April news

Tim got back from his trip to the US minus his precious computer and his suitcase. Fortunatly the latter was not missing. It just missed the connection in Frankfurt and arrived 36 hours later. His computer has gone. Strange thing was that when he was back home in Inverness, my computers, stolen last July, turned up in Marin County. Is someone trying to tell us something?

We've had a spurt of sunny windless days and Saturday morning found me back on the slopes of Table Mountain, the first time since January 31st. Bliss!! I didn't venture off the beaten track as I love to do, but stayed on the level jeep track. Meanwhile Tim did the big loop, up the left side, through the indigenous forest to the contour path and a long walk at 300 metres above sea level until he joined the track back down again. Lucky him ... I hope to be able to do that soon.

The new "Spring" quarter has begun. I was at Orientation Lunch last week where, after lunch, students got to meet the faculty. See photos. We ended off this week with our first Sites of Memory class at Groote Constantia, followed by the Welcome Dinner at the Jonkershuis restaurant in the beautiful grounds of this wine estate founded in 1685.

We had four very special guests with us who we were lucky to meet last year when Grant Parker was the Stanford faculty in residence. Grant's mum and dad, Mavis and Dick Parker. And Marie and Dick van der Ross. Dick vd R's family had lived in Strawberry Lane, near Groote Constantia, a coloured community evicted by the Group Areas Act in the late 1960's. We stopped by the plaque commemorating the people who lived there, met our guests and heard a bit about the area from Dick vd R.

Strawberry Lane, Stanford students and guests Dick Parker, Marie van der Ross and Dick van der Ross. The plaque is on the left of the green fence and not up in the trees!

Here's a link to some photos of yesterday afternoon/evening.