Christmas 2011 to early January 2012

The morning of the day before Christmas was our last at home in Inverness. Tim had to fetch a rental car to get us to the airport and had the bad luck of some crazy driver reversing into the newly rented Mazda. This held up our departure for an hour or so while Tim filled in claim forms etc, etc – just what he needed in those last stressful packing hours!

Once that was done we packed the car and headed for Palo Alto where we met Aaron Kofman and Christine Dehnert, two of the students who came on our second trial program in 2008 and who are now both marching through Medical School. We hadn’t seen them for a couple of years and really enjoyed meeting them for coffee and a catch up.

Christmas Eve we had a fabulous family gathering with Tim’s daughters at Caitlin & Randy’s home, with Erin and Dario, mum Cathy, and the twins, Will & Kai as well as Dario's daughter Amelie. We splurged on Cioppino for dinner, my favourite seafood stew, a San Francisco invention despite the Italian sounding name.

Christmas Day saw us at the airport at 6:30 for our flight to Denver and then on to Tampa. We had upgrades to business class and were really looking forward to our flight. We boarded, settled ourselves into the comfy seats, accepted the champagne offered – even though it was a little early for alcohol, it was Christmas Day after all – and felt very pleased with ourselves. Until the captain announced the plane was not going anywhere and we were all to deplane! Everyone on board had to get re-assigned flights creating a madhouse at the customer service desk.

We couldn’t get to Tampa via Denver but were offered a different routing on a different airline where our fancy status counted nil. We were lucky to get those back seats in economy and finally touchdown in Tampa before midnight to face the two hour drive to Boca Grande where Tim’s parents live and where we planned to spend the week.

Tim’s mother, Lucy, fell in early December and shattered the head of her femur which required an operation to pin together. And resulted in a very different and restricted life for Lucy. Despite this, she was in good spirits, as was Tim’s dad, Jim, adapting to his new role of caretaker. Tim’s brother, Peter, was also visiting – a week of family richness.

Boca Grande is gorgeous in winter, lovely sunny days and marvelous birdlife.

So many ospreys, already nesting, this one deceptively checking me out.

On New Year’s Eve we set off on our trip to Cape Town sad to leave Lucy, Jim & Peter behind. The flights to London took off on time and we were able to revel in the splendid comfort of business class this time. We checked through security in London where Gareth fetched us from the airport and whisked us off to The Orchard pub near Heathrow, a lovely country home atmosphere where we whiled away several hours with my son and his family before boarding our 8pm flight to Cape Town.

Naz, Gareth & Cameron on a magical New Year’s Day!

Overnight we were thrust into the Southern Hemisphere, early daylight, long summer evenings and sunny weather.We have moved into the little home we’re renting until we leave in July. I was upstairs on the deck earlier to get this rooftop view of the mountain we hike on as often as possible, just a short walk from our ‘home away from home.’ That white patch in the middle of the green forest is a rocky scree – that’s where we were this morning. There is a trail above the scree that takes you up and over to the other side where you look down on the city of Cape Town – a hard hike with a wonderful reward.

 The third year of Stanford's Bing Overseas Studies Program in Cape Town starts on Tuesday with a lot of new faces to get to know. It's back to work for both of us.

Hoping for a peaceful and happy year for all.