To all the girls out there – this one if for you! When you find yourself between your friends watching a game (and wondering how the hell you got there!), make the most of it by mouthing off something like:

“…that red card was so uncalled for it’s not even funny – the ball was played from a position in front of him.. c’mooon!”.  Sounds good, huh.

Now, you try!

1. There are 11 players on each side with 4 groups of players: Goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and strikers.
2. Goalkeepers are the only players that are actually allowed to touch the ball with their hands and this can only happen in the area in front of the goal. Favouritism, if you ask me.
3. When a player commits a foul, the ref may show them a yellow card. Any player that receives two yellow cards then get gooi’ed with a red card, which means they get sent off the field as with immediate effect. For serious fouls a player can get a red card onetime – no yellow card – and has to leave the field pronto.
4. The offside rule -You have to concentrate for this one:  An attacking player is not allowed to receive the ball when he is between the goalkeeper and the last defender. However, if he is in his own half of the field or if the ball gets played from a position in front of him (in other words, by a player closer to the goalkeeper), it is all good and the ref is happy. And that’s what it’s all about – keeping the ref happy.
5. In the pool stages of the World Cup, teams get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 for a loss. The two teams with the most points in each pool advance to the knockout stages.
6. A game lasts 90 minutes, split into two 45-minute halves.
7. Soccer is about 90 % thinking and 10 % physical.
8. Heading a ball will not cause you a headache or a serious injury.
9. Bafana means “boys” in Nguni.
10. Zakumi – The name of the World Cup’s popular leopard mascot. The “za” comes from the country code and the “kumi” means “10″ in African languages

It reads: Please don’t kill me, I am only a tourist, not the boer.

PS. Maybe they should rather be on the lookout for Iraqi terrorists!

I’ve paid my taxes
Time after time
I’ve done no sentence
But many a crime
And bad mistakes.. eish (it’s not my fault)
I’ve made a few
I’ve had my share of media on my case
But I dodge what is due

We are the comrades, my friends
And we’ll keep on lying till the end (together: yes, we would)
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for resistance
We are the champions… of the world

Still bitter about apartheid
The struggle she calls
You brought me fame and fortune and power and money and songs
And I thank you all

It’s been a bed of roses
but no pleasure cruise (eish, no boat but a Mercedes C Class)
I consider it a challenge for the DA to face
Cos there’s nothing to trace…

We are the comrades, my friends
And we’ll keep on lying till the end (backup: yes, we would)
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for resistance
We are the champions… of the world

Courtesy of: www.sagoodnews.co.za

Pitching this 8-man tent of ours under a 35 degrees African sky is no joke, especially if you have to still deal with a 1-year old eating suspicious objects, disappearing into the road and licking off his sun block. I took this all in and went to my quiet place where I had a persuasive one-on-one with myself.  After digging real deep I decided to stand tall and take this on. I would much rather have packed everything right back and go home where I can control Daevin’s comings and goings in a comfy way. What held me back? I already bought the t-shirt, which meant that I now had to earn it. That, and the fact that I don’t quit.
What threw me at the very start was the fact that the tent looked totally different in real life. What happened to the 6m long lounge area I pictured? And the sight of the new mattresses Sean bought made me want to reach for my first Amarula. It was about 9 m long but only 1cm thick. Charming. Besides for all the moaning and groaning every time we had to turn around (ouch!), the first night went down smoothly until we were woken up by the sound of The Rocky Bay Wind Troll threatening to carry us away. The flaps of the tent went berserk which made me seek refuge next to my 3-year old daughter…

… Only to wake up to a cloudy, rainy day. Now, in my PC days (pre-children) I could think of quite a couple of things to occupy myself with in miserable weather like this, but keeping an overactive, overtly curious toddler boy (happily) busy in the confines of a 1.5 x 1.5 m lounge area (still not sure what happened here!) is not for sissies. Needless to say, I took a couple of trips to the shopping centre close by to kill time but would have preferred a couple of swigs from the cough mixture bottle.

Something that was quite unusual to me, being a hermit and’all is the way these campers just all get along. There is this sense of unity; we were all one. You greet, smile at each other, have a bit of a chat and the kids play together. Hey, I could even do small talk! I must admit I didn’t deal well with the (already very clean) ablution blocks but there is nothing Handy Andy, disinfectant wipes and slops can’t cure. The days were long. Very long and the nights way too short but, besides for being a bit shell shocked, I lived to tell the tale. Without kids I think I can totally rough it up, but with small kids I think I prefer a nice, cosy lodge somewhere, thank you very much.

Okay. So maybe I’m being a bit of a drama queen. It wasn’t all bad. I loved seeing Kristin taking the most out of every day. Loved the fact that we were right on the beach. Loved the evenings next to the fire. Loved Sean’s happy face after his fishing trip. It wasn’t all bad!

Killing some time before I book the next camping trip.  What did I take away from this whole experience? The fact that I’m woman enough to build some memories for my kids to treasure. The knowledge that I can now enter Survivor, should I wish to.

We know how to make you, our readers,  feel important but it’s really all about us. Our favourite posts were without a doubt those ones that involved ourselves like the poem one, the baking one – well, actually all the group posts.

It’s been an interesting year. We are truly grateful for your loyal support and hope to see all your comments in 2010. Stay tuned to our blog where it’s all about us

One of my biggest phobias is spiders, big ones, small ones, fat ones and hairy ones, I just cannot handle them. But all this changed after spending a long weekend at Phinda Game Reserve and talking to an extremely talented Ranger, his nickname is ‘The walking encyclopedia’ He can quite literally describe the mating habits, life cycle, visual description and geographical location of each and every organism endemic to the Southern African region, from dung beetles to frogs to leopards and of course spiders.

So after one of our many bundu bashing game drives, tracking Leopard with the Telemetry, I asked him – while pointing at a particular nasty looking white button spider look-a-like thingy crawling over the dash of the Landi – if this particular spider is poisonous and if so, how far should I be running. So Daryle proceeds to tell me that there are only 4 poisonous spiders in South Africa that we have to worry about and none of them are deadly!

Sand Crab Spider

Probably the most toxic and potentially deadly if no medical assistance is available, but is rarely encountered due to its natural habitat being that of dry arid dessert/sandy regions. Ok Check, won’t be going to any dry arid dessert/sandy regions.

The Violin Spider

Highly *cytotoxic venom. Initially the bite is small and superficial looking. After a couple of hours swelling develops and the bite site becomes discoloured. Blistering occurs in the next few days after which the skin may peel away leaving n ulcerating wound. It’s important to stop secondary infection from setting in. If left untreated, tissue damage may be extensive. Bites from these spiders usually result in a permanent scarring. Bites usually occur at night when the person is sleeping. There fangs are not large, hence the bite marks are close together. Ok, a little bit of plastic surgery never hurt anyone, at least it doesn’t kill you – I can handle that.

Rumours: There are emails doing the rounds that claim that because of the warm weather and good rains, Violin Spiders are reproducing by the thousands and entering houses. During the night these spiders creep down and feed off humans biting them in the process. The email tells us to warn all children to watch out for these spiders.

Of course it’s all a load of hogwash. Violin spiders do occur in-house but not in great numbers. They are very venomous and very rarely bite people. You need to pull their legs off (not recommended) or stand on them before they will bite.

Yellow Sac Spider

The bit is at first painless with symptoms developing about 2 – 8 hours after the bite. It starts ? resembling a mosquito sting, becoming more painful and swollen. Eventually it ulcerates into large surface lesion (up to 10 cm) that will require medical attention. Treatment with antibiotics might be required to treat secondary infections. The wound will take between 2 and 4 weeks to heal but the lesion might take months to improve. In some cases ugly scarring might occur that might require plastic surgery. Once again, this spider does not kill you. Things are definitely looking up.

The Button Spider

Now there is a huge misconception about this spider in particular. A Button Spider is not the same as the infamously deadly Black Widow Spider. We don’t get them in South Africa, they only occur in America surprisingly enough. The bite of a Black Widow is extremely dangerous and most often fatal, but seeing as though we don not live in America, we don’t have to worry now, do we? Ok, check, will give America a miss when considering our next holiday destination.

Black Button Spiders: The bite is usually very painful and causes profuse sweating, raised blood pressure and restlessness and generalised muscle pain and cramps, stiffness of the stomach muscles, limb pain especially legs, weakness in legs. Although no documented records exist of fatality due to button spider bites, they have the potential to cause severe symptoms with small children and elderly people being at greatest risk.

Brown button spiders: the symptoms occurring after a bite from one of the brown buttons are milder and tend to be restricted to the bite site, characterised by a local burning sensation, which may spread to the surrounding tissue and lymph nodes. The bite site is more evident and often seen as red macular spot or blanched area surrounded by a rash. The condition usually clears up within a day or two.

In Conclusion: The knowledge that I learnt over that weekend has helped me tremendously with my phobia, but don’t get me wrong, I think I will still go ballistic should a friendly run of the mill house spider run across my hand. I think I’m slowly getting there though, but it will definitely be little steps in a long journey towards an arachnophobia-free frame of mind.

Let us know your phobias or unforgettable encounters with nature.

*Spider venom, like snakebite venom is generally either neurotoxic or cytotoxic. Generally, it is the web dwellers that have neurotoxic venom and the non-web dwellers have the cytotoxic venom. Cytotoxic venom affects the cellular tissue usually restricted to the are of the bite but can be spread.

By: Kerry

By Katrine

“Buddy does Hilux” is the most recent of the popular Toyota adverts:

This Toyota advert was banned in NZ  a few years ago for the phrase “sheep shagger.” Definitely worth a look!