Johannesburg - South Africa my Early Years

Yes, here is another South African sharing his normal, or average working day with all of my fellow Hubbers. I live and play mainly in the Johannesburg area, as you have seen from my profile I am a bit of an extrovert and enjoy cooking, photography and wriiting.

A bit more about me is that I am married for the 2nd time, and live with my wife has also been married before, we are both in our fifties and enjoy a healthy and fun filled life here in the deep south of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Life does indeed still have adventure after fifty.

We live with my wife's mother who is in her mid seventies and have two dogs and ample garden for them to run around in.

The cell phones alarm goes off at 04h45, signifying the start of yet another working day. I Switch it onto snooze, which gives me another 15 minutes to snuggle up close to my wife, as the unwanted winters chill creeps uninvited into the realms of our bedroom.

Lying there, snug and loved, this is my personal time for quiet inner reflection. I contemplate on the previous days events and try and make some sort of sense of what threads and connections there are with all the events and contacts which have occurred.

It is also the time of close cuddling and sweet nothings, our private fifteen minutes before facing the rigours of the day.

The cell alarm rings at 05h00, time to get things together for the wife's imminent departure for work. After the alarm is silenced, I make way through to the kitchen and start assembling the days lunch and snacks that my will be taking to work by my wife.

Once this is packed I go through and run start running the bath. Place her clothes on the bed. While she is in the bath and also while getting dressed we discuss the those important daily issues, such as the nights menu and any other specific instructions for either the cleaning lady or for her mother.

Once dressed, we unlock the security gates and glass door, so that the dogs can have a quick run around while the car is packed with the relevent work paraphenalia. I then unlock the sliding gates of our perimeter fence and it is off to work she goes. The time is usually around 05h58, any later and her travelling time could very easily increase by at least 25 minutes.

I proceed to lock up the outside gates bring the dogs into from the front and open up the back doors for them. I make myself a cup of coffee and go downstairs to the PC room, which is also the wifes sewing, design and part time school.

Power up the PC and prepare for my day.

I am the designated house husband, due to the fact that I am considered to old, to pale, I am a Caucasion, so therefore I am not directly gainfully employed. With several bouts of major surgery, I have lost about 30% mobility, what with fused lower back and also cervical cage installed in my neck vertabra.

So after the wife has left I make my first cup of coffee, and sit down in front of the PC and log into Hub Pages, and check up on stats, and then look at my hubtivity. Spread some Hub Love, and depending on how am feeling decide on what I am going to do for my latest hub.

A missed call on my cell, time 06h58, the wife's journey into work took just on an hour to travel those 44km of mainly highway traffic.

Not so bad as a Monday usually has a higher number of 18 wheelers in the early morning than the rest of the week.

Monday, so i have to organise that all the clothes end up in the washing machine, so that they are dried and ready for ironing on Tuesday. Fed the dogs and the two cats that live outside in our storeroom. They are domesticated cats but with the 2 dogs living inside the house and having free access to the yards, the cats tend to rest up during the day and prowl nocturnally as is there nature.

Generally tidy up and make some rusks, that is before this last op, I am unable to do them at this stage as it takes quite a lot of effort to hand mix the rusk mixture, so this is on the back burner.

Catch up on my emails, and do job searches on the net, complete applications for employment and follow up on previous applications.

Spend a lot of time on HP,both thinking and writing or scanning through my recipe files and rewriting them to make them a bit more interesting.

Have a light lunch usually some cold or reheated meal from the previous nights meal.

Baked Chicken and Gnocci Pasta, I am not going to give you the recipe on this hub, but will do a recipe hub at a later stage.

The time to prepare and cook this took just under 2 hours from start to finish, which is quite good.

The cooking over, and the dishes placed into the dishwasher, and nost of the past 2 days dishes are now washed and ready to be packed away.

The wife is home, again spending nearly an hour in the traffic. The meal was served early, as Mondays are always hectic at the company that the wife works for, as the majority of all dead lines are usual set for Mondays.

So we have an early meal, as I need to go to the hospital for a dressing change, this is going to take another few hours, which means we are only going to get to bed fairly late.

Spent another hour working on the Hub pages, after the dressings were changed..

Locked up the gates and the perimeters for the night, shut down the PC and switched of the lights, time 22h30.