a quickie

We have company and I am waiting for them to come back for the day. So I grab a few minutes for a post.

The visitors are the folks I visited last year in Chiang Mai. My cousin's son and family live in Mai Rim, teach at an International School there. They have visa issues, so Mom Mary and Daughter Maeve have come to Singapore to visit the Thai Embassy and get visas. In fact they are only in Thailand for a few more months. They are moving to Italy, the north, near Lake Como. Gorgeous country. And George is nearby. That would be George Clooney. Yum.

I wanted to talk more of safari, but how quickly memories fade. That is the real reason I keep this blog. Yes, to stay connected, but I will have a record of our adventure. 

A few things of our South Africa trip, that I wanted to mention. At Phinda we had wonderful food, beautiful meat, freshly baked everything (there is no corner bakery) and everything done very au courante. Crisp vegetables, beautifully presented. 

When we came in for coffee to start the day there would be some wonderful bread/toast/brioche, whatever. There was a wonderful crunchy bar that I raved about to the cook. The next morning she gave me her recipe! Printed out on the computer. How's that for full service!

When planning the trip I went through an agency "&beyond". When the trip was getting bigger ($$$) I said we were making it our 30th anniversary trip. In fact on our anniversary I will be in Canada and Tim will be in Singapore. So. 

Well every hotel we went to, we had the champagne on ice, glasses, and chocolates...whatever. At Phinda we came home from a night drive, and dinner, and came back to the cabin filled with maybe 50 tea lights, to a hot bubble bath and champagne! Tim poured my champers, I put it on the table by the tub, and climbed in. The table was a chunk of a tree trunk, beautiful, but not level. As I sat in the bubbles. I watched my glass slowly creep to the edge and fall to the floor. The romance of the moment was lost as Tim is down on hands and knees collecting broken glass in a towel. But it was a lovely thought.

We stopped along the east coast at Port Elizabeth. We rented a car and snooped around for 2 days. Then flew in to Cape Town. We had bumped in to a fellow pilot friend of Tim's on the flight to S.A. and he was going to be in Cape Town (he is from there and was back visiting family) and we met up with him in Cape Town. Synchronicity, you've got to love it. 

We went one evening in Cape to a restaurant celebrating African cuisine. A tasting menu of 14 dishes. Fabulous. And entertainment. Dancing and singing. This was very much a touristy thing, but bumped up to real quality food and entertainment. We went early and had a drumming (djembe) lesson. Tim was hilarious. He does not have to be musical to be a pilot and that is a good thing. (He is hopeless with music. I looked over and he was in heaven but no where near the beat!)

I had lunch today with a friend from Toronto. I used to volunteer at Wellspring and Lynda Morrison was the director. I had heard she had moved to Acadia U. and I contacted her and she emailed me back. I had not answered her email for several months. Well, at my book club Skype, Marny, a friend of mine from Wellspring days just mentioned that she thought Lynda was in Singapore. I emailed Lynda right away, she was leaving the next day, and we connected and had lunch together. The synchronicity of that is so wonderful. If Marny had not mentioned Lynda (out of context in the book club Skype) it would not have happened. 

Company's back. I will post photos in a bit.