Tomorrow the adventure begin!. After 5 days of visits, shopping, chatting, catching up, a haircut and manicure, and everyone having some sort of 24-hour bug (!!!!), we are off to the family farm, several hours north of Pretoria. It will get much hotter as we go north. There will be two SUVs loaded to the gills with Preeces and Dyan’s Mom and all the food assigned to Billly and Derek…..plus all the presents and I have quite a contingent of those. And Christmas crackers, of course!! More members of the family will join us there – Derek’s two daughters, their husband and boy friend and Elspeth’s brother and wife, another Elaine. We are meant to be around 26 on Xmas Day, as the family on the neighboring farm will join us, bringing their pet caracal with them. A caracal is a African wildcat. Jonathan will remember meeting one in a wildlife sanctuary in the Eastern Transvaal in ‘96 and we have photo of me holding it.
There is no point telling you what the degrees of the various cousins are – they are all just cousins, 2nd, 3rd or otherwise. I’ve been staying with Billy and Dyan and their two adorable boys, Chad 8 and Kyle 10. I’ve been watching cricket test matches with them and trying to understand the game…I’m getting there! Two lovely dogs and two gorgeous cats complete the picture. The boys wait on me hand and foot – so solicitous! Every day I have tea with Billy’s dad, cousin Jimmy and wife Elspeth who used to do all the hosting, but have passed the baton to their three sons. I’ll see Derek at the farm and Jay at the very end of the trip. I’ll also be seeing the other two branches of the family, one at a farm in Tzaneen, even farther from Pretoria, and the others in Coligny. (Get out your atlases!) I believe there are some special outings at Tzaneen.
The family farm consists of 400 hectares of bush, a dam (i.e. artificial lake), and a camp, which consists of a large building housing huge kitchens, outdoor living area (larpa) and 8 bedrooms and bathrooms. A pool and a boma complete the picture. A boma is a fenced in round area with a huge firepit and braai (barbecue) in the middle. After supper, we all sit around the fire and drink and make merry!!!!
There are lots of animals: zebra, giraffe, warthog, all different type of buck (antelope): impala, eland, kudu...and wonderful birds!
None of the big five, of course – that would be too dangerous! Though the farm next door had lions, some of which belonged to Derek, when I was last there – now that was exciting visiting them, especially the big male, Simba, which Derek had hand-raised. But they don’t have them any more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment