Its amazing that old oke in the middle is still ALIVE!
In this photo you see 150 years of contact lens practice, lecturing, innovation and expertise. It’s clear from the way their specs are carefully centred that these okes KNOW their contact lenses!
Sid Saks on the left started practising as an optometrist around 1958, Brauer in the middle around 1978 and Des Fonn on the right around 1968 (I’m guessing, but it’ll be close).
Des lectured me in contact lenses; Brauer was in my class actually, so maybe he isn’t THAT much older than me – but definitely older; Sid mentored us when we ventured into private practice – me over the phone occasionally, but Brauer needed direct supervision. In fact, in order to get a job Brauer married Sid’s daughter.
A recent booze-fuelled reunion in Pretoria – Des visiting from Canada.
When I left Specsavers in 2000 the lovely team I worked with gave me a perfect farewell gift: A book by Chris and Tilde Stuart: ‘Africa’s Great Wild Places.’ Right up my alley. If the Stuarts think these places are special you can bet they are. They have been all over Africa and they don’t flit in and out; when they go somewhere, they stay a while!
I had been to seven of the fifteen places they chose for the book and immediately set about getting to the eighth:
My eighth of the Great Wild Places – Luangwa in Zambia
– We watched eles crossing the Luangwa as we ate. Little ones submerged except for their trunks! –
We had this book at home growing up and I loved it. It describes the Okavango in 1958; Moremi and Chobe weren’t parks yet, but the story about two crazy loons driving a great lumbering gas-guzzling, wartime D.U.K.W amphibious monstrosity led to a fascination and – years later – many trips there starting in 1985.
The latest trip was in March 2018. While there I read her new book Starlings Laughing, under her new name June Vendall Clark. While there are challenges, I’m pleased to report that exactly sixty years later, the Okavango is still the amazing paradise June Kay loved so much.
This was one area I thought it unlikely we’d get to visit. Then friend Mike Lello got to go! His son Chris worked in wildlife safaris in Tanzania and arranged a fly-in trip. And lately, wonderful news: My bro-in-law Jeff and nephew Robbie have bought a farm near Iringa. I may not get all the way west, but I’d love to go to the Selous and Ruaha National Park! Time will tell!
More to see:
Uganda, the Serengeti, the Soda Lakes, the Great Selous. One day . . .
Jonathan something Taylor studied geography. I’ve forgotten his middle name but it’s one of those Scottish throat-clearing exercises: MacLachlan, Kindrochart, Och Aye, MacKechnie, Donnach, Ag Man, Neachdainn, Murderdoch, something.
None of us had studied geography, so trustingly, we bowed to his superior knowledge and would leave all matters geographical in his capable hands and would even ask him “what rocks are those?” and other searching questions from time to time.
Until the night he organised the Night Of The Full Moon. Apparently (I wasn’t subjected to this faux pas) much was made of being in the right place at the right time: A restaurant with a raised perch and a view due east where the magnificent spectacle of the shining (reflecting, not glowing, remember?) orb rising above the horizon over the Indian Ocean as the sun set in the west would be seen by his awe-struck companions. A table at the window. Don’t be late!
Well, this happened:
The light you see on the water is the restaurant’s lights. The only moon that night was under the Scotsman’s kilt!
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Luckily for JonDinDin I could take him down to the beach years later to teach him what a full moon looks like:
Once again Jessie rescued some creatures, this time frogs from the pool. Bush squeakers Arthroleptis wahlbergi, a small one and a tiny one. Why they didn’t hop onto or cling to my rafts I have in the pool I don’t know. I assume quite a few creatures do use the rescue rafts and then hop out without us seeing them. Hope so.
The small one was about tip-of-my-pinky size – adult size for this squeaker – the tiny one about 9mm from tip of nose to tail. The bottom middle pic in the collage is the only one of the tiny chap.
Here’s the intrepid rescuer with her friend Lydia from London:
Arthroleptis wahlbergii, the bush squeaker
Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, subtropical or tropical moist shrubland, plantation edges, rural gardens, urban areas, and heavily degraded former forest. It is found mostly in leaf-litter and rotting vegetation.
The eggs are laid in damp leaf-litter where the young hatch as miniature frogs. The call is a high-pitched squeak, usually emitted during wet weather, which is often mistaken for the calls of crickets.
It is threatened by habitat loss, so please don’t mow your lawns right to the edge and please don’t rake up your leaf-litter! Leave as much of your garden wild and undisturbed as you can. Please. Asb.
One night in my first own home, Whittington Court in Marriott Road on Durban’s Berea, I heard a strange sound. It was like a small dog barking, but not quite that and I remembered from all my reading and re-reading of Roberts and Newmans bird books: Nightjar!
Aitch! I shouted, a nightjar! Luckily she knew I was weird so she joined me and we peered out from our first floor window and a nightjar flitted past. I was over the moon with excitement and discovery. A Freckled Nightjar right outside my flat!
Investigation revealed it to be a well-known one, roosting on the roof of the residential hotel nearby. Eden Gardens, now a retirement home. It had been discovered by Philip Clancey, famous birder and splitter and Durban Natural Science Museum ornithologist and author and artist, who lived in the hotel. They usually roost on rocks and the roof was a good substitute. Their camouflage is impressive:
Durban museum ornithologist Philip Clancey took numerous expeditions into Zululand and Mozambique, discovering several new subspecies as well as one new species to science, the Lemon-breasted Canary in 1961. Clancey was a prodigious publisher of papers and books including “Birds of Natal and Zululand”, all lavishly illustrated with his excellent and distinctive bird paintings.
~~~oo0oo~~~
thanks stellenboschbirds.com – Chris Krog for Freckled Nightjar Caprimulgus tristigma pic
I am a paid-up member of the Flat Paddle Society. Owner and boat-maker at Pope’s Canoe Centre, Owen Hemingway was alarmed that I even existed in the year 2016 and earnestly (more of ‘earnest’ later) explained to me how much more efficient a wing paddle is than a flat blade, demonstrating with a teaspoon under a flowing tap. It was remarkable. I could see clearly that the spoon shape exerts much more force on the water with less wasted energy. Made me tired watching it.
The reason he was concerned for my well-being was I had bought a plastic playboat from him, a lovely Detox, second-hand but like new. I now wanted him to make me a left feather flat-blade paddle and Owen assumed I wanted it for forward motion. He didn’t let me explain that I rely entirely on the current for forward motion and my paddle is only for balance and – occasionally – to roll back up into the sunlight if I’ve flopped over.
This is why I never entered any sprint races. They’re held on flat water and if the wind had been against me I’d have drifted backwards at the gun.
** Ernest Hemingway – NOT **
Speaking of Hemingways, the famous Ernest could write . .
. . but Owen didn’t inherit any of his genes. My pleas for Umko stories always elicited an enthusiastic ‘yes!’ but nothing forthcame. Only when I visited him in person did the excited stories and anecdotes, gossip and insider skinner as only a 30-times Umko paddler could know it, pour forth enthusiastically. But in writing? Not so much. I had to be his copy typist and scribble down some of his stories as he waxed lyrical with great enthusiasm. Thanks Owen!
All of this skandaal reminds me I still haven’t fetched my left feather flat tripping paddle from him.
NB – Very important update 2025 – before visiting any of these areas, check about the safety of the area and the availability of amenities beforehand.
I must tell you about a wonderful trip we went on recently (well, back in 2015 actually) to Deepest Darkest Zoolooland.
It was actually a rugged and challenging course in which we were required to survive under tricky conditions, with carefully thought-out obstacles and challenges put in our way by the amazing outfit called:
. . who led us astray boldly into the back roads of wild Zooloo territory where we watched and learned as he reached out to locals to see if they knew where they were.
– Don asking perplexed local villagers for directions –
This capable and entertaining master tour guide dropped us off at the beautiful Ngoye Forest for the next phase, handing us over to our next capable leader:
. . who led the convoy boldly into a forest. Fully equipped, this part of the course led us carefully through: – Correct equipment – Packing for an expedition – The use of snatch ropes and tow ropes – Handy stuff to always have in your 4X4 (axes, bowsaws, forest vines & lianas);
You had to be really young and superbly fit to survive, and we WERE and we DID! Thanks to the bushcraft of the accountant in the group! Covered in the mud and the blood and the beer, we emerged smiling from the forest, much the wiser.
Both tours were excellently victualled, lots of sweet and fortified coffee, sarmies, fruit, biscuits, biltong and more. Those who brought deckchairs thinking they would sit back and gaze serenely at the tree tops were optimists in the mist. Someone came up with an idea as we were leaving to go on a completely different kind of trip next time with this sort of outfit:
But NAH! – we enjoyed the first two so much that we’d book with them again. Unforgettable (and not, as Don muttered once “unforgiveable”)!
It was amazing and a whole lot of fun with great people.
~~oo00oo~~
(Slightly) more boring version:
We did go to Zoolooland on a birding trip ably guided by Don Leitch. He did get us a wee bit off-course, and he did stop to speak to some local people, for which he got some leg-pulling.
We did get blocked by fallen trees in Ngoye forest and here’s the thing: Among all the rugged pilots, 4X4 experts and farmers among us, NOT ONE had brought along a tow rope or any decent rescue equipment! It took an accountant with a pocket knife to fashion a tow rope out of a liana that eventually saved our bacon. ‘Strue.
I will stand by my story and I will protect my saucers, even if they were in their cups. Here Sheila shows the total rescue equipment we managed to rustle up; and there’s the tow rope fashioned from a forest liana that saved the day.
I’ve lost my beautiful singing voice! All of a sudden even I don’t think I sing wonderfully anymore! The kids have never thought so, philistines, and will ask me after the opening bar “Please don’t sing, Dad”. In fact I’ve used it as a weapon: “Want me to sing to you?” sometimes gets them to behave pronto.
Even the neighbourhood kids give a resounding NO THANKS PETE! when I suggest I sing to them in Italian instead of putting Nicky Minaj on the car stereo.
Aitch was the only person who ever said “I love it when you sing” but then she also called me “My handsome oke” so I pinch-of-salted her compliment. She would always ask me to sing “the evening song” when we were driving after dark: Kris Kristofferson’s “Best of all possible worlds”. Of course that’s mainly gruffly mumbled, so that helped.
Of course I used to sing beautifully. The teacher who trained the seunskoor in Harrismith Laerskool said so. I was a soprano and looked down on the altos who, though necessary as backup, weren’t in the same league as us squeakers. One directly behind me used to bellow in my ear: ‘Dek jou hol met bowse off hollie!’ FalalalaLA lalalala’
One day the discerning teacher Juffrou Cronje, chose me to sing a solo in the next konsert. Fame was imminent.
Then tragedy struck! My balls dropped. They handled it very diplomatically. By ignoring it and cancelling practice. The konsert didn’t materialise. Co-incidence? Surely they didn’t cancel a concert just because one boy suffered testicular descent? By the time the next one came around I hadn’t been banished – just consigned to the back and asked to turn it down.
There was one other time – in a sort of Harrismith se Hoer Skool’s Got Talent setting – that it was almost confirmed I sing wonderfully.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Terry Brauer wrote: Oh Pete I am STILL laughing! But never let the kids be the judge of whether you can sing! They are just embarrassed by most of what we do anyway. 🙂
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Oh well, there’s still a lotta drinks that I aint drunk . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
‘Dek jou hol met bowse off hol-e!’ – the famous ‘deck the hall with boughs of holly’ was improved in translation to ‘cover your arse with boughs of (thorny) holly’;
Lydia of London is what we called Jessie’s room-mate on her field guide course. It’s a year later now and Lydia is back in SA doing her Masters thesis on vultures and people, including sangomas and the muti trade.
So the girls decided to get together before Lydia heads off back to London. We spent a lovely day in the reserve, not uneventful! In fact we saw nine interesting stand-offs: Three avian, where pairs of red-capped robin-chats, camaroptera and bulbuls chased and challenged each other; three mammalian, where two bull rhinos, two bull buffalo and two bull giraffes sorted each other out like boys do – much huffing n puffing, little action; and one inter-species where a chameleon huffed at Lydia as she rescued it from becoming road-kill.
The eighth was a fraught Rhino vs Ford Ranger:
This old bull had been pummelled and bullied and gored by a bigger younger bull who marched him backwards for a couple hundred metres then took him into the bush where we couldn’t see them but could hear the grunting change to squealing, ending in this guy emerging bleeding. We then got between him and the aggressive one and I decided I’d better get past. Upon which this poor fella tucked his horn down and feinted at the vehicle as we scooted past. I think Lydia of London did frown at me somewhat, but I decided I couldn’t have an unseen victorious rhino in the bush on my left, so I decided to scoot past the losing rhino on my right.
On a more peaceful note, Jess made us a lovely lunch, we saw a finfoot in the river, and we organised a dozen vultures to do a special flypast for Lydia of London!
We also saw a rhino named Frank:
(Couldn’t resist! Got a pic of an ele with egrets with that caption on whatsapp and thought of this picture).
The ninth event was a champagne opening, where Lydia tried her best not to intervene as Jess struggled, miming in the background with great restraint. But eventually she just had to assist her old roommate.
– Me, Herve in red, Dave Jones, Jurie the cameraman and Steve Fourie, Chris Greeff’s buddy –
Greeff took the pic, cutting off the nose of the Lincoln to make sure he got my elbow in. The Lincoln is loaded and ready to take us to paddle the Ocoee River in Tennessee after a night at Dave Jones’ house in Atlanta. Dave is a military man, a dentist and an international paddler. We were there cos Chris Greeff is a military man, a dentist and an international paddler. Weirdos like that tend to stick together.
Here’s Herve on all fours studying my map of the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Willem van Riet left of Herve with the ducktail is telling us about the moerse rapids he went through that day.
Here is Hervie again, red cap left back, in the Swim Team, much as he tried to earnestly explain why his swim didn’t actually count as a swim! Competitive swine, our Herve!
. . and here he stands dead centre with the faded red cap at the end of our 360km 12-day trip through the Canyon:
My last supper with Herve was positively biblical: He arrived in a cloud of holy blue smoke in a hundred year old chariot – a faded yellow Merc diesel with four million miles on the clock. Nice car, Herve, I said. ‘Hey! Think of the money I save’, said he. He brought four quarts of beer and six bottles of ‘communion wine’ which he called his ‘quota wine’. I thought, ‘quota for the night!?’ but it turned out he owned shares in a Western Cape wine farm and – just like they did with their workers – he get some of his pay in liquid form. Suddenly I thought through the blur that I understood ‘liquidity.’
We had gathered together, dearly beloved, to write down Herve’s tales of the Umko canoe marathon. As the evening progressed I would say ‘but Herve, wasn’t that the Dusi?’ Oh, Yes! We’re talking Umko, hey? But Herve, wasn’t that the Berg? Oh, Yes! We’re talking Umko, hey? But Herve, wasn’t that the Breede? Oh, Yes! The Crocodile? Oh, Yes! But you didn’t saw your boat in half to get it on a plane to go to Umko, did you, Herve? Oh, Yes! We’re talking Umko, hey?
We laughed for seven and a half hours. We talked of the hardship of owning property in England – Herve’s a farmer, things are very hard, you don’t understand. Then he left after midnight in a cloud of holy blue smoke in a hundred year old chariot – a faded yellow Merc diesel with four million miles on the clock.
Linda Grewar was a Kingfisher paddler from back around 1990. She and Bernie Garcin paddled really well – a number of mixed doubles podium finishes on the Dusi, Fish and Umzimkulu. Then she buzzed off ‘overseas’.
In May 2016 Bernie gave me Linda’s address, so I wrote to her:
Hey Linda! – LONG time no hear! Meantime I have freely been using your name in vain in the Umko book we put together for this year’s 50th running of the marathon and for a story on an Umko trip Bernie and I did where you helped us out with driving. MOONS ago!
Last I heard you were out East teaching English, now I hear you’re in England. I’m glad, as in my considered opinion, a lot of Englishmen could do with being taught English proper!
Me I’m raising kids at my age, they’re 18 and 14 now.
I haven’t paddled for ages, but I have bought a new boat (no logic involved; actually, keep it secret, I’m planning a big comeback). Be careful when you look at the pics of me and Bernie with my new boat – you may get a fright!
Saw Greg Bennett yesterday. He’s well. Thanks to the Umko book project I have seen or spoken to a lot of the old paddling guys in the last year that I hadn’t seen for ages. Allie Peter, Mike Frizelle, Ernie Alder and various other maniacs are currently trudging south down the whole Wild Coast. Three to four weeks from the bottom end of Natal, ending in East London or Kei River or somewhere down there in Darkest Eastern Cape.
Fill me in on your movements since – when? – about 1990!?
Cheers now – Love to you – Pete Swanie
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Linda replied:Hi Pete – So good to hear from you after so long. Yes, I was out East, in Taiwan. I then also taught English in Slovakia and Czech Republic before ending up here in the UK. I live in Esher, Surrey and was teaching fairly close by, in Surbiton. As Karen probably told you, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer in January- one hell of a surprise, as you can imagine. So far, I have had a course of radiotherapy and have had four sessions of chemo. Obviously I have not been able to work since I have been ill and things are quite hard financially.
Is it possible to buy hard copies of the Umko book? My brother is keen to get one and he can buy me one at the same time! Those days are but a distant memory now . . . All the best – Love, Linda
Me: Dammit. Dammit! What a bliksem! Bloody cancer! Good luck with your treatment. Hope it goes well.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
**
May 2018 – Bernie contacted me to tell me Linda had passed away.
Dammit. Bloody cancer.
It seems in Joburg in 1939 you could sommer call the pulleys easy.
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British Pathé has a host of old archive stuff worth looking at. Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 until 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era.
Steve Reed wrote: I love it. Over here in Aus, the national broadcaster has a competition called ‘Exhumed’. A fitting term for those of us, like yourself, who played in a band as a younger person but wanna give it one last go.
The blurb is: Exhumed is a band competition with a difference. It’s not for has-beens, it’s not for wannabes, it’s for the never-weres. It’s for people who play music for the sheer love of it. If you fit that description, enter and listen to your Local ABC Radio to be part of Exhumed. You could hear your track on the radio, be interviewed on air, perform at your local Exhumed event and feature in an ABC Music release. Each station across the country will choose a winner. Of those winners only six will go through as finalists and perform live on TV at our Grand Final. But just one will take home the title ‘Exhumed Winner 2013’.
I wrote: C’mon Brauer! Enter the Botox Ballies Blues Band in this great competition!
Reminds me of a gathering of old canoeists where someone said, We’re the Has Beens. Mate of mine hurriedly clarified, “Swanie you’re not a Has Been. You can’t be a Has Been if you Never Was.”
PS: Reed, you may not know this, but the BBBB is quite famous behind the Boerewors Curtain among certain square circles that are often in their cups. They even pay to play at some events in far distant little known venues. Serious! Brauer’s on guitar and quite vocal.
He got lost under a pair of bloomers that was lobbed onto the stage once. Rumour has it.
As for the suggestion that I actually ‘played in a band,’ truth is more like ‘played with the band’s instruments at the same time the band was rehearsing and was tolerated by the band members.’ To be accurate. 1973.
After a slow drive from Mombasa we spent a night at a plush hotel in the metropolis of Voi. There it is in the left background. I think it was called Voi Safari Lodge. Don’t let Aitch tell you we didn’t spoil ourselves at times. The dining room had a linoleum floor, plastic chairs and metal tables, no table cloth. It was clean, the chicken and rice was hot and delicious, and the waiter was attentive. I had a Tusker beer that was cold and delicious. As was Aitch’s ginless Gin n Tonic. Luxury!
– the metropolis of Voi in October 1998 –
Then on to a destination I had looked forward to all my life: Tsavo National Park!
All my life? Just about. We got the quarterly African Wildlife magazines at home back in the Vrystaat and I eagerly read about Africa’s great parks. I also knew of Bernhard Grzimek’s work in the Serengeti and his book Serengeti Shall Not Die. The great parks I knew and fantasised about included Kruger, Etosha, Luangwa, Masai Mara, Amboseli, Wankie, Serengeti, Okavango, Ngorongoro, Gorongosa – and Tsavo. I remember seeing an aerial picture of the drought in Kenya and how the vegetation IN Tsavo was worse than that outside the park. The story was it was due to Kenya (Leakey?) refusing to cull elephants and other game. Of course it may have been a story by the pro-culling people in SA’s parks. Who knows? Lots of jealousy and rivalry among the ‘good people in conservation!’ Me, I hang my hat on the need for active conservation management, no handwringing and no decisions made by anyone not on the scene. Once you fence an area you are responsible for that ecosystem, and you have the duty to care for it, difficult decisions notwithstanding. Overstocking kills everything. Here endeth the sermon.
* Tsavo East *
Chris and Tilde Stuart, great Africa-philes, chose Tsavo as one of ‘Africa’s Great Wild Places’ in their book of that name, mainly for the huge wild expanse of Tsavo East where you can drive for hours without seeing another vehicle.
– arrival at Elephant Hills Lodge – whattacar! says Aitch –– here’s where the underground path to the underground hide leads down to the waterhole –Tsavo East – Another ice-cold Tusker beer for you, sir?
Driving around Tsavo East was amazing. We hardly saw any other vehicles.
In places like a smooth highway – only better: No traffic!Into Tsavo East and peace! Vulturine guineafowl– the Galana River in Tsavo East –
Firsts for us – ‘lifers’ – Gerenuk, Lesser Kudu and Vulturine Guineafowl: Wow! at last.
GerenukLesser kudu
Also Golden-breasted Starling, Red & Yellow Barbet, Superb Starling & White-headed Buffalo Weaver:
Birds I’d pored over as a youth in my Birds of the World book. One day . . And here they are! (internet pics, thank you)
~~oo0oo~~
* Tsavo West *
Tsavo West
We saw Kilimanjaro! We weren’t expecting to, but as we drove around we suddenly saw a snow-topped mountain top WAY higher than one would expect above the low clouds and through the higher clouds; way higher than the hills around us. We realised that it must be Kili, the world’s highest free-standing mountain!
Of course we should have realised we’d be close to Kili, but we didn’t give it a thought. We were in Kenya, Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, and it just didn’t occur to us! That’s our pic of the low clouds on the left and an internet pic of Kili from Tsavo West. Our view was a glimpse through a break in thick clouds. That was an unexpected treat.
– Aitch snuggles in on the veranda with her torch – looking for nocturnals –– Genetta genetta – come to look at the lady on the veranda –
Here we also saw the magic clear waters of Mzima Springs.
~~oo0oo~~
Tsavo National Park was created in 1948. At approximately 21,000km², it’s the largest protected area in Kenya. In the late 1960s, there were approximately 35,000 elephants in the Tsavo region. This population has suffered two population crashes, probably due to mismanagement or misguided management in both cases!? Firstly there were simply too many elephants, so in the drought in the early 1970s many died, especially pregnant females, females nursing a calf or young calves. Independent bulls’ mortality was lower as they were able to travel greater distances in search of vegetation and water.
The second crash was due to the illegal killing of elephants for their tusks. The bulls who survived the drought were now the victims. Kenya had banned legal trophy hunting in 1977. By the late 1980s, at the height of the ivory poaching era, about 6,200 elephants remained in the entire Tsavo region. Not all conservationists – and few bleeding heart animal lovers far away – understand that when you fence an area, you have to manage that area. Pretending it’s still natural does a lot of harm; and allowing ‘rich donors’ to dictate what happens on unscientific, emotional grounds ends up killing many animals, and – a much worse disaster – their environment. Leading to way more animals dying starvation and disease deaths than the number that needed culling. Anyone doubting this, buy a cattle farm and never kill – or allow to be killed, so selling is no solution – any of your cattle. Soon you’ll have a desert full of many dead animals.
From this deck at Elephant Hills you can watch animals approaching the water from miles away. I’ll wait with my binocs and spotting scope while the obliging waiter sees to it I don’t go thirsty. Two Tuskers later, they’re still plodding closer, not here yet. It’s a long slow movie.
Tsavo East – Another ice-cold Tusker for you, sir? I scope the plains, Aitch wanders around with camera, our waiter sees to it we don’t go thirsty. Heaven!
~~oo0oo~~
Those wonderful old African Wildlife magazines. Official Journal of the Wild Life Protection Society of South Africa. Published 1946 to 2009
What a lovely braai we had at Umvoti Villa today. I was so chuffed Jess came along – with friend Jordi. Linda and Dawie hosted us and Sarah and Rob joined. Mom and Dad were there, and sister Barbara.
Umvoti Villa
Plus flocks of kids: Emma, Matthew, Mary-Kate and Dawie. What a great bunch, they had a really good day, much laughter and scampering, feeding horses, riding on a quad bike, driving Sheila’s car, playing golf and eating.
We had a delicious meal and lots of catch-up.
Matt, Katie, then Emm
Dawie and Klein Dawie; Blaze also
Jess and Jordi loved being with the little ones – and I didn’t get any pics of them – nor of any of the other adults! Oh, well, here’s one of Jess before we left:
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