Memories of a recycler - 7 and a half years no holiday

7 ½ years without a holiday

Sounds awful, not? But it actually isn’t. Not for me.

7 ½ years ago I had to take over our recycling business after my husband passed away after a short illness.

I knew the financial side of the business because I was the one doing the books. But I had no clue how to run a business on a day to day basis. And I was naïve enough to think that everybody was going to help me!!! How wrong to think that.

Anyway, within the first year of my ‘aloneness’ my sister was visiting and I wanted to show her a bit of my beautiful second homeland (I think that it is after 20 years). So I enlisted the help of some ‘friends’ to look after my dogs for the long weekend that I was going to a game reserve with my sister. I had already informed the vet that I was going away and just in case the dogs needed help.

On the second day of our game reserve holiday I got a phone call from my dog-sitter friend. There was a little problem. My Rottweiler, Skid, had caught a rat and he was guarding it.

My Maltese poodle, Chippie,

came a little bit too close and my Rottweiler grabbed her.
They were at the vet but it did not look too good for Chippie. I talked to the vet and we decided that since she was already in a coma we would not let her suffer unnecessary.

After coming home I was told that only 1 of the dog sitters was at my house. The other one did not even bother to come. And the dog sitter, that was at my house, decided that since I had such a nice garden and pool, he would invite his parents and some friends and enjoy a ‘braai’ (BBQ for those outside South Africa).

My ride-on lawnmower had been ‘borrowed’ by yet another ‘friend’. And I did not even know that person.

Needless to say: my other planned outing with my sister was cancelled.

All around me people have been saying that ‘you need a holiday’ and even my family cannot believe that I love to be at home.

But honestly, if you have a house with a big garden and a pool, and the sun shines almost always.

Do you need to go anywhere else?