Of Wine and Food and last week in Cape Town

If all the weeks ahead of us turn out like last week, I'll really need a holiday when we get back to California in June!

Every week we end Monday with a wine tasting at the Vineyard Hotel where sommelier, Chris Wiehe, holds forth on a few select wines, inviting hotel guests and members of the public to share his knowledge. We have been so impressed with Chris we've arranged for him to give a wine tasting to the Stanford students - to introduce them to the terms, the tastes, and some affordable wines they can buy in their neighbourhood.

The interesting snippet about Chris is that he is the son of Marc Wiehe who once owned the wine estate L'Avenir where, for ten years, I owned half a mythical "row" of vines, entitling me to 5 cases of wine each year at cost price. In the early days when Marc first bought the farm, he needed capital and raised some funds this way - "anybody out there want to buy a row in a vineyard and get cost price wines for 10 years?" It was a risk. We didn't know if the wines would be any good. But the risk paid handsomely and the association with Marc and L'Avenir was very special. Tim and I were thrilled to discover Chris Wiehe at the Vineyard.

The start of each week is also time for me to get to grips with the week's African Genocide topic, the class I am taking at the University of Cape Town with 5 of the Stanford students on Tuesdays. This week we had some dense and grim articles to read about the annihilation of the Herero people in German South West Africa over the period 1904 - 1908. Although you might think the subject depressing, I find it highly stimulating and such a privilege to sit in on a class with Mohamed Adhikari, history professor at UCT.

Wednesday evening we began our "Dinner with the Stantons" evenings when, for the next 6 weeks, we'll have four students over to eat with us. We also invite a couple of interesting guests so the students can meet locals. We had a marvelous evening on Wednesday, beginning with the students telling us about themselves, followed by our guests, Pieter Jolly (rock art archaeology specialist) and Jan Glazewski (Environmental lawyer), explaining what they do and inviting interesting discussion around lots of fascinating topics. Fabulous evening!

On Friday Grant Parker, our Stanford faculty in Cape Town, held his Western Cape Sites of Memory class at Groote Constantia, one of the 8 sites Grant has selected to discuss in his course. First, two students gave a well researched presentation on the history of the estate, after which we toured the museums. Grant had invited his dad, Dick Parker, to join us, as well as good friend, Dick van der Ross, known to many Capetonians for his appointment in 1975 as the first coloured rector of the University of the Western Cape. Grant's father was a teacher and a school inspector. Both Dicks had many stories to share over lunch at the Jonkershuis restaurant hosted by Grant - thank you, Grant, for a superb outing and delicious food and wine - a memorable day! See Photos.

In between these Stanford events, Tim has his own Community Based Research course on Mondays. And for the rest of the days during the week he needs to be at the Stanford Centre to direct the proceedings there.

We bought a couple of essentials last weekend. A Weber to BBQ on our stoep, or "Braai" as it's called here, and a bright yellow bike for Tim to cycle to work. That way I will have more access to the car. He gets fit and I get lazy!