The satellite photos of Grahamstown are not so hot. However, the street view is pretty good. Here is my parents house :
If you want to take a stroll to the town center, turn left, go to the end of the road, turn left again, go to the end of that road, turn right at the tee, go to the roundabout, turn left then go to the church.
Still just chilling with family. School’s off for summer. Brother-in-law and nephew have gone off on a male bonding trip to Namibia. My speech about our travels seemed to go down well elsewhere. Weather is pretty variable. Plenty of rain.
Haven’t blogged for a few days as family time, while being meaningful to us, doesn’t provide a lot of material to write about. The most notable event was being without power for a day and a half which is now fixed.
Before we came here I was encouraged to provide a public talk about our trip. I still need to prepare. I haven’t got a problem filling the time but I need to spend time picking pictures to show and figuring out exactly what I should talk about from all our experiences over the last three years. That’s hard work.
There is no ‘broadway’ in Grahamstown so we have to make do with the local entertainment. At 1pm we visited the town center cathedral where some local school boys from the choir were making their last ever performance. They seemed to enjoy themselves and had a good crowd of their peers along to watch and support them. I searched for a word to describe my experience and the word that came to mind was riveting. ie, about as much fun as watching someone riveting. On a more positive note, Helen was rather more enthralled by the performances than I was.
In the evening we went to see some local schoolgirls of varying ages perform various dances including two numbers in which our niece Sarah performed. The family involved added a level of interest, Sarah after all was quite cute. But it was all largely girls of various ages in leotards doing, as Helen described it, work outs to music. Worked well for the younger kids but the older ones fell short on potential artistry. (Is this another sign of age in that I’m taking my entertainment in the form of young girls in leotards. No – I’m going further with that thought and it’s not what you might be thinking)
The day ended with a KFC feast. Food again. But good.
Thursday was my mother’s birthday and American Thanksgiving all at once. We all carry British passports and love turkey so given that Helen and I happen to have US passports as well it was a damn good excuse to lay on the bird for a birthday dinner.
For lunch Helen cooked up a good fry up with pork sausages, bacon and eggs and were joined by sister Sue and brother-in-law Jay. In the evening, Jay did a great job of cooking the turkey and in the evening we went round to their place to feast together and enjoy each others company. (Is it a sign we getting on when our highlights of the day are defined in terms of the food we eat?)