Eventful Weekend

Friday night (30 November 2012) my ex came to pick the boys up for the weekend. T didn't want to go at first, but then when "J" got there he was happy to see his dad. "J" has always had a knack to say a single sentence and get me so upset that I start shaking. He did it again on Friday night. But, I knew my kids were now at his mercy, so I bit my tongue, turned away from the gate, and walked back into the house.

Going into the house, my blood was boiling. I sat down in the lounge and started telling my mom, and she got mad too. Then Kiddo started banging on the wall of his room. We both heard it. Before long toys started making noises, and my mom said to me "He's upset, maybe you should go and talk to him." This surprised me as she never usually does this, she doesn't acknowledge them like I do, as they still pretty much scare her. So I went to his room and explained to him who I was mad at and why, and when I left his room I felt Charlie stay behind. I guess he felt he needed to comfort the little guy.

A bit later, Tim and I were talking. I sought him out to ask how Charlie was doing, because he was a bit quiet. He then told me both Charlie and Kiddo are upset, because my ex had me so worked up. I asked him how Charlie reacted, and he said:

"You would have felt his hand on your right shoulder when you started getting worked up. He didn't leave you alone with that man for a second. And you must have noticed how uncomfortable "J" was. He kept pacing and looking around, trying to see who was looking at him, he also couldn't get into his car fast enough." He sensed Charlie, and I think he must have picked up that Charlie was ticked off, because he really was uncomfortable.

I was sitting in the lounge while talking to Tim about this, and he told me, again, that my mom's feet were very sore. He also said "Charlie says you have oil that would work very well on her feet". Therefore, I went to get the arnica oil and mom was, as usual, quite surprised but she is getting used to this now. I took my time on her feet and I said to him that I experienced something weird on my way home and I know Charlie has something to do with it. As I was driving home, there is a road that has a lane to your left, which used to have a street, but its been closed off, so, in essence, the left lane just runs into the lane going forward. And, as many a South African can attest, taxis tend to think this gives them a free pass to push in front of the queue. This is exactly what happened. I stood right where these lanes come together, and this bugger came and pushed the nose of his minibus taxi right in front of me. He leaned out of his window and actually gestured for me to stop so he can go, and then he got the freakiest look on his face as he looked into my car. I swear I could feel Charlie smiling next to me. The guy looked frozen, his eyes were wide open and his mouth was agape. He did not move his taxi, so I went past. I watched in the rear view, he didn't move until I couldn't see him anymore. When I asked Tim about this, he said

"Let's put it this way, he is considering a drastic change in career."

When I asked him what exactly Charlie did, he said this

"What he saw appeared to be a Tokoloshe is your car." (He said this with SA slang, which was hysterical to me)

I almost fell off my chair laughing.

Then Tim sent me a message and said

"Tell your mom that I can't read minds. If she asks what I mean, tell her I'm referring to her sore feet."

And mom said "He has to be able to read minds."

I know its Charlie feeding him the information, and then Tim told me it's Gran as well. He said she was sitting on the couch next to my mom. When I told him I know Charlie is hanging round by the Jacuzzi, he said yes, he is giving us girl time. Tim told me to tell mom it's the number "9", and her mouth fell open. He asked me if he was right, and I said yes, she is playing solitaire. At one point, I asked him where gran was, and he said:

"You tell me, you can sense them very clearly."

At that point, Charlie was touching the left side of my head, above the temple, like he always does when I'm worried or upset, and Gran was touching my right arm. It's the strangest feeling, getting 2 different kinds of goose bumps on either side of my body. When Gran touches me, I get light sensations, when Charlie does, the goose bumps break out exactly where he touches me.

When we drove to Nelspruit on Saturday, it was a dreary, rainy day across most of the country and we had to drive a mountain pass to get to our destination. I was driving, and before I knew it we hit a patch with immensely thick fog. Mom was acting as lookout, sitting forward in her seat to peer into the fog. And at one point, before she said anything, I had a very strong sense that Charlie was stroking my hair, hard, and the next moment mom said "Sussie, there is a truck ahead of us with no lights on!" I had started to slow down the moment I felt the goose bumps on my head, otherwise I swear we would have driven right into that truck.

After doing shopping with my dad (the whole idea was to meet him halfway to get some more supplies for our holiday in a week we got to the resort where we spent the night. Beautiful log cabins, really spacious and pretty, overlooking the Crocodile River, and there are Hippo warnings everywhere. Tim told me at one point Gran was really out of her element, she was pacing the kitchen area and felt really out of her depth. The cabin is very open, the kitchen area is located on the veranda of the cabin, and it's newly built so they haven't put balustrades up around the edge of the veranda yet. That's the only thing that made me thankful my kids were not there, safety. At one point, we heard a hippo less than a hundred feet from us, and mom actually dragged me down to the river's edge so we could try and see it.

Charlie was having a blast telling Tim that mom and I were dancing on the grass and making fools of ourselves, but Tim did say he could feel that we seemed happy and almost carefree. My dad tried to scare my mom a few times telling her there is a hippo behind her, and the once he did this mom jumped around and the first thing she saw was a big bonsai tree. We had a giggle over the bonsai hippo, and Charlie apparently rolled his eyes at us. By 8PM we were all in bed, really exhausted. And by 6:30 Sunday morning one of the two ghosties was pacing up and down in my room. Walking from my bed all the way down to the door and back, over and over again. I'm guessing it was Gran, think she couldn\ t wait to get home. When my mom got up she told me she heard me pacing, I was up very early. I didn't correct her about the fact that it wasn't me.