Back in South Africa

8/12  FLY AWAY!

Kid’s had a ‘cracker’ flight planning out their indulgences starting with an inflight movie (Kel - Diary of a Wimpy Kid; Wil - Men in Black & Top Gear; Jeff & Jen - Harry Belafonte’s Sing your Song) then dinner before lights out.  Lucky little folk fell into uneventful sleep, each sprawled luxuriously over an uncomfortable compressed adult who managed probably no more than 2 hours despite the temaze!  They pronked, rested, off the plane in Joburg in contrast to their staggering shattered & stiff parents each adorned with bloodshot eyes & stinky breath.

3 hours provided just the perfect transition to go through customs & collect baggage on ‘African time’. We docked in for a coffee desperately looking for a zing which instead was provided by the 8 rockin’ & rollin’ singing black staff members - soo many staff - must be why SA is quite expensive despite the favourable exchange rate.  Here, relaxed & lying on the airport lounge floor in the beautiful warm weather, we gifted our kids each an iPod nano in thanks for their magnificent team effort & mostly great company this year.  Their reactions were magnificent.  Music has been such a shared pleasure this year.

Gary’s girlfriend, Pini, met us at the Sea Point flat where she’d plumped pillows, put a wine on ice, made beds, opened the windows letting through glorious salty sea smells and arranged some snacks - so thoughtful; a keeper Gary!  We showered, had a bowl of cereal, fibre, nuts, yoghurt & fruit and collapsed into soft, fresh beds.  Utter heaven!

Gary's Stoep

9/12  SEA POINT CAPE TOWN

The sun brightened the sky at the perfect time of 0530.  We hung about in bed only getting up with the kids at 0830.  We zipped out eagerly to the strand for a walk/run/stretch aware of going slow having not exercised at all for a week.  Then we had a feast of fibre and made for Camps Bay along the spectacular Kloof coastal road where Wil, sedated by the Med, didn’t remember the ocean being quite so wild and cold.  Nonetheless, we all ceremonially numbed our feet & legs and urgently thrust the rest in for only a few seconds!   Brrr!  Kel ‘gooed’ at the shiny white sand that resembled “fairy dust” she and Wil had crushed from white granite around Lake Como in Italy.  Wil drowned his ears what he called the ‘best English speaking accent in the world”, Jeff remembered the abundance of physically beautiful people and Mumma just blissed out in familiar smells & sounds whilst her retina fed on exquisite sunny panoramas.

12 degrees

Wil on a rock

We over bought at Spar delighting in rusks, biltong, gorgeous breads, nuts & seeds, avocados and adventurously spiced spreads.  Wil left unsatisfied as we’d not bought biltong and Kel was disappointed we’d not bagged one of the massive watermelons.

Back at Gary's flat our bellies were filled to fat with the good things and then we simply padded about, deeply contented reading, listening to music, doing some washing & getting connected with SIM cards etc.

Almost a different day of softer sun, light winds and cooler air drew us back to the beach, this time to the more protected Clifton for a walk.....and swim.  This beach allows alcohol & picnics making people watching excellent as large heterogeneous groups of all & mixed colour gather on enormous rugs, spread with fine bits often beautifully spiced beneath large umbrellas.  The South Africans love lingering in the sun passing the time playing beach ball, throwing anything (ball is best but sand filled drink bottle OK too) long & hard around triangles or more of folk and splurging on the ice creams offered usually by dark young guys carrying around heavy eskies.

Clifton (colourful) Beach #4 

Joining the festival of aroma, we cooked up a dinner of hake & mushroom green thai curry on a bed of cumin & coconut rice with a side of greens with a light squeezing of lemon juice. The garnish of (Wil) smashed almonds and creamy greek yoghurt made Jeff go cross eyed.

To bed, to bed.

10/12

Jeff couldn’t have suffered his first-in-a-long-while URTI in a better spot than Gary’s flat with sea breezes, an ever changing busy view of the coast & harbor and splendid home comforts.

The kids re-read Gary’s extensive TinTin collection, listened to their iPods adding enthusiastically to their music libraries between several times daily visits to a choice of exquisite beaches depending on their suitability for the weather conditions.

Camps Bay

We wrapped gifts & Christmas pressies and re-engaged our UK dormant muscles.  Jen had a transformational hairdo, taming the wild head-beast she’d nourished in the 12 months since last grooming.  Phase 1, a 5 hr stint achieving straightness, phase 2 next week.  The best part of the coiffuring was the vibrant, working on “africa” time, rainbow coloured salon staff who sang, bum bumped and playfully & kindly teased each other’s accents & racial differences.  Many thought SA would crash & burn but it seems powerful, hopeful & utterly beautiful with a resilient & exciting population.

pre phase 1

post phase 1

Our noses & palates were once again excited by the fabulous spicy culinary Xhosa, Malay, Indian and European and our other senses were so fully engaged as we marvelled at dense, coloured flora plushly covering the feet of the massive granite giants that crowd around the ever beautiful Table Mountain, sometimes naked and breath-takingly bold against a sapphire blue sky & other times, dressed in varying frocks of brilliant white cloud.  Jen will never tire admiring it’s beauty…..and feeling the deep breath that comes with a connection to her family & childhood.  Pine cones!  In the fire for sweet smelling, crackling kindling; gathered & made into “nature dolls” after being stripped & searched for any sweet seeds.

And then, there’s the sea - brilliant turquoise, wild & clean - and alive with whales & dolphins.  The coves along the endless coast are all so different with tiny quiet nooks to grand long stretches.  Billboards carefully explain what to do when a whale beaches.

walk towards Lion's Head

Llandudno Kib

Wil reckons it is his favourite place of all this year and Kel’s BK Savannah was born & grew up here of course!  Jeff announced he probably wouldn’t take so many photos this time round and ended up almost exceeding the previous quota in a few days.

Having hired a small Nissan Micra, we had the ability to scratch our itches and especially to visit Jen’s family.  After a few days relaxing at Gary’s, we drove the 2 hours north through the Huegenot tunnel admiring the endless stretches of massive craggy granite mountain sided valleys going in all directions with rivers of not only green water but of flowing peach, plum, apricot and grape crops.  

Coming closer to Robertson, African folk spread beneath shady trees surrounded themselves with impressive piles of spanspek & watermelon and closer still, modest township housing clung to the outskirts of grand old white farming settlements. Jen’s paternal aunt, Helen and her husband Steve, live in the centre of the town amidst beautiful old Dutch colonial style homes & gardens.  Her cousin Steve with wife Mel & kids live just outside the town centre on a small holding where they farm predominantly garlic & tomatoes that supplements their very active family owned property development business. We spent a few days with Helen & Steve in their sumptuous magazine-beautiful home, talking, resting, eating, recovering from our URTIs  and taking small trips out to McGregor (another small farming town) & into town; once to get some antibiotics for Kel’s bilateral OM & conjunctivitis (where our medication was issued in a locked cage to take to the check out, reminding us we were in Africa) & visit Laura’s booming gift shop,Vanilla Rose (first having to pass through a locked gate - yip, we’re in Africa) and the other to run a disoriented white psychiatric patient to the local hospital who was persistently knocking at Helen’s front door.  

dinner at Helen and Steve's, with Stevies Tomato

Our remaining few days were spent at Stevie & Mel’s farm, an equally grand home plucked straight from the pages of Home & Garden, watching the kids revel in each other’s company (sadly Kristen extended her stay in CT with another cousin making Kel one amongst 3 older boys), swim, play with the dogs, do a few farm chores, play an excessive amount of XBox & You Tube and stay up late.  

For the rest, we ate like kings both in on the stoep & out in the best wineries on the world and discussed the family’s concern about raising kids in todays SA.  With recent strife Stevie & Mel feel they may immigrate in 5 or so years and are researching their options actively, the most appealing being a luxury motor yacht in Greece. 

We picked up wine to shame the French at unbelievable prices of ~ $4/bottle and discovered a uniquely RSA style called pinotage which is characterized by an incredible smokey flavour with hints of coffee & chocolate.  Wow!  Very sadly, they don’t ship to Australia so we simply drank a few bottles on the stoep.

Slaney farm sunset

Jen continued to marvel at the co-evolution of her first cousins so many miles away - Laura also is content for a dinner of tuna with fork & can and struggles to work a life of ‘stuff & things’ preferring to camp & live from the back of her bakkie; Gary has a penchant for old mercs having just purchased ‘Goldfinger’ and Stevie, like Greg, is hardworking, stable, disciplined & authoritarian but is balanced with humour, warmth & generosity.  He even looks incredibly similar!

Steve and Helen

Daniel

16/12  We dashed back to CapeTown for the occasion of the visit - Phil’s wedding to Suzie. Held the following morning at his local golf club, we enjoyed a simple joyful ceremony with amazing words of commitment that focused on strong & best friendship and then sat to a relaxed abundant breakfast buffet. We all felt tremendously privileged to be amongst only about 20 close family guests. 

We were welcomed for the remainder of our visit into Martyn & Muriel’s warm & loving home where 3 of us learned to knit (!?) as well as make protein bread, walk the beautiful labradors, stroke George the Cat & chat endlessly over coffees, wine & Muriel’s most spectacular salads.  Andrew & Stewart communicate strong hope & a quiet belief in their fulfilling future in RSA with no need to consider immigration.  The kids were so relaxed following significant periods of having to be restrained, considerate,‘out of the way’, disciplined, adaptable and endlessly patient.  And the adults were thus also deeply rested & ‘smoothed’ back into civilization.  The Payne’s hosted some magnificent braais where we laughed, sang and danced. Muriel lead the way showing us first rhythmic & stomping line dancing ( all the while bellowing out her favourite tunes with thumping beats) and then, the crazy Scottish Highland dancing around swords! The following night, she dragged out the kilt,long socks,berrets etc that she used to compete in aged 18 - and still dons with style. Suzie & Muriel had a knit off progressing the length of the kid's Snuggy scarf, Phil got silly bringing tears of laughter and the two dogs stood by retrieving& rescuing when the kids were in the pool and making offerings of slobbered on toys.  Mandesa did our washing and Martyn took us for a divine Constantia suburb run. We were lucky to see a bit of Andrew and Stewart both of whom are so handsome,fit and clever - how does one grow them up like that? The Payne's facilitated our exercise needs by offering their bikes for a beautiful morning ride to Tokai Manor and their lawn for a beneath the peaks 10BX. The olds cleaned up with Jen undergoing a massive transformation 'taming the hair beast.'  "Too short, too dark" she said but everyone else loved it (except her son who is universally unaccepting of change in his mother.)

Hair Phase III

On the 19/12 after our morning run with Martyn (8km) we then joined Gary & Laura for a climb up Lion’s Head in the blazing sun.  The climb was scenically splendid with views all round to Table Mtn, along The 12 Apostles, down to Camps Bay, Glen Beach, Clifton Beaches, Sea and Green Points and the city with it's extensive wharves.

Our reward was meeting Pini (Gary's gal) at Gary's favourite restaurant where we enjoyed a meal of fantastic tapas and salads washed down with a white wine and finished with cannoli and Spanish donuts and covered with amusing conversation - a thoroughly enjoyable morning! 

20/12 departure day

With the bags repacked ,weighed & sorted AGAIN we waved our goodbyes. The blow was softened by plans for another trip + safari in 2-3 years. We’ll take in the Drakensbergs, Cederbergs and east coast on a longer visit ,climb beautiful Table Mountain and rejoice with a few family parties. Over all too soon - especially for Jen.