Thursday, June 30, 2005

We're leaving on a Winter holiday!


I am very excited!

Sandra has been packing things slowly all week. There is a special kitchen box in the kitchen corner which she has been carefully loading with kitchen stuff and food.

This week we both went shopping for warm warm comfortable winter clothes...

because,...

We will be waking up at 4am on Saturday morning; and be out of the door and in the car at 5am at the latest and driving to the Grahamstown Arts Festival. I have paid for accomdation in a garden cottage of the a woman who lives in Grahamstown. We will have our own kitchen, bedroom, living area and garden. (And of course secure safe parking.) We will be there four nights (Saturday night, Sunday night, Monday night an d Tuesday night.) I have already booked for four main festival performances. On the night we arrive we will be seeing a big jazz band, On Tuesday afternoon a tap dancing/gumboot dancing extravaganze, on Wednesday night a classical music string quartet with a clarinetist and on Wednesday morning for a modern dance performance in the main theatre. (Unfortunately I could not book for Sleeping Beauty as it is sold out already.) Of course we will be booking for other performances once we get there. But it is 100% certain that the main festival events will be sold out by the time time we get there. The last time I went to Grahamastown (more than 10 years ago) I learnt that lesson the dissappointing way. So I have booked for these 4 main festival shows; and of course we will see many others shows that we will only book there.

And then on Wednesday afternoon we drive an hour to the Addo Elephanant national park were we are booked for two nights. This national park is completely malaria free and has all the big five. We are booked for a sundowner game drive that evening; and a morning beginners horse ride the following day. We will then spend the rest of the day driving around looking at animals and stuff; finally falling asleep exhausted in the cottage in the middle of the wild.

The next moring we will wake up early and drive 6 hours to the iNtali river lodge in Port St Johns. We should arrive there in the afternoon and will settle into our river facing bungalow before going to the a la carte restaurant for dinner. We will spend the next day wandering the beautiful beaches of Port St Johns and of course the beautiful hikes near the river. We will sleep there again that night.

Finally on Sunday morning we will wake up; and after breakfast take the last 4 hour drive back home.

And then the next day I will return back to work. Sandra still will have a week left of her holidays, but she has been given lots of work to do and so will be busy preparing for her next semester.

later...

Monday, June 27, 2005

Simbithi

Mom and Dad have invested in property in the Simbithi development up the North Coast of Natal.

Although Sandra and I have often heard stories about the development...

Such as the difficulty of choosing if the floors should be wooden or tiled; and... what colour the fitting in the kitchen should be. And whether a wall should be here,... or there.

Lots of discussions and lots of decisions.

But Sandra and I have only heard these dicussions; for until yesterday we had never seen the development or the progress in the building of the flat my parents have bought.

Well, this Sunday we went up to take a look. Well I had my telephone with me so I took my pictures with my cellphone camera.

We also took a look at the area where a retirement resort is being built within the development. This development looks like it will be a little village with horse riding, boating, fishing, water sports, golf and all sorts of bird life and wild life. It will have retirement suburbs and residential suburbs and holiday suburbs. Its quite exciting to see how much development is happening in Natal and in South Africa at the moment.

Aftwerwards we went to the shopping center right next to the development for a delicious lunch at an excellent Portuguese restaurant.

Throughout the afternoon I took photographs of the flats in all stages of development. I took some photographs of the views. I took some photographs of the plans and adverts for the retirment complex. I also took some photographs of the shopping center nearby where we went for lunch.

Click on the link (Click Me!) to see the slideshow of the photographs.

It could be quite a lovely place for a holiday on the North Coast.

I hope you enjoy the photographs! (Not bad for a phone, hey?)

later...

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Why is my fridge like a cell phone?


Fridge3
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.
Because I keep getting a new one every year and half!

A year and half ago, Sandra called the people who sold us our Fridge and told them that there was something funny with it...

Defy came and took a look; and said that they would give us a new fridge.

Well, that just happened again!

And each time we get a brand new fridge.

How about that!

later...

Friday, June 17, 2005

schuuller and steeevie


schuuller
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.
Well last weekend (wow has a week gone by already?) Schuuler was in town for a photographic assignment. He was contracted to take the still photographs for Standard Bank's next advertising portfolio for magazine and what not. He spent the Saturday in Pietermaritzberg taking photographs.

Sandra and I joined him for dinner at Cafe 99 where we chatted and ate strange avante garde food. (I had chicken steamed in jasmine tea!)

One of the questions he asked, was what is Stevie up to? Schuuler's assistant also was a friends of Stevie's; and also asked what Stevie was up to at the moment.

And I did not know...

Now I do.

He (and his group) were awarded the tender to create a South African television series for the pay channel GO on Dstv!

(Click this link to see what is on GO today. ie if it were possible to click on a relevant day in January you would see Stevie's show on the list! )

Wow. Mom, has said she will want all the family at Durban to watch each episode together at the Cato Road house.

I think it should start broadcasting in January; but I am not sure.

later...

Friday, June 10, 2005

65% for Histology

I just got an sms from Sandra telling me she has got 65% for histology.

So Sandra is continuing to pass difficult exams in courses with complex ideas and in English!

Sehr gud!

later...

...

.. It's in words that the magic is -- Abracadabra, Open Sesame, and the rest -- but the magic words in one story aren't magical in the next. The real magic is to understand which words work, and when, and for what; the trick is to learn the trick. ... And those words are made from the letters of our alphabet: a couple-dozen squiggles we can draw with the pen. This is the key! And the treasure, too, if we can only get our hands on it! It's as if - as if the key to the treasure is the treasure! ------- John Barth, Chimera