Gorgeous Man had posted on a Zambia travel forum asking for good places to see butterflies and after taking a look at his blog  a lodge approached him with the offer of free accomodation in return for a survey of their butterfly population and so that was our first destination.

This was the main road.

This was a good road as far as Zambian roads go.

From the road we had our first view of the Zambezi River.

We also passed through traditional villages. The picture was taken from the window of the car as we flashed past. I wanted to capture what the countryside looked like, but at the same time I didn’t want to just pull up and take pictures of someone’s house.

Once at the lodge, Gorgeous Man spent a few days butterfly hunting and Gorgeous Girl found ways to amuse herself.

Climbing and swinging from the fence railings

and creating artwork in the sand.

This is a bug.

We were so tired that we spent the first few days here going to sleep as soon as the sun set. It was most relaxing. It also rained a fair bit while we were there and so I holed up in the cabin and got lots of knitting done. Just what my soul needed.

After having the house packed and rehoming the cat

(This is mostly books)

We got up at 5 am to head to Zambia for a much needed holiday.

Gorgeous Girl was thrilled to find a family of cats living at the Livingstone International Airport.

So we had to stop while she said hello. After leaving the airport we were met by an employee of Hemmingways and taken to pick up the car we had hired. After being shown how to use the vehicle we picked up some groceries and headed to our first campsite.

The car had two tents on top. This is Gorgeous Girl’s tent.

The view from the front of the car.

,

Gorgeous Girl slept in her own ‘room’ most nights. We made sure that she knew not to climb down the ladder in the dark. Armed with her torch and her water bottle she was really good about sleeping in her own little tent.

A highlight of the evening for Gorgeous Girl was finding a giant cricket.

Those that know Gorgeous Man will realise that Gorgeous Girl is truly her father’s daughter.

I shall inflict a detailed account of the trip upon you in the fullness of time. (Once I have access to a computer and internet other than internet cafes).

The weather in Zambia was a good introduction to the climate of our new home. We will be living in the capital city.

We’ll be heading to Australia on Friday to see family and sort out visas.

I’m happy to say that he has secured a new position. But life is a little hectic right now. I finish work on November 30 and we have removalists booked to come and pack 90% of the house on Friday the 2nd of December. They will leave our beds up and we will camp among boxes for the weekend and then on Monday the 5th of December they will finish the last little bit of packing and load the boxes and furniture into the shipping container.

We then fly to Zambia the next day. We decided that since one of the biggest costs to doing an African safari is actually getting to Africa that we should do safari as a way to say goodbye to the African continent. So we’ve hired a 4WD with roof top tents and will spend three weeks in the bush. We have taken Gorgeous Girl on safari twice now, and both times we have failed to see elephants. Gorgeous Man has assured her that she will see elephants on this trip.

After our safari we fly back to Cape Town for 2 days to close bank accounts and do that last minute stuff and head to Australia just in time for New Year. We will have roughly a month in Australia and then we will head to our new destination.

I’ll share our new destination once medical checks have been passed and visas issued, because I’m suspicious like that.

Unfortunately, we cannot take FatBoy, our cat, with us and so are still looking for a home for him. If you are in Cape Town and would love a friendly cat to snuggle with I’d love to hear from you.

Blog posting will be intermittent until February, 2012 (when we will be settled in our new house) as I will not have regular access to a computer while we are in Zambia, and in Australia will have to rely on friends and family for computer and internet access.

We are sad to be leaving South Africa, but excited by new possibilities and adventures that lie ahead.

Gratuitous second shot.

In return she used her mad jewelery making skills to make me this.

Sadly, my photography skills do not do it justice.

I’ve also been reconnecting with my sewing machine. This little guy was a gift for a birthday party Gorgeous Girl attended recently.

The denim is from a pair of Gorgeous Man’s jeans that grew holes far too quickly.

Lastly, this gorgeous handspun yarn

has been knitted into pieces and is being assembled into a bag for my good friend Lisa. I’m hoping we will get a chance to meet up when we are in Australia at the end of the year (she lives in a different state to where our families are, so it may take some coordination) and I can give it to her in person.

Firstly, this little baby

Turned 4.

Birthday cake made by Gorgeous Man, candle placement by the Gorgeous Girl.

She’s growing up very quickly.

This was taken for Spring Festival at her school.

The other celebration in the house was the news that Gorgeous Man is now officially Dr Gorgeous Man! All paper work pertaining to his PhD thesis has been completed and the degree conferred. We are hoping to get to Australia for the graduation ceremony in June next year. So I can take pictures of him with in a funny hat and gown.

I may have had a birthday as well, but we don’t need to talk about that.

Coming soon in a post for you, finished sewing and knitting objects, because this is still a craft blog…

We took the opportunity to head away for the weekend. We stayed in accommodation with some interesting recycled decor.

There was no electricity, so at night we used these lamps and solar powered lanterns. I don’t know how people did handwork at night back then.

We saw some wonderful scenery.

And Gorgeous Girl had her first experience with sparklers.

A little while ago I finished a shawl from some of this handspun.

It was my first, but not my last time, adding beads to my knitting.

This means that I have fallen behind on photographing finished objects, and with my blog visits.

A little while ago Gorgeous Girl’s teacher asked if I would mind making a chicken finger puppet for the classroom.

I made a sweater cardigan for Gorgeous Girl. (Can’t believe I typed sweater first! Guess I’m losing my Aussie flavour).

It is Helena from Knitty. The yarn is from ColourSpun – a very talented South African Indie Dyer.

These little booties will join the hat shown in an earlier post as a gift for a friend who is having a baby soon.

And I’ve been up-cycling. I took this candle box.

and turned it into this:

Finally a gratuitous Gorgeous Girl picture.

According to her, she slipped in the mud puddle…

This is my latest scrapbook page.

My local scrapbook store is a newsagent that has some craft supplies, so I don’t have access to lots and lots of embellishments – they have some nice stuff, but it’s a limited range. I made the flags by hand using some letter stamps and the ‘rope’ is some spare handspun.

I may have mentioned before that my Step-mother-in-law makes beautiful cards. When we visited them last I dug though her card scraps and stamped off a whole bunch of images which I popped into an envelope and brought back to South Africa with me. I’ve been using these bits and pieces to make cards. Last weekend the card bug really bit.

Images from SMIL’s collection patterned paper is scraps left over from scrapbooking.

The photo on this card is one of Gorgeous Man’s rejects.

It would seem I was on a ‘manly’ themed card kick.

It was lovely to use up all those small bits of scrap booking paper that I had lying around.

This card uses a page from an old book I’m deconstructing.

Finally, this is an image from a 2007 calendar that was given to me by a friend.

And that’s not the oldest paper in the stash. Last week I made bookmarks from my 2006 diary. The illustrated pages were old maps – very cool. No pictures of the bookmarks though as they are all in use.

Here is my Gorgeous Girl loving her baby platypus.

A grown up platypus was made to match.

Apparently this is a daddy platypus…

This little hat recently went off to one of my friends, who really needs to start up her blog again

Thanks to the magic of f*cebo*k I can tell you that the baby looks adorable in it.

Some spinning. Not my most favourite colours, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this just yet…

Finally, a shot of Gorgeous Girl and I. Recently I sung for a small television  production company and took the opportunity to take some pictures while I was all dolled up

and looking most unlike myself.