In the meantime, to catch up on what we've been up to these past three weeks, we had an unplanned visit to Johannesburg for a friend's memorial the weekend of 20 -22 May. Sadly, South Africa's former Leader of the Opposition in the days before democracy, Van Zyl Slabbert, died at 70. Seems so young for such a great mind to leave us, but he had not been well and was not improving. He had a wonderful birthday celebration in February which, with hindsight, was his farewell to friends, I guess.
We stayed with my sister and husband, Gill and Michael, in Joburg which was super, especially for Tim as he had not seen them for a couple of years.
The next week we had the last student dinner at the Wijnhuis,our favourite local restaurant. Followed by another student wine tasting evening, see pics at link, excellent again, thanks to Chris Wiehe. And, to end the week, the students' cultural evening - an outing to the town of Darling for "Koeksisters for Zuma", a show by Pieter-Dirk Uys. We got there early, in time to explore all the marvelous memorabilia he has collected and displays in this converted railway station that is now his very own theatre, "Evita se Perron" (He plays Evita Bezuidenhout, wife of the ambassador to Bapetikosweti, and Perron is the Afrikaans word for (station) platform - a play on Argentina's Evita Peron.)
Pieter has the wonderful ability of tuning his show to suit his audience and played up to the students beautifully. The theatre is very intimate, the stage a slightly raised part of the restaurant. The food is served before, during the break, and after the show. Altogether a fabulous evening's entertainment. Here we are sampling Darling Brew before the show started and with PDU after the show.
The third week, last week, and two highlights involving the Stanford program. One was having Tim's staff to dinner here - long overdue! The other was going to the Stanford Centre on Thursday evening to be an observer at the Financial Self Sustainability Forum that two of Tim's research students convened. Wow, what a great gift Craig and Ken gave the eight NPO leaders who were there - getting them acquainted, raising challenging issues in their businesses, thrashing out different ways to approach the issues - what we saw and heard was most inspiring. Here they are in the large lecture room at Waverley.
Sunday May 30th my aunt, Ruth Jeffery, celebrated her 96th birthday at a wonderful gathering at her farm, Timberlea, in Stellenbosch. She was surrounded by four generations of family on a glorious sunny winter day and spent hours basking in the delights of close relatives. Here she is looking not a day older than 80!
Each week these last three months I have fetched my grandchildren from school on Thursdays and taken first Nathaniel, who finishes earlier than Ayanda, for a bite to eat followed by some play on a jungle gym. After a couple of hours we go back to school to pick up Ayanda and treat her to a scone and milkshake. It's been a chance for good chats with them both and a lot of fun for me. And I have sure got to know the tea/lunch spots in the Kommetjie/Noordhoek part of the Cape Peninsula.
Friday next week kicks off the World Cup Soccer with one game here in Cape Town, and another in Johannesburg. On Saturday the US is playing England in Rustenburg, NW of Johannesburg. Tim and I will watch on TV with US friends at the Mount Nelson Hotel, cheering on our side who have a big team to tackle in their first game.
There are a bunch of "friendlies" being played as warm-ups to the competition and I see the US played Australia in the Johannesburg area last night and beat them 3-1 - good for the US!
Two games will be played in Cape Town before we leave: Uruguay vs France next Friday and then Italy vs Paraguay, Mon June 14. All around the country 20 of a total of 48 group matches will have been decided before we leave so I am sure we will be drawn into the excitement. Here's the link to the match schedule.
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