Excursions to Pringle Bay and the Winelands

Instead of burrowing down at weekends, too tired to think of doing anything other than reading, relaxing, walking in Newlands Forest, watching an addictive TV series, entertaining the grandchildren, cooking up a storm to enjoy with friends around our big dining room table, instead of all that laziness, we've been getting away, to the country, the wide open spaces so close to Cape Town.

First splurge was to Pringle Bay.

The bay, the mountains and the beach - that's the famous Hangklip (Hanging Rock) mountain on the left and Mervyn & Sue Gray on either side of me on the right. Fantastic day/night/morning of food, wine, walks and talks.

On the way home from Pringle Bay we visited Vergelegen Estate, built in 1700 for Willem Adriaan van der Stel, Simon van der Stel's son. He might have been a lousy Governor, forced to return to Holland in 1706, but he built a beautiful homestead and garden and planted magnificent trees - on the right Tim is dwarfed by ancient camphor trees.

Yesterday we ventured all of 54 kilometers for lunch at the restaurant at Glen Carlou Vineyards for a delicious meal followed by a walk in Babylonstoren gardens with friends Breda & Billy McCrea. Photos: The view from the restaurant at Glen Carlou on the left and in the garden at Babylonstoren. The Simonsberg mountain in the background on the right, named after Simon van der Stel

Back at home we 'bumped into' Bishop Tutu in St George's Street near the Cathedral on our walk about Cape Town last Friday with the new group of Stanford students. Here they surround him - no time wasted for a photo op!

Catching up

It’s been awhile since I last posted a blog so, thanks to the reminder from good friend Nigel Renton who first alerted me to blogspot and even came up with the name Sherry’s Trifles, and also a scolding from a 2008 student, Aaron Kofman,  for giving up photography, I have rallied - here goes: a few photos and some news.

Breaking news first - taken at the Waterfront two weekends ago with grandchildren Ayanda and Nathaniel. We were all smiles at ground level, but once we began our ride and stopped to load passengers and felt our little car wobbling wildly in the wind, I was not smiling ....

In February, Tim went home, to Stanford, to a meeting in New Orleans and a visit with his parents in Florida. I went to Johannesburg to find my paternal 2nd great grandmother's grave - Elizabeth Charlotte Garlick. Buried with her daughter and son-in-law in the Braamfontein Cemetery.

In March, a day in Hermanus with two cousins, Sue Lucas & Gill Dodington, walking in Fernkloof Nature Reserve

The first quarter is over and Tim will welcome the second group of students to the Stanford Cape Town centre at Orientation this week. I have not been to the centre myself this year which feels very different to previous years when I would be there taking photos, uploading albums, being involved as much as possible. I do get to meet the students at official functions and also at the dinners we have with four of them each week.

Bob Siegel is this quarter's Stanford faculty in residence. We took him to Kirstenbosch last Saturday on a cold and gloomy day. We both found lots of camera material despite the weather which only got worse over the four day Easter holiday.

I still pursue the life of my great grandfather, going through the archival material in the University of Cape Town’s Special Collections library. I thought I would be done in a few weeks. Alas, I have not quite finished  the letters and papers in the second box and there are 80 boxes in the collection.

I have written up the background and the first twenty years in the lives of both my great grandfather and his wife through my travels to England, Scotland and Canada these past eight years. Now it’s time to write the second part; his arrival in Cape Town at the age of twenty after six years in England as a draper’s assistant, opening his own shop in Cape Town after three years opposite the site of his future father-in-law’s store, and his phenomenally successful career.

John Garlick, Immigrant, Entrepreneur, Builder, Politician, Philanthropist, father of eight children, grandfather of Gill Dodington in the photo above, great grandfather to Sue Lucas, above, and to me and many more!