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The Linds.co.za Blogspot

Welcome to our blog! All the Lind’s travel blog posts and stories are right here to entertain you and get you excited about life. Are you amazed that we’re still alive out here? There’s more to come.

The Lind’s Travel Adventures Around the World

Start by reading our classic Travelinds travel blog of world adventures. This time largely informed how we’ve chosen to do life together, taking us to some of the most spectacular sights, muddiest jungles, whitest beaches, and intentionally out-of-the-way places (we hate crowds!). Those memories will be with us for a lifetime!

While we’ve taken a little hiatus from the fast and furious travelling, we’re navigating another big adventure – some serious parenting – and there’s never a dull moment. How could there be with three little curious and energetic people we’ve apparently given all of our adventurous genes to? We went back home and sunk our savings into creating a home. Still, while the wandering and flight itinerary takes a break, the soul continues its quest! There are always beautiful spaces and faces to see wherever we happen to touch down.

Now, The Family of Five’s Adventures

We’ve come through global pandemics, wars, and the U.S. election calendar still kicking. Now, there’s also the newer Oribi Mom posts, which cover more recent family stories in the local paper. After the daring international stuff, we came back to see if we could put down some roots. So far, so good! For the last few years, we’ve made the farm home. We’re raising three little people and taking lots of photos. We’re also keeping a sharp lookout for Black Mambas, Narina Trogons, and Trumpet-mouthed Hunter Snails.

The Linds Are Still Adventuring, So Keep Reading…

If you’d like to see where the next adventure goes for the Travelinds, the Farmlinds, or whatever you’re calling us now, you’re in exactly the right place. Keep reading!

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Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Yellowed Collars, Old Photos and Time Passing

“Ordering school photos might not be a thing in a few more years. I think I’ll miss it.”

PHOTO BY PIXABAY

May 16, 2024

How do you get sun-cream stains out of white school shirt collars? Tell me you’re a mother without telling me you’re one.

Apparently, a combo of baking soda, vinegar and fairy dust works. Other suggestions that have come up on searches included toothpaste, lemon juice, sunshine and a paste of Vanish. The collars are still yellow.

Maybe it’s the hard water on the farm here. Maybe it’s my woefully lacking knowledge of the types of material and what each needs to stay sparkling white.

Don’t bleach it, say the eco-conscious and the health nuts. (Also, this fades out the school badge!)

So, on photo day, it’s the least yellow collar that went on, alongside a hope and a prayer that Photoshop includes whitening collars in annual photo shoots. Say cheese, but don’t spill any of the yellow onto the collar, please.

These school photos really are something. It’s one day a year, but from my own school career, it was often the only photo.

I came from the era before digital photos. That time when mommies who could attend sports or other events had to bring a tripod or a steady hand and an extra spool to capture one or two good images of us precious darlings. Sports photos? Hopeless.

I have vivid memories of walking into Clicks to collect that little packet of developed photos. It smelled funny. Mom would flip through the photos and laugh or snort at the blurs, missed shots, and fingers in front of the lens. She’d take the good ones and put them into real-life albums with sticky plastic things you lift up.

When they get old, the photos don’t stay behind them anymore and get all mixed up when you take the photo album off the dusty bookshelf. But the images are still there. Immortal, for a while. That eighties hair on my friends’ moms was something else, I tell you. Perms, beehives, and bright colours stand out, even in faraway group photos.

It jogs the memory, even if you have to flip back a few pages to slip the lost photo into its correct place. In the history of things, photos feel like treasure to me. A silent glimpse into what’s come and gone that speaks far louder than many of the stories people tell.

Ordering school photos might not be a thing in a few more years. I think I’ll miss it.

Oh, and the answer is that green sunlight soap bar, of course. That’s the cure for yellow stains and everything else you want to sparkle.

Publish here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: The Beach Never Gets Old

“Where did those twenty-something years go in the blink of an eye?”

Heather and Robin Lind.

April 23, 2024

An old friend’s son has just turned 18. He was 11 just last week. A certain Oribi Dad’s big midlife birthday is also fast approaching. I can still remember the moment our eyes met for the first time like it was five minutes ago. Toes in beach sand, but wearing a jersey because it was the middle of July. South Coast living is very kind in that way. You can grab a jacket but still get away with shorts and slops most days of the year.

My 15-year-old self was a little different from now. Bolder, and much cheekier, with a smaller waist and an even narrower worldview. All of the people there teased us about a summer fling that was sure to end once we all got back to school. We didn’t even live in the same town. Twenty-three years later, our fling is a ring, three sweet sons, two dogs, and many memories of other beautiful beaches we’ve explored together. What are the chances?

Also, where did those twenty-something years go in the blink of an eye? We’ve already moved past so much life and so many changes. I still like Turkish Delight, but it sits on the hips a little easier these days. He still likes Greenday and jokes about it near the end of every September. The Lion King still makes both of us gulp back the tears. It’s 30 years old. Thirty! That’s as old as the new South Africa!

What was I doing thirty years ago? Grade 2, I think, with Mrs Bentley, who loved tennis and dyeing her hair strange colours. She was certainly younger then than I am right now. There’s a thought. She loved tennis, as I did, which is probably why I remember her hair and mini skirts. That was what we wore to play tennis then. Little skirts with ball holders clipped on the back of them, so we could serve with only one ball in our hands and not throw it up skew. We must have been so cute! We thought we were the bee’s knees.

In another thirty years, I’m sure I’ll have a more mature perspective on my life right now. What will it look like from over there, to look back in this chaotic and exhausting mother-of-three-little-boys phase? Why did I use to think it was so hard? Who knows?

That’s why we do it as best we can in each moment. Isn’t each of those moments life itself?

Published here.

Oribi Mom

Oribi Mom: Almost Enough To Get the Blood Boiling

“About five minutes in, I hear screams and shouts and running feet outside. “Mom, come quick!” The husband is shouting for me to come get the baby. Where is my middle child? Is it another mamba?”

Oribi Mom: Heather Lind

February 5, 2023

 

The heat draws out strange things, especially in the humans in my home. Everyone is a little grumpier, a little lazier, and with toddlers, far less covered in socially appropriate clothing.

As the jackal buzzards enjoy the thermals far above, we sit in any cool spot we can find and try to act normal. The garden doesn’t have much shade right now but my grandchildren should have a few big trees to sit under if I can help these saplings survive a few more Januaries.

Hot and Bothered Under the Collar

On one of these sweltering days, I was casually trying to dry four days’ worth of washing and get the housework under control. I heartily agreed to the husband’s request to take our three little farmboys to the pumphouse to put off the water.

Off they went for the 20 minute stroll, with the five-year-old refusing to don clothes and only wearing his costume bottoms. The two-year-old would not put on more than a nappy. And the baby would not wear a hat for more than twenty seconds.

Well, it might be worth 20 minutes of housework.

About five minutes in, I hear screams and shouts and running feet outside. “Mom, come quick!” The husband is shouting for me to come get the baby. Where is my middle child? Is it another mamba?

As I race in the direction of the gate, said middle child comes waltzing over the grass, completely naked, and not at all concerned about his mother’s worried face. Behind him is one of the farm workers who lives nearby, looking sweaty but definitely coming up to the house. What is going on?

Everybody Calm Down and Move the Wardrobe

It turns out that there was no big emergency. We needed help carrying a large piece of furniture into the house and our friendly neighbour had agreed to come in and help with the load on his way back from town. So, now we have a beautiful wardrobe in our room and I didn’t have to break any vertebrae or toes on the way. Isn’t life funny?

It’s still hot, but there’s a cool breeze blowing calm onto my porch in 2023. Maybe, it’s going to be a good year.

Published here.