Cape Town and beyond....

WELCOME BACK TO THE BLOG!


It is so long since I did any blogging that this morning here in Ballito north of Durban on a rainy blustery day when I would rather be on the beach here I am doing the blog!
We left Johannesburg by air on November 2 for Jessica to stay with friends, for us to stay with friends and poor Ed to go and do some work at the office. 


Our friends were from my days in Kitwe. Stewart and I dated one another for 6 months in 1963 until I went off to be a student nurse at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

 To cut a long story short he has been married to Nicky for over 40 years. He set out to find the old youth group from Kitwe days and that's how we got back in touch some years ago now.

Nicky and Stewart

Table Mountain is in the running to be included as one of the seven natural wonders of the world so everyone was being encouraged to vote for it... 

STELLENBOSCH.....what a lovely day

My personal choice when it comes to my mansion in the sky

An old bed you might have slept in once

An elephant's eye painted with finest shiraz on watercolour paper

Shiraz hands

and a shiraz leopard

Grape poster

Glorious proteas in a vase

Somebody's idea of the good life.....

Kirstenbosch - The most beautiful garden in Africa.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is acclaimed as one of the great botanic gardens of the world. Few gardens can match the sheer grandeur of the setting of Kirstenbosch, against the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain.

Kirstenbosch was established in 1913 to promote, conserve and display the extraordinarily rich and diverse flora of southern Africa, and was the first botanic garden in the world to be devoted to a country's indigenous flora. Kirstenbosch displays a wide variety of the unique plant life of the Cape Flora, as well as plants from all the diverse regions of southern Africa, both outdoors and in the Botanical Society Conservatory. There are over 7 000 species in cultivation at Kirstenbosch, including many rare and threatened species.

The Garden covers 36 hectares in a 528 hectare estate that contains protected mountainside supporting natural forest and fynbos along with a variety of animals and birds. Kirstenbosch lies in the heart of the Cape Floristic Region, also known as the Cape Floral Kingdom. In 2004 the Cape Floristic Region, including Kirstenbosch, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site – another first for Kirstenbosch, it is the first botanic garden in the world to be included within a natural World Heritage Site.

The gardens in their beautiful setting

Home to many beautiful pieces of art 

Two exotics (non indigenous species!) in the garden

Late spring flowers

Strelitzia

Who would have thought to see the Revd Terry Pye so exuberant in a garden!

Melvin was another member of the Pre 23 Club. He remembered far more 

about me than I did about him!! 

Lionel together with Pat were the youth group leaders way back then! Wonder what he is saying to Terry now! Lionel and Pat bought a whole train now called the "Gospel Express". It is on their small holding in the Robertson area of the Cape and used for parties and conferences and church services. Wonderful to see. When Lionel was a little boy it was the one loco he always wanted to drive. 

                                                                            

Getting ready for the cruise.... 

Jessica and I both became committed Christians at St Peter's Mowbray in the southern suburbs of Cape Town. Jicky married Ed who was in the youth group there. It was from this church that I set forth in 1969 to England to train  to be a missionary. So on our one Cape Town Sunday we returned to St Peter's. A new era for this church under the leadership of Dave and Bev.




Well, this has taken me most of all day. Not thrilled with it but the best I can do, More tomorrow because it has to be up to date before we go to the Kalahari on Friday. So from lovely Ballito on the Kwa Zulu coast good night!