Nature bites back

We had a tropical thunderstorm today - which in my fascination I forgot to get pictures of. Thunder was continuous for about half an hour and hail was so large and heavy that it shredded trees. We had flash floods at lower levels (nowhere near us thankfully - we are about 30ft above sea level). It was quite a spectacle.

This weekend has been pretty busy. It was the Bulls Christmas parade and as usual Molly loved it. She was dancing to the brass band and catching sweets from Mummy or Daddy's shoulders. Lots of pics to come!

After that, we went home and Tristine and Cherie arrived with pressies and to see Aloise and Clare was really pleased to see them - I don't think she's seen Cherie for a couple of months.

That evening we went to Brent and Megans for a barbeque and I have to say I really enjoyed myself. We watched the cricket, drank beer and ate great food while our three girls played together in the sun. Linda and David were there as were Brents parents - very civilised and very pleasant. As the night drew on, Clare had to express so we headed home for a very hot and sticky evening.

The weather had been amazing all week and I had managed to get a fair bit of my garden chores done this week but I had been intending to do some trimming and weeding on the Sunday (today) until the storm came along.

The rain was so hard and so fast - with horizontal rain - that our drains couldn't cope and the roof started to leak in a couple of places. Thankfully it wasn't anything major, but if the rain had continued that hard for a long time it could have been.

Clare's friend Odelia arrived with her two young girls and Molly was immediately into hero-worship mode in the same way Lauren does with Amy. It was really nice to see and listen to Molly and the girls - she's so clever and knows much more than we sometimes think. She can play a bit of the piano, count to twelve, knows all colours, some letters and some numbers to read.

I'm sure all of this is perfectly normal for a two and a half year old, but I've watched all of these developments firsthand and I'm certain she's a bona fide genius. She's a real personality and can eloquently tell you how she's feeling and what she wants. One of the cats caught a bird today and she said to me: "Daddy, the cats are going to kill the bird - it will be dead, help quick!". How she knows about this astounds me.

Anyway, enough yabbering - on with the pictures, there are quite a few...