"Living on a Prayer"

“If he wanted to see his ass why didn’t he use a mirror”? Mark the Meat bomb Horton has really made a Impact” Is it a bird is it a plane? no its Horton’s Comet” Horton hears a SPLAT, Mark wanted to become a Branch Manager” Those are just a few comments that we bandied about on Saturday night at the Braai, and while we bent over with laughter it was more from relief and a gratitude that my mate Mark (AKA Wolverine) was still with us after a freak accident on Saturday morning. Mark had picked me up at 6.30am so we could go and try out the new zip line at the Willows before he officially opened the Clarens Grocer. After we argued who would go first Mark got hooked up and I was going to take the photos, what happened next was perhaps the worst event that that I have probably ever experienced.

Mark left the platform, I took 2 photos and heard a cracking noise, I looked around because I thought a willow branch had snapped as I turned back to take another photo, my eyes saw but my brain didn’t register ………….. the steel cable was doubling back like a fly fishing line cast. Then time stood still for a split second as Mark seemed to just hang in the air and then he dropped like a stone (between 6-8 meters) the guy on the platform and I looked at each other in disbelief and then I don’t even know how I got off the platform, but Ollie and I reached Mark at the same time, he was crumpled up on the ground and I really thought that he was going to die, I raced back up the embankment to go and fetch Kathy and Tania while Ollie and his guys made mark as comfortable as possible and called emergency services. When I got back to mark he was conscious and moaning that he was sore, the guys keeping him stable did a awesome job and helped to keep him for injuring himself more.

ER 24 came quickly, stabilised Mark and took him to hospital, after scans and x rays it was found that he had no internal injuries or had broken anything, in fact when we went to see him later in Hospital he had hardly a bruise. Now this is where I believe the power o prayer played a BIG part. When Tania came to him she put her hands on him and prayed that he would be safe and that he would not be seriously injured………..I think here I need to explain to people that while I believe in God i am not extremely religious person, however my wife is and she believes in the power of prayer and after yesterday I have to agree , it was a miracle that Mark survived, and in fact for the height he fell only suffered heavy bruising, people can scoff , laugh and say no ways…………….but I was there I saw how high he fell, I saw that he missed a rock and a large tree stump that if he had of hit, he would have been seriously injured perhaps even dead. Mark is at home and is obviously sore but alive, and that I am extremely grateful for. If I know mark i am sure that he will "as soon as he fit enough" hook himself back up and do the full 150 meters"

Well Time is few as they say in the Classics, Packing is almost done, the removal van is here on Tuesday and on Wednesday we make our way down to PE, with 3 x cats (now that’s going to be fun with a capital F and probably a whole Blog story in itself.)

Packing and moving home SUCKS, they say that it’s probably one of the most stressful things to do and ranks up there with Death and Divorce and since I have neither died nor been divorced I will have to bow to that person’s superior knowledge.

Gabby turned 13 on Thursday, so we now have a Teenager in the houseJ. On Wednesday night Gabby had Prize giving at school and she did very well, receiving certificates of achievement in a number of subjects but perhaps the best was that Gabby was the first recipient of the Oliver Family Fellowship Trophy; this will be a floating trophy and is given to the child that best served the school over the years. Gabby also gave a small speech to thank Margaret (the headmistress). Friday was Gabby’s last day of Std 5 and next year will be going to High School.

Good to see the Cricket team had been practising during the week, pity they can’t play like that all the time, the either play brilliant or Crap, there is no in between. Ok Sunday they played crap again???

Wolverine has been working hard setting up the Village Grocer shop this last week and opened on Saturday (without Wolverine of course as he had tried to fly). The shop is looking great and sure that it will do very well.

Oh yeah just in case you get a call from a mate and he says ‘hey come over to the pub and I will buy you a beer or two” be suspicious “Very Suspicious” why you say that I hear you ask? Well Wolverine did that to me on Monday, had a couple of beers and a chat and then sprung the “oh by the way Les (he is owner of Trading Post and The Village Grocer) wants a hand to offload a few boxes of cherries” well to cut a long story short the first load of the few boxes was 300 x 2kg and on Tuesday it was 200 x 2kg boxes, yep 1 Ton of cherries.

Wolverine has also come up with an alternative to the lying down game its called “The South African Indiginaai lying down game” its where you take photos of locals sleeping or passed out in public places. Think it may become popular and lead to its very own sight. Oh here is Marks entry to the lying down game “oh it’s him”

Saturday we had Rugby and say bye to the Dunkley’s at Friends Rugby was Crap, the Braai better

I see England is having big floods at the moment probably the Big Mans way of flushing out all the “KAK” on the island, then again I don’t think there is that much water, so most will stay behind.

Recession is over according to the economists well not according to this photo J

Ok well that’s about it for this week, think of us as we move and travel down to PE with the cats.

Quote for the week: “Live life to the fullest because you never know when it will be cut short”

Ciao

The Village Idiot