Since writing my first blog entry (25 November 2007) so much has happened that I feel I should give a summary of events from the first entry to this penultimate entry which supercedes my final blog, written 30 June – 12 July 2008, but not on the net yet!!!
I am sitting at the dining room table at a unit in the newly completed “Pearls” in my home-village, listening to the ocean, writing. The planned “Pearls” complex and the “Pearls Tide” section of this beautiful complex is situated on the site of the old Umhlanga Rocks Hotel, which was demolished about 3 years ago to make way for this new development. We are not in the already completed tower block, but in one of the front units closest to the sea, between granny’s pool and the new pier. We are probably in the area of where the old hotel’s dining room used to be!!!
Take a look at the whole complex as it will be when completed.
www.thepearls.co.za
This has brought back so many memories for me, as during the Christmas holidays Father Christmas always visited us at this hotel bringing us gifts and throwing a marvelous party, with a Punch and Judy Show and magicians performing tricks. As children we loved this annual event and this usually led to the wonderful long summer days when we had special permission to use the hotel’s swimming pool to cool off in.
My Mum and Dad, who have lived in and around the village since 1952, came over for tea and cake to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary, and then stayed for a drink so that they could see the lights on the pier!!! What a change this is from the little village we all so loved.
Over the years Mum and Dad have collected an amazing amount of photographs and information about the village as they remember it and they brought me an article written by MJ O’Connor in “The Quarterly Newsletter of the Natal Inland Family History Society” which has a picture of the old Umhlanga Rocks Hotel ca. 1950 on the cover.
Having just re-read this article again whilst being here at the “Pearls” has given me more time to reflect on the stories and memories that he writes of – which are mostly from before I was even born, but the thing that struck me most is that we had a Rosslyn Cottage in the village!!!
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Da Vinci Codewww.danbrown.comI have lived in two different locations in Umhlanga, the first being 25 Chartwell Drive, now called “The Fountains” and then 66 Chartwell Drive, which my parents built over weekend’s during the early 1960’s.
So this is where this penultimate entry begins, it almost wipes away the newer memories of the past months whereby most of the time we are so busy that there is hardly time for reflection. So back to the present ………
We have now completed our “silly season” being from mid November to mid May every year. Because we are in the fresh cut flower industry, this, in the southern hemisphere, is when our industry blooms as it were!!! Starting during November with end of year and pre-Christmas functions and summer weddings, the season starts with a bang!!
Usually every second year, we travel at the end of October and into early November to visit the annual flower show at the RAU in Amsterdam, getting back just in time to go into the silly season, but last year even though we should have gone we didn’t. Diwali and Eid fell close together at this time, making it impossible for us to travel. And so the annual festivals of different and diverse cultures keep our business busy.
Once the Christmas and New Year rush is over, we escape to the mountains of the Drakensberg to recover and “chill”, and this year was no exception. We stayed in a chalet at Alpine Heath and enjoyed the quiet stillness of the ‘berg! On the walks we enjoyed, there was so much running water and waterfalls that I could not resist taking endless videos and pics with my new cell phone camera!!
Once home from the ‘berg it was straight into Valentine fever!!!! Oh my word, this is the busiest time for us and it is sooooo hot on the east coast of Africa!!!! On the Wednesday before Good Friday our lives were turned topsy turvy when our daughter was thrown off a horse and concussed. Whilst waiting for her to return from the x-ray department to casualty in Entabeni Hospital on Durban’s Berea, I bumped into Peter who had just returned from Thailand.
It was a bitter-sweet reunion as his grandson Joel was in surgery having a large tumour removed from his head. He has since been diagnosed with brain cancer and had another tumour removed and is now having chemo and radiation therapy. This is another story in itself, and prophetically I believe he is on his way to a full recovery.
Fortunately for us, our daughter after a long recovery is much better, and her knees have healed sufficiently for her to begin kite surfing again. She has also joined the new Durban Salsa Club, which is looking for new members.
www.ocean2air.co.za
Before we could blink Easter was upon us as it came the earliest that it can this year – that being 23rd March.
www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2004/apr9a.html http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?gid+20080305144513AAxRIRK
Life got back into it’s hectic swing, and our domestic helper was still away with TB. She has now resumed work during the month of June and is doing extremely well. In the meantime we resumed band practice and also sang at Twilanga a couple of times. The combined years of experience of our band is almost 200 years, and if you watched “America Has Got Talent” and remember Rapping Granny – you get the idea!!!
During this period I spent a lot time updating my website – focusing on sheet music with the long term vision of showcasing music from the heart of Africa. In the meantime for starters, if you have already recorded your music, no matter if it is a home recording, no matter the quality of the recording, we would like to unite and work towards letting our readers hear your music.
E-mail us on info@lkf.co.za for further information.
I am hoping to begin a bell ringing group during the course of 2009 and invite anyone who would like to participate to contact us at the above e-mail address.
Then on Monday the 21st April, I found myself sitting enjoying the view of our beautiful new home. I was unable to get going! What on earth was happening? I relaxed and enjoyed the moment which lasted most of the morning!!!! At about 12.15 noon the telephone rang, “We’re at the hospital Mum,” said my son. “Mom and baby are fine.” It’s a girl and I am now a granny!!!!
Oh the joy of seeing them all!! We traveled to the UK to see our gorgeous grand daughter leaving home on 22nd May after completing the silly season here with Mother’s Day.
During our stay in the UK my daughter and I made contact with her singing partner, who wrote the most beautiful song for our fairytale wedding. Having lost touch for a period of time we traveled for 2 and half hours by car to visit his home in Surrey. It was a wonderful reunion, where we met his lovely British wife and their two beautiful daughters. The long summer evening was even more enjoyable when we were joined by his South African parents with whom I had worked whilst in the music department of a boys private school in Durban.
When we got back we had an invitation to attend a wedding in the wild!!! This took place near Hluhluwe in Zululand (the Kingdom of Heaven) and it was a wonderful relaxing weekend away for us.
Once upon a time, when I first met my Prince on a blind date, we attended a party at Slor’s beautiful home in my home-village, but that is another story …….
Out of the blue on Monday 21 July, when we were packing up to holiday at the “Pearls” my forever friend, Slor gave me a call!!! Being a real estate agent in my home-village and the Mount Edgecombe Estates, she was interested to see what our holiday unit was like. We arranged to meet there and afterwards lunched at the fantastic new health restaurant Gusto’s where, we both downed a wheatgrass shot whilst ‘walking down memory lane”!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MountEdgecombe,KwaZulu-Natal
http://www.umhlanga-coastline.co.za/information-mt-edgecombe.html
It was hard to say goodbye to the “Pearls” on Friday morning, so we drove home along Chartwell Drive and took pictures of the location of my original family homes. Number 25 now comprises of two duplexes and gone is the old ‘wood and iron’ structure on stilts that I lived in until we moved to number 66.
Amazingly, as we drove past number 66 (now a holiday home) the maid was cleaning at the front door, and I asked if I could walk around and show it to my husband who had never been inside. It was such a wonderful walk down memory lane and I noticed that even the old piano I learned to play on, is still there, along with the snooker table and a few other items of furniture that we grew up with.
And so it would seem that during my long illness I have suffered and battled to work and play the game of life, but as my healing is coming to completion and my energy levels return, I am discovering that this was no more than a conversation with God. I am convinced that it has saved me from myself, as I would have wandered far down the track into no-man’s land wondering where and why I was going, never finding the way home.
Now, I am in a place of perfect peace, knowing God, past the believing, and having learned to
Be still and know that I am God…………. Friday 25th July – Sunday 27th July 2008
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