Flood in De Aar

Firstly let me hasten to assure you that all is well and there has been no real flood in De Aar. But the phrase occurred with a strange irony.

On Monday we had the outing that the previous week's sickness had prevented. We intended leaving early but were delayed by discovering a small lake outside the house, under the oft-raided vine, where some piping that led to a garden tap had somehow come disconnected and mains water was flooding out, covering much of the church's yard. Maybe it just happened, or we wondered, had aggrieved or mischievous children deliberately disconnected it the previous evening. Alastair has some useful practical skills, plumbing included, and he suggested that we turn off the supply to the house at the stopcock, which just happens to be buried in a muddy, often rather foul pool of water near the garage. Danny the verger was duly asked to tell the gardener about it and to lock the gate when he left since we would be late home.

We had a super day, driving about 135km NE to Colesberg where we explored the town, found an Anglican church from 1853 and an interesting small museum which included some good features about church history in the town. After a brunch we drove on to find the Orange River even more swollen than we had previously seen it and another dam/HEP station, the Gariep, with water spilling over the top of the dam in a very dramatic way. Alastair enjoyed walking across a bridge some distance downstream and being caught in the wind and spray. Since temperatures that day were positively english – a mere 18-22 degC- Tom and I didn't feel like getting wet.

Then we set off to drive around the huge lake upstream from the dam, sections of which are Nature Reserves. We were about the only car on the road, a perfectly good tarmac and so were able to pull up whenever we spotted something of interest. I had already been pretty sure I had seen a single red clump of flowers in the Karoo much nearer to home and now we found several of these. They are probably Fire Lily, a single thick stem with lily flowers in a lovely bright coral red – and it proved to me it wasn't simply a red plastig bag thrown out of a car. The Karoo is so much greener than when we first saw it. Large clumps of fresh grasses of numerous varieties some with purple heads sway in the wind, the sort of thing that someone displaying at Chelsea would be proud to show. And the low bushes are all in flower though not generally in spectacular ways.

Around the lake are interesting mountains with green plains leading down to the water. It was on these grassy slopes we suddenly realised that we could see animals, and lots! With binoculars and a road book with a good nature section, we could distinguish mountain zebra (about 12), lots of blesbok with their twisted horns, gemsbok with very long straight horns (30 or so of them), numerous springbok with their striped sides, red hartebeest, wildebeest, ostrich and, most exciting of all as they are huge, we saw 6 eland.

As we pulled to a halt and stood on the road watching, some of the animals were alerted and moved away but after our noises subsided they continued grazing with just one or two on the alert. It was a lovely sight, repeated in several places and all for free on a quiet but public road.

We had a long drive that day and stopped for supper at Hanover Lodge, a friendly hotel we had visited in December. It was there that we were alerted to a TV announcement of a flood warning for De Aar. We had driven through some quite heavy rain so were not terribly surprised but when we phoned the churchwarden he was – there had only been drizzle.

So it was a shock when we arrived home at 9.30 to be greeted by a flood on our church forecourt and under the dreaded vine, caused by the same leaking pipe we had been careful not to leave on. Someone had turned it on and it had burst its join again. The language difficulties meant we were never sure who did it, perhaps the gardner, perhaps children who knew how to find it in the muddy pool. And worse still children, we presume, had decided to post the pipe, pouring out water, into a small open toilet window, drenching parts of the house inside. We were no longer happy bunnies.

What was even worse was that next morning it was quite obvious that we had an additional and different sort of plumbing problem to do with waste. The smells and colour of the toilet water had been indicating all was not well and Danny opened several drain covers to reveal various horrors. Some had no covers and had been filled with rocks and rubbish, some within our compound, some outside.

Furious phonecalls and complaints were made to anyone who would listen and suffice to say that within 24 hours, by Wed midday, all three sorts of plumbing problems had been sorted, the municipality clearing the rock-filled drains and putting on a mighty heavy concrete cover (metal ones are stolen) and fitting new stopcocks. And someone's uncle is a plumber and he took off the offending leaking pipe and fitted an outside tap over a drain on our house wall. A cage needs to be made to stop the copper pipe and tap from being stolen but that is being worked on we are told. And Alastair has shown wonderful skills in project managing all this!

Tom's gloom was compounded by the discovery that he had lost his cheap local mobile phone but that has been sorted with another cheap replacement and the SIM card has been made the same so his number hasn't changed. Complicated but people have been helpful. And a problem in the little house to be used by Sunday School has also been sorted – another plumbing saga as well as the collection of stuff left by Social Services. It is perhaps the serious but friendly english voice which Alastair manages that shows he means business, and now please!

My gloom was compounded by discovering that the kids had pulled up and nibbled most of my mini-carrots, which were coming along quite nicely. However I managed to pick a good bag of french beans and some little courgettes, our first.

While thinking of animals we have seen, I am reminded that while waiting for the service to start at Richmond on Sunday morning, A and I walked up the rough road under the hillside and saw some women screaming at the sight of a large lizard, about 3 ft long (perhaps a rock leguaan). We made admiring interested noises and left it, only to find a few minutes later that two youths were stoning it, to death sadly. It was trapped by a wire mesh fence and totally defenceless. I rushed up to try to stop further stoning but it was hopeless. We are unsure if the meat would have been eaten and even the skin used, as the book said it could be. Or was it totally senseless?

But not all the children are like that. As we sat waiting for the service to start one of a little bunch of children in the front row started up a hymn, soon joined by the rest of the church, beating a strong rhythm quietly on their hymn book or vinyl pad. Another smaller child in front of me became restless and was put on her mother – or grandmother's?- back, strapped on with her scarf. She was soon mesmerized by the constant rocking as the woman sang and she gave no more trouble, staying there throughout the service.

We must be better! We decided to get up and climb the mountain at dawn, seeing the sun rise in front of us and the hills picked out in low shadows. In the evening we barbequed our meat, sweet corn and mushrooms watching an amazing sky as the sun set. God's beauty surrounds and sustains us in spite of everything.

A big funeral

When we first said that we were going to do six months in South Africa, we were made aware that priests seemed to spend most of their Saturday mornings taking funerals. We have been surprised therefore to have been involved with only two funerals so far. The first was that of a still born baby almost as soon as we got here and then last week we had the funeral of the grandmother of my colleague, Fr. Joseph, at one of our outstations, St. Barnabas, Britstown. I am not sure why we have had so few funerals but perhaps this is further evidence of the way South Africa has at last got to grips with the Aids virus. From the UNAIDS Global report for 2010 comes the fact that South Africa has reduced rates of new HIV infections by more than 25%. It may also indicate the type of community the Anglican church here in De Aar is, as for the most part it is a middle class coloured congregation who can afford preventative medicines. Clergy here only take the funerals of members of their own church, unlike in the UK.

But let me tell you about the funeral of Ouma Hugo (pronounced "Youwho").It was a wonderful example of the African way of death. She was known as Ouma Girlie and had lived in Britstown all her life. She was 95 when she died and obviously had been the matriarch of the town for many years. My colleague Joseph was one of her many grandchildren and like so many African families Ouma Girlie had been literally mother to them all. They all were devoted to her and so was the whole church of St. Barnabas so there was a wonderful mixture of thanksgiving and sorrow that permeated both the Friday evening Requiem Mass and the Saturday morning funeral.

She was a remarkable lady. Emma and I met her once when we first arrived here and she could hardly walk but tenaciously made the 100 yards from her house to the church on two sticks. She was a member of the MU for over 60 years, had worked in the kitchen and as a cleaner in the local hotel for 40 years (the same hotel that some years ago while on our Newbury Deanery pilgrimage to K and K we had a lovely lunch in the courtyard). Although incredibly frail she would sing the hymns at the top of her voice and of course knew them all by heart.

I was asked to do the Requiem Mass on the Friday evening which was quite a privilege. This was mainly for family and the local congregation and I was grateful for all those times I had preached at funerals and could feel assured that nobody had heard my "funeral" sermon before. The next morning's ceremonies started with "the viewing" at the house from 7.30am and then the funeral procession to the church. Huge numbers began arriving from all over the diocese and further afield including several priests. People had driven up from Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in the south and from Upington in the west and Jo'burg in the north. The Mothers' Union members hardly stopped singing; they were quiet for the tributes but as soon as there was a slight pause in proceedings they would start up again. They do not do silence very well here!

The service itself was orderly but chaotic. So many people packed into the church that chairs had to be brought in and nobody seemed to mind that this was happening during the service causing a certain amount of commotion. Even at 8.30am in the morning it was hot and the service went on for some two hours.This was followed by another procession to the cemetery which was a few hundred yards away. Again members of the MU kept up a cacophony of songs until the time caBlog 15 : January 20^th

When we first said that we were going to do six months in South Africa, we were made aware that priests seemed to spend most of their Saturday mornings taking funerals. We have been surprised therefore to have been involved with only two funerals so far. The first was that of a still born baby almost as soon as we got here and then last week we had the funeral of the grandmother of my colleague, Fr. Joseph, at one of our outstations, St. Barnabas, Britstown. I am not sure why we have had so few funerals but perhaps this is further evidence of the way South Africa has at last got to grips with the Aids virus. From the UNAIDS Global report for 2010 comes the fact that South Africa has reduced rates of new HIV infections by more than 25%. It may also indicate the type of community the Anglican church here in De Aar is, as for the most part it is a middle class coloured congregation who can afford preventative medicines. Clergy here only take the funerals of members of their own church, unlike in the UK.

But let me tell you about the funeral of Ouma Hugo (pronounced "Youwho").It was a wonderful example of the African way of death. She was known as Ouma Girlie and had lived in Britstown all her life. She was 95 when she died and obviously had been the matriarch of the town for many years. My colleague Joseph was one of her many grandchildren and like so many African families Ouma Girlie had been literally mother to them all. They all were devoted to her and so was the whole church of St. Barnabas so there was a wonderful mixture of thanksgiving and sorrow that permeated both the Friday evening Requiem Mass and the Saturday morning funeral.

She was a remarkable lady. Emma and I met her once when we first arrived here and she could hardly walk but tenaciously made the 100 yards from her house to the church on two sticks. She was a member of the MU for over 60 years, had worked in the kitchen and as a cleaner in the local hotel for 40 years (the same hotel that some years ago while on our Newbury Deanery pilgrimage to K and K we had a lovely lunch in the courtyard). Although incredibly frail she would sing the hymns at the top of her voice and of course knew them all by heart.

I was asked to do the Requiem Mass on the Friday evening which was quite a privilege. This was mainly for family and the local congregation and I was grateful for all those times I had preached at funerals and could feel assured that nobody had heard my "funeral" sermon before. The next morning's ceremonies started with "the viewing" at the house from 7.30am and then the funeral procession to the church escorted by Mothers' Union members dressed in their black and white uniforms.

Huge numbers began arriving from all over the diocese and further afield including several priests. People had driven up from Cape Town and Port Elizabeth in the south and from Upington in the west and Jo'burg in the north. The Mothers' Union members hardly stopped singing; they were quiet for the tributes but as soon as there was a slight pause in proceedings they would start up again. They do not do silence very well here!

In church the MU stood with candles around the coffin throughout the long service. At times different members or friends from the AWF (Anglican Women's Fellowship) quietly pushed their way forward through the throng to take their place at the coffin while others dropped back, glad no doubt to sit down.

The service itself was orderly but chaotic. So many people packed into the church that chairs had to be brought in and nobody seemed to mind that this was happening during the service causing a certain amount of commotion. Even at 8.30am in the morning it was hot and the service went on for some two hours.This was followed by another procession to the cemetery which was a few hundred yards away. Again members of the MU kept up a cacophony of songs until the time came for the coffin to be lowered into the ground. As many of you will know the hole has to be filled in by male members of family and friends before the funeral is considered finished so we had to endure quite a time in the midday sun with the MU continuing with their repertoire.

All of us then returned to either the church or the house where we were served lunch. It was the usual Karoon style lunch with rice and some cold vegetables and lumps of mutton. Somebody said that 500 people had been fed.

So we retreated back to De Aar after a memorable service during which Fr. Joseph thanked his "new dear, beloved friend Fr. Tom" for doing the requiem mass. I am sure it was genuine but I hardly deserved such a description. But it was great for Emma and I to represent the wider church/MU and the old lady certainly deserved all the recognition she got from all over the diocese. It felt good to be part of it all.

Two things have happened that have been minor disasters. The first that during a shopping trip into De Aar I left Alastair and Emma looking for shoes and nipped into a hairdressers. It was not a good choice. The black hairdresser seemed to understand my need for a trim but then with his electric shaver preceeded to cut off most of my lovely locks! I came away looking like a startled hedgehog and for the first time in my life have joined what used to be called the crew-cut gang. The hairdresser seemed very pleased with his achievement and I had to forlornly leave my fair hair on his floor!! Schoolboy error I guess.

The other minor disaster is that this week we have all been suffering from what is obviously a nasty

gastric flu bug. Emma went down with it last Sunday and we immediately suspected the mutton at the funeral. But it was more than that and we all have had runny tummies, high temperatures and tired limps so I guess there is a pernicious virus around. This meant we had to cancel our trip last Monday to the Gariep Dam, near Colesberg on the River Orange. There has been so much rainfall in the east of the country that the dams cannot contain the water and the sight of it cascading over the dam is sensational. The rains keep falling so we will not miss out.

However as you would expect we have not been idle and have attacked the many boxes lying around the vestry with old records in them. These are records that in England would be carefully looked after and desposited in the local records office. But not here. We have found fascinating correspondence, cheques, minute books, letters from as early as the 1880s especially from one of our outstations in Richmond. This all started with the idea of writing a history of the church in De Aar that Emma had in discussion with an old member of the congregation. We set Alastair on the job of tracking down any history at the local municpal offices and library and he returned with the information that the Anglican church was the first christian community in the town. During my incapacity he and Emma have gone through the records, put them in order and gleaned a little information about the church's history. It has been a good exercise when you do not want to be far from the loo!

The temperature at the beginning of the week was stifling – mostly in the mid 30s – and having a temperature on top of feeling very hot made being ill rather grim. But things are slowly looking up. The rain clouds have returned and the temperatures have dropped so it is feeling much more pleasant and it was easier to sleep last night. The amount of rain we have had this summer has been exceptional and although in other parts of the country it has caused severe flooding and widespread damage to crops here the usually dry Karoo it is looking positively green and the farmers must be smiling.

So we are hoping the illnesses are behind us and we can look forward to better days where we can get on with the work here. We are kept on our toes either shooing away children stealing from the grapevine by the house or now encouraging them to ask politely and cutting the more or less ripened fruit down for them to prevent the frame from collapsing. The grapes are small and seeded and not what we need to be eating just now. We hope they enjoy them. We think some of the local kids have been joined by street children who we have seen beating up smaller boys. The schools have just returned and things are getting back to normal. Already we have meetings in Prieska (180kms) and Kimberley (300 kms) to go to on the next two week-ends. At the last church council meeting on Tuesday we laid down some plans for the next few weeks so I hope I can report soon that we have been earning our keep.

Highs and Lows

As Tom's last blog said we set off on Sunday afternoon in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes with our politician-parishioner Peggy to appear early at the Home Affairs office next day. We were dropped at the nice B&B we had used on our way here.It was even nicer for us because Sue and Richard Booys who had stayed here earlier in the week were now there and they gave us a simple 4 course supper on the veranda – no-one else was around and the owner kindly said they could use the kitchen.

The next day was highly frustrating and gave us an insight into the patience expected of S Africans with their bureaucracy. Without Peggy's influence we might still be there! We were told Tom needed written confirmation from the Bishop that his work was voluntary, and in that we were fortunate as he was in his office. Indeed it was good to have our first interview with him. The other requirement was for me to have a medical and chest X ray – previously we understood only Tom required this, but now it was different. Father Dan who is retired and living in Kimberley was soon on the scene and led us on a hunt for an Anglican doctor he knew. We waited outside theatre in both the state and private hospitals to try to catch her- most unorthodox but who were we to query! We were told she would see us in her surgery so after more waiting I then had to queue in a private clinic for an X ray.

Eventually after much waiting in the heat of the day both the necessary medical reports were in our hands, along with the Bishop's letter and we raced back to Home Affairs at 4pm only to be told that the clerk we needed had gone home. Peggy stepped in once again and mercifully the clerk was summoned back to the office where after another hour of form filling, having thumb prints taken, handing over yet more money, we emerged, the last to leave from the building, pretty confident that the paperwork would indeed be sent to Pretoria for approval. We should be sent a text in late February to say when we can go to Kimberley to present our passports for the relevant stamp!

The three hour journey back to De Aar was enlivened by fairly constant lightning displays to the west and a glorious sunset. The torrential rain hit us in the night thankfully not while we were on the road.

On Tuesday we had to set off again on a 3hour plus journey to Bloemfontein for Alastair to drop off his hire car. We took the opportunity of extending our hire car for the last 2 months as the cost seems good value (as well as benefitting from a/c, Alastair spotted that the red parish car had one bald tyre and the spare was in a worse condition, so we do feel a bit safer. The tyres will be replaced we are assured, and we should have spotted it for ourselves.)

We took advantage of time in this city to picnic at the Waterfront – a park with a concrete pond with waterlilies and plastic rubbish in about equal quantities- and to see the splendid National Museum with its excellent fossil displays. But the real highlight of the day came on our way home when we went to show Alastair the Vanderkloof dam which we knew was overflowing its barrier. The lake behind has got so full after heavier than usual summer rains in the upper reaches of the River Orange that for 2 weeks now it has been spilling over the 107 metre high wall. The plume of spray is often as high as the wall itself and to watch the flow over the lip and plunging down was just spectacular. Earlier in our blog ( Dec 19) we showed a photo of the dam, dry and calm at its base. This shows something of the fall yesterday!

More thunder and lightning last night and this evening have brought further torrential rain and localised flooding here in De Aar but nothing on the scale of Queensland which we have seen on TV to our horror. The soil on my veg patch was being washed away, a fine red silt colouring the rushing water. The french beans and squash are beginning to flower but I am only picking fresh rocket so far. Black cotton has had to be strung across the spinach to stop the birds feasting on the delicate leaves!

The picture shows the little veg patch and the fine sunflower display outside our bedroom window.

Back home

Returning to De Aar, revived and refreshed from our few days holiday, it seemed the right time to sit down and work out a programme of what it was possible for us to achieve in the four months remaining. It is obvious that doing a kind of general visitation to members of the congregation was going to be futile especially as we have discovered that our lack of Afrikaans means that ordinary discourse is very difficult. So a strategy for a good use of our time here was needed and that is what we have been trying to do with the help of the two churchwardens.

The problem is knowing what can be achieved in such a short time. There is so much that we would like to do but most of it would take us years rather than months to execute. However we have identified a couple of areas which we might tackle. We want to try to make St. Thomas more user-friendly to the visitor, stranger, searcher or outsider. At the moment when you arrive at church there is no welcome and no hymn book or service sheets. You are expeced to bring your own! And after the service most people rush away and there is no socialising. So how they expect anyone to feel part of their community is beyond us. But then they are not really geared up to the idea of the service being a vehicle for mission; it is in fact the coming together of a section of the community who see themselves as Anglicans.Talking with the churchwardens we did discover that the previous Rector had invited other churches of a more Pentecostal nature to join St. Thomas and use their facilities. It soon became obvious that these zealous christians wanted to take over the church and were highly critical of Anglican worship. They even accused St. Thomas' congregation of idolatry because they had an altar so you can see how extreme they were. This obviously caused a great deal of upset and explains why there is a great emphasis placed by the church council and by Fr. Joseph, the self supporting priest here, that we re-discover what it means to be an Anglican christian. While that tends to go against the whole idea of ecumenism, we can understand why they are saying this and see many good reasons for going along with this and playing our part in sharing with them what being a good Anglican might mean in this situation.

Then there is the question of the service itself. The tradition of the Anglican Church of South Africa is of the High Church variety due to the fact that the first Anglican missionaries were from religious orders. So to be traditional Anglican is to be of the kind of Anglo-Catholic variety that takes us both back to our childhood in the 1950s. Much of the service is sung to a variety of settings, incense is liberally used and the hymns are from the old Ancient and Modern books with the occasional Mission Praise song (many of which are "old hat" now in England). Luckily the Archbishop of Cape Town (a wonderful man with great presence and leader of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa) has pinpointed liturgical renewal as one of the priorities for the next few years. So I can use this as a way into some discussion about what goes on in St. Thomas' Church.

So it has been agreed that I work on these two areas and I will be giving a Bible Study/Church School each Tuesday evening (starting soon) where I hope we can explore some issues about what it is to be an Anglican christian in De Aar and how the worship can be made much more mission orientated. Not rocket science but I hope that will move the church on a little.

In other areas of church and community life, it continues to be little doing during this holiday period. But we do hope eventually to work with a small HIV/Aids group here and to have some impact on the work with children and young people. But they need to return to De Aar from being away in the south before things can get going. It has been a frustrating time where this has been concerned and a lesson to us. So if you are considering coming to Kimberley and Kuruman for a visit or sabbatical remember that nobody is around at Christmas time and very little happens!

It was lovely to have Sue Booys and her husband Richard staying overnight with us as they made their way from Cape Town to Kimberley. Sue is rector of Dorchester (the one in Oxfordshire) and is having her sabbatical in South Africa. It was lovely to do some real chatting and gossiping and to get news from the diocese. Today we are waiting for Alastair Blaine to come and stay with us. Alastair has just given up his teaching job and hopes to start training to be a priest later this year. He has South African relatives who he has been visiting and now he is coming to spend a couple of months with us in the rather forlorn hope I guess of learning something of how to be a priest! It will be good to have him here.

The mornings here are wonderful. They have been made even more glorious by the news from Sydney of England's wonderful thrashing of the Aussies. There is nothing quite like sitting in front of the TV at 6am in the morning, with a cup of tea in hand and the sun streaming through the windows, and seeing the Aussies grovel!!! It was a great victory but I cannot believe the paucity of the Australian attack and some of their inept batting. The run-out of Watson reminded me of some farcical moments in Church Times cricket.

Our passport/visa problem has returned and we have to make a journey to Kimberley on Sunday so as to be at the Department of Home Affairs there early on Monday morning to see whether we can get an extension to our visitor visas which run out on February 8^th. We are not sure what we will do if we cannot sort this out – perhaps you will see us back home earlier than expected. I guess all will be well but it is a bit of a bore and I expect we might be waiting in queues for a long time. But then this is how it is in South Africa at present, mainly because of the Zimbabwe question.We have enlisted the help of a rather distinguished local lady politician who insists on coming with us to Kimberley so I hope she will be able to pull a few strings.

We hope 2011 has started well for all concerned. We are delighted to hear of a number of couples (children of friends) getting engaged. And we thought marriage was on the way out! We will be back with more news from De Aar soon when I trust we can report that things are really getting going.

Holiday at Groenfontein

 Tom writing: I did manage the early start (5am) to our journey and could relax while Emma drove on almost empty roads for the first hour or two. We were heading south to the Swartberg Mountains for four days at a place called The Retreat at Groenfontein that had been recommended to us by Alastair Blaine who is coming to stay with us soon. We have a slight problem with our hired VW car in that the air conditioning is not working properly and such a thing in this climate is essential. However it did not stop us enjoying another amazing journey over the Karoo and into the mountains and by the time we got to the Retreat I was feeling much better.

So I am writing this at 6am in the morning, on the "stoep" (veranda) of our apartment looking out over the valley to high mountains beyond. This is a wonderful place and rightly called the Retreat as it is 20 kilomettres away from the nearest town (Calitzdorp) up a good gravel road. There is limited electricity (so few outside distractions) and it is only when new people arrive that you can get any important news (like how we are the winning the Test Match!). We have spent our first couple of days walking in the foothills of the mountains, swimming in the small house pool, the lake at the dam (some two hundred yards away) or the rock pools up our valley., and generally chilling out.

There is cloud this morning but that will probably burn away and we will have our usual scorching midday temperatures.

Our routine (E writes) has been to get up and have a walk and a swim before taking a large breakfast at about 10am.Ostrich egg, scrambled or omelette features, amongst much else. Later in the day after reading and chilling we may take another walk/swim. The evening meal is 3 or 4 courses starting at about 8pm and lasting till 11. Guests meet for drinks in the flowery garden before the meal, everyone is introduced and we are seated with care by our hosts along a long table under the cast iron veranda for a most delicious meal. We have met some lovely people of various nationalities and have sampled venison, lamb and fillet beef, as well as smoked ostrich, ostrich pate, a smoked fish delicacy etc. The delicious vegetables and whole experience make it all a huge treat!

The main house was built in 1910 by an ostrich magnate with everything but the stone imported from Britain apparently. It still has a wonderful Edwardian feel, though well modernised of course by the present owners who have been here about 10 years. Last January a fire circled the valley around them, threatening their existence in a terrifying way. Heat damage is visible on the plastic water butts and of course the vegetation. However, the burnt tree stumps of wild olive and thorn and the many flowering plants are throwing out strong new growth.

We are staying in a new building above the old house with garden and hillside right up to our room.

This photo shows one direction.

Everything seems to be in full flower including thorn trees with yellow pompoms. The walks, indicated by painted stones, go over rough stony hillside but as you walk and see tiny bright flowers and swaying grasses you realise you are in a rockery or rock garden, but nature's own. So many of our prized garden plants must originate from the Cape area, which extends to this valley. Is this why, I wonder, it is known as the Garden Route? The valleys have wonderful lush green trees and fields, weeping willows along water courses and lots of large exotic flowers growing wild eg arum lilies just below the little dam.

We have hit on a cloudy spell of weather so as well as some hours of the hottest sunshine it has mostly been dull and even slightly drizzly. But that adds to the beauty and comfort for us, already a little tired of the constant heat and bright sunshine of De Aar and the Karoo.

Little excitements have included seeing a black eagle being mobbed by crows, a very large tortoise living wild as well as a troop of baboons playing on the hillside above the rock pools. With binoculars we coud easily see babies carried on the backs of mothers, large males standing a bit aloof and youngtsers romping around on the rocks. On a day out yesterday we had drinks at a game reserve where we saw elephants walking the other side of a small lake, different buck through the fence of a game reserve and masses of ostriches of all sizes as they are reared round here in huge numbers. The holiday crowds meant we couldn't get into the world-famous Cango Caves but a good film showed us some of the wonders of the huge system of caverns beneath this ancient Swartberg mountain range.

A museum in Outdtshoorn about the ostrich boom of Victorian times was interesting. We tried to get Avis to sort out the a/c system on our VW but so far they don't have another car in the area to give us. (It's now sorted at a VW garage so our journey home will be more comfortable.) One of the guests here has got the owners' computer wifi back working so I hope I can send this blog while here. We had difficulty at home, hence this appearing at the same time as our Christmas one.

Uploading one photo took embarrassingly long in the hotel office so I abandoned the idea of sending this blog till we are home and now I can include a note about our last day and journey homewhich was quite dramatic.

We decided to drive over the Swartberg Pass on an unmade road as the first part of our jpourney home and were rewarded with teh cloud clearing and giving us fantastic views on both sides. The guide book claims it is one of the best drives to be done in S Africa and we wouldn't argue on our limited knowledge. The road was good and wide enough to pass cars in the opposite direction at least on the southern side. Coaches and large vehicles are fobidden and in fact few cars try it, just enough so you don't feel too alone! The scale of the scenery is extraordinary. The northern side is much more barren and the swirling rock folds even more dramatic.

After lunch in the small town of Prince Albert we left the mountains to drive back through the Karoo but to our surprise the clouds had left the Little Karoo where we had been and had come here. Soon we were faced with driving rain and hail, blinding our view so we had to pull over at times. In one of the towns where drought had been so severe that huge notices were posted about careful water use the road was swimming in a foot or two of muddy water. We drove out of the dark strom eventually and arrived home well in time for the New Year's Eve 10.30pm service but it caight us up and has hardly stopped pouring with rain for 16 hours, flooding streets in De Aar.

We were so lucky not to hit that storm on the Swartberg Pass, as either it would have been closed, or if we were on it it could have been very hairy getting off the mountain.Our break has done us a lot of good and we face the new year with new vigour.

We came back to find several more cards for us in the PO box and want to thank you you for all your messages by whatever means. They mean a great deal to us. We wish you all a very happy and fulfilling new year and we send our love.