The Madd House

On Saturday, our fattest bullie, Wiggle (who also happens to be our quickest bullie) found and pounced on an adolescent hadeda in our garden.   I swatted at Wiggle while Séan swooped in (not unlike Divan Serfontein diving over the try-line) to save the birdie.   After I had herded the very excited dogs into the house Séan tossed the shocked hadeda onto our roof where it wandered up and down in a rather befuddled manner.   It eventually settled down in a sunny corner to contemplate its experience.   I had seen its parents fly north earlier that day – probably off to some family shindig or other, they’re very sociable birds.   Finally awakening from its stupor it wandered across to the very end of the roof and stood peering loftily down at us mere mortals.   We weren’t sure if the birdie could fly and, to be honest with you, I’m not sure if the birdie knew if it could fly.   About an hour later the hadeda half flew, half fell off the roof and, bringing a few twigs w

In order to choose a high school for next year this week saw us attending two open days at two different schools.   I shall call the one school the pink school and the other one the orange school.   These were my experiences:   Upon arrival : Pink – easily visible and nicely decorated arrival area where we were met and greeted by school pupils after which one of the pupils walked with each individual couple guiding us to a row of tables where smiling staff waited to register our details on laptops. Orange – drawn by the noise of three little girls playing music on a keyboard we found a row of tables containing laptops behind the three musicians.   I eventually found out from one of the other parents that we were supposed to register ourselves on the laptop and after waiting my turn was informed by a severely panicked and flapping staff member to “tab” after each piece of information before she darted off in another direction.   Squinting at the screen I eventually manag