Bramley Famli

Carli and I scooted down to the river on Monday afternoon, to ‘our spot’. She gets into it more and more each time we go down there. Today she led me to parts of the river we’d not gone before. She threw big rocks, we played with ‘black-jacks’, crossed at new sections and did our usual clean up of this part of the river.

It’s becoming a wonderful moment to share with her, and she seems to love it.

Some pics can be found here. Check out the ‘before and after’ of her throwing a rock (pics 3 and 4)

Carli would’ve been a Pirate had she lived when Long John Silver was around. She’s a real treasure hunter. She loves to pick interesting things up and bring them home. The shinier the better.

On the beach it’s shells, in the river it’s rocks.

On Monday we went down to the river together on our Scooter. We walked the rocks, over and over again. And in between jumping from rock to rock we collected stones. Big and small, smooth and rough. But all of them shiny.

Today was also a different trip to most in that she looked at ‘nature’ more than ever. Butterflys and flowers. I’ve never seen her show so much interest in these types of things as she did today. Perhaps a game ranger of sorts in the making?

See the pic above in it’s larger version here.

We got back onto our Scooters again on Saturday morning. Seems like forever that we’ve found some space on an appropriate day to scoot. Was lekka. We went down to the little bridge, took off our shoes and walked through the river a bit.

We’re very fortunate to have a beautiful river so close by. It represents some really fun times that the Scooter Girls and I get to share together. May we always have a ‘river’ near by. Forever and always.

Didn’t take my phone, so no pics.

It’s been bucketing down in Jozi for a week or two now. When the sun comes out long enough to dry the roads and make the scooter friendly, it means we can venture down to the river. Last week it was for our first game of ‘Power Pooh Sticks’. It’s a normal game of Pooh Sticks, except a power river to carry them down.

Carli found a yellow polystyrene ball and kicked some serious butt. Jordi came in a close second with a fairly impressive vehicle. Needless to say I picked the wrong stick all together. We only got to play one game because the traffic over the bridge was nasty.

Check out the pics here.

I picked Carli up from school on Friday. On Thursday evening I asked her what she wanted to do for the afternoon? She said, wrestle and tickle. What a beautiful answer. And what fun we had. In fact WWF was on TV at the time, so we watched, copied, wrestled and tickled : )

Later in the afternoon we headed out on our scooter down to the river. We found a groovy spot for rock jumping and then a large piece of river bed that we could slosh around in. Pants held high, shoes left on the bank, and lots and lotsa sloshing.

Click here for some photies.

Ever played Pooh Sticks before? All you need is a river and preferably a bridge. We’re lucky enough to have that equipment down the road from our house. We headed off on our scooters on Sunday afternoon to play us our first game. It was Carli’s idea. She had watched the game on an episode of Pooh Bear during the morning.

It’s really very simple to play, but darn difficult to win. Everyone picks a stick. Stand on one side of the bridge, drop the sticks at the same time and the first stick to emerge on the other side, or in our case pass the pyramid shaped rock just down stream wins the competition.

It was a fierce competition. Jordan’s first two sticks disappeared in the first rapid. She wasn’t a happy camper. She doesn’t like losing, ever. Carli won the first two so very easily. All kinds of theories emerged. Bigger sticks are faster. Lighter sticks ‘drown’. To be honest none of the theories checked out while we played. And I think Carli kept winning, because while Jordi and I dropped ours straight down, Carli threw hers down stream, way ahead of ours : )

Thankfully the river gods stepped in and Jordi won the third heat (otherwise we may never have gone home)

So if you’re ever in the area, and you’re looking for something different to do, the Scooter girls will be more than willing to take you down the road for some Pooh Sticks.

They say life is made up of moments. I guess in theory life is just a stream of moments. But there are also those moments you have, that you wish would just go on forever. And you know they can’t. They’re built for that time. I think if you try to stretch them you ruin them. You’re even from time to time forced to end them knowing you’re closing them down, wishing you didn’t have to, aware that you must.

I had one of those moments the other day with the Scooter Girls. We were at Emmerentia Dam walking and scooting. We stopped on the side of the path, under a large tree to have a drink, eat our chocies and play ‘I spy’.

As I sat there I found myself in a moment. Nothing big going on, just wishing I could freeze time and stay there. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else.

Drinks finish, so do chocies, and so to does ‘I spy’. Up we got, picked up the scooters and moved on. You can’t stay. You can’t take moments with you. I found myself simply leaving that moment where it was. Struggling to trust that that particular moment would go to wherever spent moments go, adding somehow to the greater moment called life?

We’re now at 3 scooters for the family and working hard at convincing Leish to join the crew : )

Mine arrived this week and for the last two days Carli, Jordo and I have hit the streets, testing the patience of the motorists we come across. Helmets on, looking fairly kewl, we’re an interesting site for those we pass, or who pass us.

The rain’s been a pain and we’ve had to find our moments, but so far so good. A fun investment in some very kewl toys.

Keep watching this space for more from the Scooter Crew : )