VISITORS
I have mentioned the charming self-contained apartment (see www.on-the-rocks.co.za) that my neighbours/landlords, Lorraine and Rob have built, and which is now my guestroom. Since it opened in January 2014 the following friends and family stayed there:
Aviva Carlin, daughter of my Rhodes University pal, Murray Carlin. Aviva, who lives in London, was on her way to St Helena on the RMS St Helena.
My nieces Judy and Gail (Paul’s daughter and daughter in law, who both live near Durban) spent one night when they were at their timeshare in Seapoint.
Kevin Leeman and Graham Hayter live in London. Kevin is the twin brother of Clive Leeman, whose Ph.D. committee I was on at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kevin was for many years the music manager at the National Theatre, and Graham manages a French string quartet, amongst other musicians. We spent two days at the Sutherland observatory (a four hour drive) in the Northern Cape, with fantastic viewing of the heavens.
Phumlani Malinga, whom I met through Christopher, did a law degree and works in one of our big corporations. On this occasion she came by train and spent the night here, because train travel at night is dicey.
Niki Jazdowska was here for a week from Harare,where she was born. When we lived in Sherborne, Dorset, we were friendly with a fellow parishioner. an elderly Polish lady. When she heard that we were going to Cape Town, she said that we must meet her Polish friend, who lived in London but spent three months each year in the Cape. Serendipitously, her rented flat was three doors away from us in Fish Hoek. Niki, who came again in 2015, is her daughter.
Mary Murphy, our Irish friend, has lived in South Africa for over 20 years; she spent some time on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and then started the first commercial worm farm in South Africa.
Gill Shepherd, an anthropologist who shares Bernard's and my interest in forestry and fuelwood, was in Pretoria for a conference and came to Cape Town to see me. Mary Murphy drove us to Solms Delta, my favourite winery, which has an innovative system of giving farm workers shares in the business, as well as operating a school, a clinic, bands, football teams,pensions and also has an informative small museum, which provides a capsule history of the estate from the 17th century, warts (slaves) and all. (see: www.solms-delta.co.za). I like to take - or direct -my visitors to Solms-Delta, for the very positive achievements. The progressive owners are making significant improvement in the lives of so many people: Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela based her Inaugural Lecture (as Professor of Psychology at UCT) on this estate, as an example of what can - and should – be done.
My sister-in-law Lizzie Brokensha was here last December, and she will come again,for just over a week this December. Her main purpose is to see the graduation (post-graduate, Politics) of her grand-daughter, Amy, who is from New Zealand, and who has been a welcome and jolly visitor to my home.
My first visitors in 2015 were my former student Peter Castro, his wife Denise, and their twenty something children Camille and Dave. I took them to KwaZulu/Natal to the Hluhluwe National Park and also to Fugitives Drift, a special guesthouse near the location of the 1879 Anglo Zulu wars.
I met Per Nilsson about 40 years ago, when we did two fuelwood consultancies together in Tanzania. I had visited Per and his wife Vera in the north of Sweden, very near the Arctic circle. Per and Vera spent nearly a month in South Africa, spending a few days in the apartment at the beginning and also at the end of their travels.
My most recent visitors were my Scottish niece Deirdre and her husband Peter: they had been here 12 years ago. My niece Judy flew from Durban to spend four days with us, and she drove us to the Postberg reserve in the West Coast National Park, a two hour drive. We saw the most spectacular display of spring wildflowers (above). Our two hour tour of “Historic Simonstown” was a first for me. Our tour guide, Joleen, is: coloured, a middle-aged Simonstown resident, a Ph.D candidate –and a first-class guide. Simonstown (8 kms away) is hilly, and because I cannot manage steep ascents, Joleen drove us, explaining the origins of the coloured people, how most of them suffered forced relocation, in apartheid days, to drab Stalinist blocks of flats, 25 kms distant, cruelly named Ocean View – for people who had had a glorious ocean view, some with substantial homes, and who now had no view. Joleen was very professional, letting us see the tragedy of the forced removals, in apartheid days, without unnecessary polemics.
Camille Castro was so enthusiastic about South Africa that she will be coming again, with her fiancé Gerad, over the Thanksgiving weekend in November.
For 2016 I already have a three-day booking for my niece Robin who will be flying out from Florida with her husband Nigel, to meet her son AJ (Arthur John). In 1967, when Robin, then aged 20, lived in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) “a pregnancy sprang in” (a phrase that I heard in Ghana). Robin had to give up the boy for adoption. Robin’s sister Lindsay, who lives in Zimbabwe, diligently tracked down AJ; his birth date matched and the DNA tests were 99.9% certain. AJ lives near his adoptive parents, in Port Elizabeth, having been happily adopted by a family named Morris. By a strange co-incidence, Robin’s married name is – Morris. There has been a constant stream of emails and SKYPE calls, much excitement; I look forward to meeting AJ and his family in January.
I am by now used to living alone, but I do enjoy my visitors, especially now that I have my grand “guest-room").
