Last Friday my 3 other sisters, Sarah, Nicola and Sohpie came for a 6 day visit, Alice having been here in December. What a lucky person to have sisters who care enough to come all this way for my birthday! Sophie has her daughter Lucy living in Joburg so she likes to come out twice a year and Sarah and Nicola took little persuading. None knew the Karoo and found it as beautiful and captivating as we do.
They arrived during a deluge of what the papers say was 60mm or 2.4inches of rain falling in an hour and more rain continued to fall that day and much of the next. They wondered if they were going to get any sunshine at all, surely one reason for coming to SA in February. Fortunately they did but the one swim in our olympic sized pool was during a bit of a sand storm, in cloud and distinctly chilly.
On Saturday a parish fund-raising braai was held and since the yard was ankle deep in mud, and rain fell much of the afternoon, the fire was lit under our porch between the kitchen and the garage. This made for plenty of chance for interesting chat between us all and those doing the cooking, but also involved some intrusion into our small kitchen where we 4 sisters and Tom were trying to make potato salad for 80, Tom having volunteered it. Since we had also just finished feeding two bishops, more of which from Tom later, it was a bit fraught shall we say and gave me reason to say roll on proper retirement! Food was put into polystyrene boxes and collected by those who had bought tickets, a practice that often happens, which was just as well given the drenching rain and mud. We sat round our dining room table eating our Karoo lamb, sausage and potato and pasta salads and later restored ourselves with whiskies!
As well as the fun of being together preparing meals and relaxing, we had some great outings seeing some very special birds and beasts. Four blue cranes were strutting around in the tall, bright green karoo grasses, in easy viewing distance with binoculars; ditto a lone bustard (Ludwigs bustard we think), many flamingos in a shallow lake, Egyptian geese, and lots of storks. On another day we saw no birds of significance, couldn't get entry into a nature reserve because the roads had been rain-damaged, but saw many different kinds of buck and baboons from the ordinary roads.
We usually get out of the car and look for some time with binoculars as the roads are so empty that is not a problem. The big Vanderkloof dam we visited again was this time a muddy brown as it is now bringing down silt from surrounding mountains.
More to follow about the rest of the week.
Tom writes : In the last blog I said that we were preparing for the Bishop's visit. I surmised that he might be coming to talk about the future of the parish. Nobody had told me why he was coming but it quickly transpired that my guess was wide of the mark. The reason for his visitation was to try and clear up a rather acrimonious dispute that unknown to us had been going on between two of the leaders of the parish. It would be unwise of me to say much more as this is a public forum but one of them was my colleague so it was good that I should be around to lend support. Not that I wanted to take sides and I certainly think there was wrong on both sides but as I need to work with Fr. Joseph then it is good that he sees me as a friend. The Bishop brought along Bishop Patrick, a retired bishop with a wealth of experience in dealing with reconciliation, and he skillfully guided us through the morning's discussions. In the end we believe that the difficulty had been resolved and I was asked to say so in my sermon during the next morning's Eucharist. It certinly seemed to lighten the atmosphere in church and the morning's service was the best piece of worship we have experienced here. Let us hope it continues this way.
