When life gives you lemons…

Make lemonade! Life has given us lemons, loads and loads of lemons but we are not speaking figuratively. We are approaching the end of rainy season and every time it rains we think this might be the last precipitation we’ll see until November or so. This was the week of storms, Monday night was the first time we’ve seen hail on this continent and it was refreshing to see something cold falling from the African skies. Monday’s storm was very heavy but quite short followed by sunshine and a rainbow. Thursday there was another storm also very heavy for a short period of time but we are sorry to say that our lemon tree that has been faithfully bearing fruit for us did not survive the storm. This morning our gardener arrived with a hatchet and proceeded to chop up our tree and haul it away but before he did, I managed to pick any of the fruit that had even a glimmer of yellow on it. This morning was filled with making lemonade, lemonade syrup, concentrated lemon juice, lemon rind and all things lemony. The next item on the menu is lemon meringue pie for tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll be able to invite a few friends to join us.

This is the view of Monday's rainstorm from our verandah and the picture below was of the lemon tree while it was still upright.

I still can’t get away from expecting different seasons with appropriately corresponding weather but it just doesn’t happen that way here. Our winter will be here in about 3 or 4 months so this should be fall but every day the temp has been hitting the mid-thirties. My body is craving the feeling of the cosy clothes that are being shown in the stores in anticipation of the cold weather but it just isn’t cooling down.

In other news, next week is the end of the second term of school and Danica and Erin will be off for 2 weeks. No plans as of yet but I’m sure some things will come up. Erin is participating in an end of term gymnastics performance at assembly on Friday. Danica was under the weather for a few days due to some side effects from her anti-malarial medication she was taking. The doctor insisted on complete bed rest, a diet of only carbs and sugar and 5 types of medications. We may not have followed the doctor’s orders precisely but she is feeling fine now anyway. Her valid point was “How am I supposed to lie still after eating all this sugar?” Good question.

Last Sunday was John’s birthday and we celebrated with breakfast in bed, a lunch out at a nice outdoor German restaurant and then company over for dinner.