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| 'He likes it' |
March the 21st we went on a vacation to South Africa. The flight went well - 11 hours on a plane with a 2 year old and a 4 year old can be a little threatening - but both girls got to sleep very early on. The discomfort of having a child sleep on you is easily a better deal than having a busy, over tired child that is awake on the plane! The first week we stayed in Johannesburg with Leon, Natalie's brother, and hung out with her family. It was so much fun and very relaxing at his place - He has two little girls and the four quickly became close friends; this made easier by the swimming pool! The sun was wonderfully warm as was the pool. I have attached a picture of 'Toffee' the sausage dog being put into a tube in the pool - he surprisingly relaxed, as if submitted to this fate and bobbed around in the water.
After Johannesburg we went down to Cape Town were we visited with my mum and brother and some of our friends.
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| Table Mountain from Blauwberg |
Cape Town is very beautiful, clean and functional. I cycled on a wine farm with Brett (my brother) and both got stung by a bee - it was very painful - I got the second sting about 1/2 hour after my brother and only then did I begin to sympathise with him (he got it in the face!) - poor Brett, SORRY! I am soooo selfish! We had many visits to wine farms in fact - it is the thing to do - they produce wonderful meals and great wine and while you sample
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| Free rides while you taste wine! |
their delights your children get to ride around on horseback or some other form of entertainment. A winning business model. If only we had that kind of space in the UK - we have seen some similar ideas, but they are rare. We also had a reunion in Tygervalley with some old friends which was great, as was the 'Ocean Basket' fish!
I got particularly depressed towards the end of the holiday -I think I had just had a bit too much of people. This is something I am becoming more aware of - my need for quiet and a need for family ONLY time. I had also begun to long for some sort of spiritual conversation - and this too may have been part of my problem. Relief came when we visited Jacques Van Rensburg and his family, and also Nelia and Ewald. In the last week we had some time in Hermanus with Hanlie - she took us on a lovely walk up to three reservoir dams.
Some asked 'are we glad to be back' and my answer is a definite 'yes' -we love our community and I have become aware of how important it is to 'be known' by others and to 'know' them (not saying that we don't love the ZA bunch - but we just don't live so intimately with you). Home is where the heart is, and no amount of sunshine could take us away from this great bunch of Café Forever IOD peeps - you know who you are! In fact the sun shines around friends, even when there are storm clouds.
