etc in January (the English system is still ingrained in me!) The kids are now writing important exams, in my head it feels like the first term still! I expect some of my teacher friends (hello people!) will be wishing it was nearly the end of the year already!!
2. that the weather really will get hot for Christmas, I'm still hearing plans about people organising braais and trips to the beach and thinking, but you'll be freezing!! Am looking forward to the summer though, the heat is breaking through now, we've had a couple of scorchers, but this is nothing apparently. With the heat comes the thunderstorms though. So it's not all good news!

I'll get there. I think I need to live through one year of South African life and then I'll be fine. And then my reverse culture shock in the UK will be major... if I come back?!?!