Tramping tales for April / May 2012

In late July we unexpectedly found ourselves in Johannesburg, South Africa and made an effort to pick up where we left off in March, herewith a brief recap. We arrived in Cape Town on the 22 March to find our son Keith waiting expectantly with our ‘other’ son of school days ... Sean Pattrick and his wife Sue, who’d arrived minutes earlier on an interstate flight; just as sister Holly came hurtling in from the opposite direction to join the reception party. With two cars to spread the load we all returned to Keith and Colleen’s flat in Rosebank. The grandchildren were out for the morning with their au pair enabling us all to talk nineteen to the dozen until their return from the Aquarium bearing the gifts they had made for Gogo and Bumpa (that’s us) during the course of the morning – beaded love strings.  Sean and Sue camped overnight on the lounge floor while we took comfort over the next four nights with cousin Ruth Matthews in her Diep Rivier home, catching the train to Rosebank each morning so that we could reacquaint ourselves with Ella and Finn before their parents flew off on another hectic USA fundraising tour.

Thereafter, we had the privilege of caring for our grandchildren over the following two weeks. Unfortunately, their parents had barely left when Finn went down with a bad cold that quickly spread.  Our flu jabs obviously hadn’t time to build up immunity and we all steadily dropped like flies and battled to get back on our feet. However, the weather was magnificent and the time spent with Ella and Finn infinitely special.

Ella and Finn helped with dinner particularly cowboy stew – arms raised as they dropped in their chopped up vegetables to avoid burns from the frypan edges!

Their mornings were spent out and about Cape Town with their delightful au pair Tanya whom they loved to bits and she too, quickly found a place in our hearts. During these hours of free time -George fixed and sorted a list of household jobs in the flat or at Ruth’s home. This enabled Lea to spend sociable hours with her cousin swopping family history. It was guava season so if Ruth was busy with George, Lea collected up the stung guavas for the compost heap and picked a basketful from the tree for home consumption... After peeling and closely checking a double load of guavas it was inevitable to find only half were suitable for stewing. We never tired of guavas with ice cream each night though. One Saturday, Ella and Finn thoroughly enjoyed a picnic lunch under the spreading guava tree after they’d cleared the rotten ones away and resupplied our basket from the branches above - naturally Ruth became Mrs Guava to them!   After the daily midday story-time Ella would speed up her brother’s slumber by singing or tickling him to sleep so that she could escape from her bed at first opportunity, to do home-schooling with Gogo. On waking, Finn would slot in for his share of school time doing plenty of cooking together and rapidly fell into a delightful routine with swimming lessons on Mondays and evenings down in the Rosebank Park after skype conversations with their parents on the other side of the world.

Ella and Finn never tired of stories and Gogo loved reading to them morning, noon and night, quite literally! 

The wretched cold lurgy put paid to socialising and we had to cancel lunch with Cousin Bev and Tom Fair on George’s birthday and disrupt arrangements Great Aunt Holly had made for Ella and Finn to meet up with similarly aged friends and sadly prevented us from contacting many old friends. Foolhardy Holly insisted on nursing us over weekends especially the long Easter weekend and of course she suffered the bug at an inopportune time. At least Easter in Somerset West allowed us to catch up with our niece and nephew Talya and Bion but, ever mindful of our great nephew Chad we sent a flu warning re Easter Sunday which failed to reach Sally and Adrian Gildenhuys in time so they came through and that made Easter, regardless.

Easter Sunday was very wet and miserable and thankfully Finn, Ella and Chad were able to keep busy painting and decorating eggs.

Then there was ‘Stuart Little’ – a baby grey squirrel taken into safekeeping by the family in the flat below- David, Leigh, Joshua and Kirsten Pender. As they were a working family away from home all day the Begg family had taken over the day care of the little creature and we simply continued when Keith and Colleen left for America. By then “Follow” (as Ella and Finn were apt to call it) was fast maturing, leaping around the flat leaving trails of poo or finely grated fruit and nuts in his wake. Surprisingly, Squirrel was not a tidy eater! Over our two weeks he spent the vast majority of time in our care charming and annoying us in turn, with his antics. Panic stations if he disappeared – a habit of curling up within folded ‘throws’ slowly changed to our beds or behind furniture - the relief of finding him made us realize what a hold he had on our hearts! One afternoon he was banished to the tiny balcony for bad behaviour and we left him curled up asleep while we ‘took the evening air’. On our return he was no-where to be found. The little chap had fallen from the first floor flat with a loud plop onto the cement below. Fortunately David was home, heard the odd sound and looked out to see perky Stuart Little more or less dusting himself off. We felt it was time to rehabilitate this little squirrel back into the wild with two safe choices being available. The Pender family were reluctant to part with Stuart and more keen to let him go free within their patch of garden before eventually joining other squirrels roaming the park like garden belonging to the blocks of flats as a way to go. We were fearful of the cats! 

Sadly this dear little creature came to a sticky end within days of being given his freedom thanks to the neighbouring cat who had spooked him often enough.  

Keith and Colleen returned from a tiring but most successful ‘talking’ trip in America and we returned to Ruth by night. Autumn chills were setting in and we all enjoyed lunch in the magnificent surrounds of Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens despite bouts of rain, their first weekend home  to celebrate Ella’s fifth birthday. The following day, her party was held at the Hout Bay Clay Cafe. What a setting! What a special party for one very excited little girl! Her group of friends chose a piece of pottery and enjoyed painting before being given a party box to enjoy eating out in the little playground.    

Our family in Kirstenbosch Gardens. 

Colleen, kids and Gogo returned two weeks later to collect all the fired products and couldn’t resist spending another couple of hours painting up plates to go with Ella and Finn’s cups with the best coffee and carrot cake in the Cape! Of course, that entailed returning again to collect the finished product two weeks later which tied in with Mothers Day so Holly and Talya joined us for a Mothering Sunday on that glorious mountain perch.

Holly collected us after the party and we moved out to Somerset West to stay with her. She was heavily committed all week followed by a long weekend up in Durban to attend a wedding. There was little to keep us busy and despite occupying ourselves with a mass of books during the week and George doing artwork experimenting with pastels, he felt a measure of frustration not to be helping Keith in the countdown to their departure for Mozambique the coming week. ‘D day’ was to materialise immediately after the return of the Toyota truck that last week of April. It had been in for major overhaul and service during the past months. 

We walked into Somerset West to see our dearest Italian friend Pauline Chisin and were shocked to discover her husband Giuseppe had died three weeks before.

An unexpected call from Keith inviting us on a family weekend out at Greyton created excitement.

Come the end of this year, Keith and Colleen were keen to buy a house in Greyton, a good hour beyond Somerset West. We knew nothing of this village set within the mountains and this was a good chance for us to see the place, look around with the family and see what was available on the market. Their good friend Mike Kock, a wild life vet had given them the use of his home in Greyton and would join us for Sunday lunch on his return. Initially we all fell in love with a house backing onto a nature reserve giving panoramic views proving unsuitable as a family home with its two bedrooms although we spent the rest of the day wondering how to convert it...  Travelling back down the main street the Agent happened to point out a thatched home that had long been on the market and far out of their price range. It ‘spoke’ to Col and out of quizzical interest we wondered if it could be seen next day along with another, the Agent had already set up. Ella and Finn loved Mike’s wonderful garden and more house viewing didn’t appeal so their parents went off alone that Sunday morning. It turned out to be the ‘dream home’ and we all drove back to Cape Town with heads buzzing with a million thoughts. We camped on the lounge floor preferring to be together in these last hectic days of unbelievable logistics enabling the men to travel by road to Mozambique; the final papers for their Niassa Concession pending; An Offer on the Greyton house went in and, despite seeming unbelievably impossible... finances had to be considered. Heads swirled in mighty confusion. Before anything was resolved Keith and George departed in a wake of difficulties and a heavily laden vehicle...

The following day, the bargain of the century was declared – their offer had been accepted. 

Holly collected Lea for lunch with Bev and Tom Fair where we were joined by Robin and Jill Hartley and a delightful family gathering of cousins marked this exciting “Begg” day.  Col had to sort out all the paperwork before she flew to Maputo for important meetings. In her disbelief, she was not prepared to think beyond...until the transfer was a done deed! That took place two months later.

Keith, Colleen, Ella and Finn’s Greyton home, seen all too briefly, now waits until the end of the year for them. Hopefully it holds all their dreams and aspirations.

 

Between the care of Gogo and Tanya – Ella and Finn got on with their lives while their Mom was away the four days. With all that Col had on her plate the busy days of May slipped by until the 20^th when Gogo, Col and children flew to Johannesburg for two nights and a day with her parents, Rod and Gill Zank. They had very recently moved into a unit within a secure Aged complex and they enjoyed showing us around. In a dawn temperature of 1.8⁰C we left Johannesburg, steadily shedding layers of clothing as we flew north to Pemba. Keith and Oscar were waiting for us.