This is "Onbekommerd"!

Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas

We have been having a busy week in Cape Town, Lyn has been testing children non-stop. On Saturday it was Ineke's (my sister) birthday and my parents took us out for lunch at Alphen which was very nice. On Christmas day, we had the 'traditional' Christmas dinner at Ineke and Franco's house. This year only 7 of us: Ineke and Franco's children and grandchildren are away for Christmas and of course Sean is in London. He reports to having had a nice Chistmas lunch at his house there.
Tomorrow we are off to Johannesburg to spend a few days with Lyn's parents and siblings.
Here are some rather dark pictures: one of sunset over Lions Head and one of dinner at Ineke's place.


Monday, December 19, 2011

Back in Cape Town

We are back in Cape Town. On Saturday night  we still had the very special Christmas dinner, which Janine and Gwilym oranised for the 4 of us plus those of our children who are in the UK. So Gwlym and Janine's daughter Severine and her partner Hamish plus Sean made up the crowd (Gwilym and Janine have a married daughter, Sophie, in Cape Town and we of course have Greg there). It was a wonderful occasion with many "Christmassy' highlights of which I would like to share a picture of the 'flaming' pudding.  Christmas in the UK is certainly very much different from that in South Africa, the 'atmosphere' is really there!





Flaming pudding!


You will have noticed that the last few blog entries are rather food-dominated, which I think is resulting in the earlier reported weight loss (thanks to the extra walking) having been nullified. We'll have to work on that in the new year.

On Saturday evening we left London and after a rather long journey via Dubai we are now back in Cape Town. It was of course especially nice to see Greg, I had not seen him in 8 months (Lyn saw him in August). We'll be here until 16 January when we return to London. In the meantime, Lyn has a lot of work to do and I'll catch up on some admin.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Pre Christmas celebrations

With one week to go before Christmas (and one day before we leave for our month long stay in Cape Town), we have been busy with some pre-christmas stuff: the dinners here at The Avenue have been quite festive, we went to Central London for some shopping and last night we had dinner at a real English "Private Members Club"! The first two are adequately described by way of the pictures below:


Dinner at The Avenue. See the Christmas lights in the background. Also be aware that it gets dark at 4pm now! 



Typical London Tourist picture: The horse guards in Whitehall.


The windows of especially the more upmarket shops are beautrifully decorated!


Lyn's cousin David invited us (including Sean) for diner at his club last night. Dave's daughter Kelly was also there. The club is the RAC (Royal Automobile Club), in Pall Mall. It is quite an amazing place, with several bars, three restaurants and a multitude of function rooms plus a TV lounge, an indoor swimming pool, a gym and a very nice library. There are even over 100 rooms where members can spend the night. The dinner was very nice too! Quite an experience in the centre of London.



Sean and Kelly at the Christmas tree in the central hall of the RAC


The RAC library

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Pre-Christmas fever!

It is now 2 weeks to go and Christmas fever is beginning to hit London.
Both on Friday and on Saturday this week,we spent some time in Central London and began to experience this.
On Friday, our good friend Cynthia (who is paying an unexpected but welcome visit to London) planned to do one of the guided tours that are organised by 'London Walks'. She suggested we come as well and we happily joined the 'Dickens Walk', which takes one along the border between the City of Westminster (also called the "West End", where most of the theatres, the Government buildings, the shopping areas and the major parks are) and the City of London (also called "the City", which is the financial centre). More or less on this border are the Royal Courts of Justice and all the (old and new) buildings which have and had something to do with the legal system over the centuries. This is the area around which Dickens moved for part of his life and where he got the inspiration for many of the characters in his books. The tour was very well guided by Jean (in period costume), who must have been an actress in earlier days.
After the tour we warmed up with a cup of coffee and then walked past Somerset House where there is a very festive ice rink.
Here are some pictures:


Guide Jean


Lyn and Cynhia in front of  "The Old Curiosity Shop"




The Ice rink at Somerset House


On Saturday, Rachel (Lyn's niece) and Mathew (Rachel's husband) came down from Cambridge and we spent the day together. The plan had been for Lyn and Rachel to go skating at Somerset house, but all tickets for the day had been sold. As they had ever been to the National Gallery, we went there for a short while. Sean joined in after we came out of the Gallery. This is on Trafalgar Square, where they were just having a 'Santa Takes Over Trafalgar' event (maybe with a reference to the Occupy movement at St Paul's?). The square was teeming with cheerful and festive red clad Santa's; here they can be seen sitting on the base of Nelson's column:



After lunch on the South Bank, we slowly moved to Hyde Park where they have 'Winter Wonder Land', a massive affair with a nice Christmas market, an ice rink and many rides. Unfortunately (and probably at least partly due to the nice weather), it was heaving with people, it was impossible to move around at all, so after a cup of mulled wine we left and walked to Oxford street and Regent street to see the Cristmas lights (which, especially in Regent street, are nice although not on the scale we saw in Vienna two years ago).


Mulled wine at Santa's pub.


The Winter Wonder land rides from a distance.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Sean moving into new premises

On Friday night, Lyn came back from a succesful course in Glasgow (which lived up to the 'cold and wet' reputation). And yesterday (Saturday), we assisted Sean with the move to his new address. First Sean and I took the bus to Hounslow to collect the bedding which he had ordered on-line. It should have been delivered to us, but because of the Christmas workload, the company did not deliver in time (first time I have experienced that here), but they allowed us to collect it from the nearest store. Then the three of us went (with all of Sean's worldly belongings in 2 suitcases and a few random packages) by underground to Wimbledon Park station, which is a 5 minute walk from the house which he now shares with 3 others (see the previous post for more on this arrangement). Although it was dark by the time we got there (around 5.30), the area has a nice 'villagey' feel and the house seems fine. Here are pictures, first of us at Kew Gardens station (showing the luggage) and then of Sean in front of the house.



On the weather front: it is now getting quite a bit colder. We heard on TV that it has been the dryest and warmest autumn in I don't know how many years, which explains why we have not really had any problems with the weather at all. But for next week, we could get a bit of frost (and snow in Scotland and on the high grounds in the North of England but so far not here). In two weeks time, we'll be going to South Africa for a few weeks to celebrate Christmas with the family over there (Greg and our parents and siblings). We look forward to that, altough we'll of course miss Sean a lot.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Quiet time

We don't really have a lot to report this week. We joined the library in Richmond (took 2 minutes vs 2 weeks in Table View). And we finished Lyn's educational programme for children with (all sorts of) learning disabilities. Lyn wrote it principally for the Amathemba school for children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in Table View, and that is where it will be piloted next year, but it has much wider application and we hope to 'spread it' after it has been fine tuned during the pilot. It consists of 5 modules, the total is about 1000 pages of manuals and workbooks plus 'kits' with items to support the actions in the programme. It has been a massive job and has really only been possible because Lyn has not got a daily practise with a client load to look after now.
She left this afternoon to go to a course in Glasgow on the principle of Feuerstein, a subject which she has been interested for many years and for which a course had now finally come up in a (reasonably) accessible place. So I will be by myself in Richmond for the week, although Sean will keep me company, at least after work. His news is that he has found a place to stay, a 'half house' in Wimbledon which he shares with three others. That arrangement ('flatshare') is the norm here for single young people. To rent a full flat for yourself is simply unaffordable in London (unless in a 'not too savoury' neigbourhood). Wimbledon is to London what Perth is to Australia: It is full of South Africans. Apart from Charing Cross (in Central London), there are a number of South African shops in Wimbledon (where you can buy Castle beer, Ouma rusks, NikNaks and ProNutro if you are so inclined). No wonder that his three housemates (a couple and a single girl) are also South African. He is moving in on Saturday (after the company's Christmas party at Hever Castle as reported earlier).
More news next week!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Remembrance day and the Tchaikovsky concert

To start off: in the last post on the British Museum I forgot to mention and show the Rosetta stone. This is a stone 'tablet' which, as it has an identical text in three 'languages', provided the key to deciphering hyroglyphes. The picture below shows the original Rosetta stone, you can quite clearly see the three different texts. There is also a copy of the stone, whch you can lean over (and touch) to enable you to see the characters more clearly. Click on the link for more information.


The Rosetta stone

Last week, on 11 November, it was Remembrance day. That is the day on which the British nation commemorates the people who lost their lives in all wars since WW1. As these people gave their lives to preserve the freedom we all enjoy in Britain today, it is justifyably observed in a big way. On the day itself there is a 2 minute silence, but the main events are during the weekend after 11 November, culminating in the wreath laying ceremony (including the Queen and the 'major' Royals), a short service and a march past in which many military and civil service units also lay wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. In the garden outside Westminster Abbey, which is close to the Cenotaph, there is a field of remembrance, where individuals are remembered by way of small wooden crosses. These are put down there by the regiments etc in which the individuals served, but members of the public can get a cross (a donation for the 'poppy factory', which is an organisation which raises funds to support the families of the war dead and also those wounded in the wars, is expected). As an uncle of Aubrey (Aubrey is Lyn's dad), died as results of injuries sustained in WW1, Lyn put a cross down. As a matter of fact, this uncle, Private P. Pitman, was buried in Richmond. We found the grave in the South Africa section of the Richmond cemetary. The pictures below show some of the above.


Wreaths at the Cenotaph



The South Africa (l) and the M.O.T.H.(r) section at the field of remembrance



An overview of a section of the field of remembrance 



Lyn plants a cross for P. Pitman in the South Africa section of the field of remembrance



P. Pitman's grave in Richmond cemetary


After our visit to Whitehall, we went to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank with Sean to see and hear Janine Jansen with the London Phylharmonic Orchestra play Tchaikovsky's violin concerto which was outstanding. The other work on the programme was the 4th Symphony by Bruckner, which - although performed very well - is not that much our taste of music.


The Royal Festival hall, seen from the balcony seats


In the meantime, back in Cape Town, Greg is very busy with the honey business. Recently, 'Brother Bees' had an order for 500 Kg so he filled 500 1Kg bottles by himself. Here is a picture of the 'stock':

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Aerials and the British Museum

It has been quite an eventful week again. The 'red thread' has been the installation of the aerial(s). Let me explain: we stay in a house which is old, 125 years old to be exact. It is actually (late) Victorian. Why is that important? Well, the TV reception has been quite poor: in the kitchen there was a very old TV with a local 'sprit type' aerial and in the 'front room' a nice flatscreen but with a small indoor aerial which cuased the (digital) picture to freeze regularly. So it was Gwilym's plan to move the (smallish) flatscreen to the kitchen and get a (bigger) new flatscreen for the front room. But to do justice to all of this, we needed a good aerial in both rooms. After some telephonic consultation, the correct aerial was ordered from Sheffield and, as promised, within 24 hours a box appeared on the doorstep containing aerial, cable and several other bits we needed (it still amazes me that you can place an order over the phone with a company several 100 miles away and the goods arrive within 24 hours!). Now the aerial just needed to be installed and the cables drawn, right? Back to the top of this post: It is a Victorian house. It is 125 years old. There are 3 levels and a loft in the front and 2 levels and a loft in the back. The levels are offset as the land is on a very slight slope. When the house was built, these was no electricity, the rooms were lit with gas! So one can understand that routing the cables was a challenge (big understatement!). First, the aerial was installed in the loft:

no problem here!

And the cables run through roof spaces,



through wardrobes, under the floorboards, under the bath and as an 'opus magnus' through a disused chimney flue. The latter was quite an achievment as we had to find the flue inside the brickwork and also on the other side of the ceiling. Suffice it to say that we found it after also having tried to get the cable down the neighbour's flue (which runs in the same brickwork).


OK, 2 holes in the ceiling. But look at that picture!

Anyway, after almost a week, the job is done (apart from fixing the holes in the ceiling) and we have great TV reception in both locations!


By way of a break from all of the above, we went to the Britsh Museum on Saturday. What a fantastic collection of objects from all over the world, ranging all the way back to 6000BC! And it is all 'the real thing', not copies, models or fakes! It is wonderful that all of this is so easily accessible to anyone who wants to see it. As is the case with many museums in Lndon, there is no admission charge (although they do appreciate a donation). Here are some examples of what one can see there there. Click on the links for more information!


A mummy of Cleopatra of Thebes (no, not 'the' Cleopatra)



Model of a chariot. The picture is out of focus, but it was such a beatifully crafted object that we wanted to show it anyway. From the 'Oxus treasure', 4th and 5th century BC.


From the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos. This was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world. The figure on the right is Mausollos, the word 'Mausoleum' is derived from his name.

After many months of work, Lyn has finished the programme for children with learing difficulties. All in all, there are about 1000 pages of manuals and workbooks. This is the culmination of thought processes over the past few years and the time 'off' from the Psychology practise has made it possible to concentrate and pull it all together. A pilot programme will be run in 2012 at 'Amathemba', a school set up for children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Cape Town. When we are in Cape Town for the 'Christmas break', Lyn will be training the Amathemba staff in the 'use' of the programme.
A secondary effect of the work on the programme being finished is that Lyn has found some time for cooking. Here she is in the kitchen yesterday!



Finally, some news from Sean. He is now permanently employed at Pallinghurst. With that come all the corporate trappings like Blackberry, Life insurance, Company credit card and the likes. More importantly it means that he can now start to look for permanent accomodation and start 'living his own life' as he said the other day.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Autumn in Kew Gardens

Not only in Green Park are the leaves changing colour and falling from the trees (see the previous post), the same is of course true for Kew Gardens, just (litterally) down the road from where we stay. On Sunday afternoon we went for a walk there. Unfortunately the weather was a bit gray, so the pictures are not that spectacular but you should get the idea...




Guy Fawkes

On Saturday, it was Guy Fawkes day. Guy Fawkes (with a conspiring group of Catholics) plotted to blow up the houses of Parliament in order to kill (the protestant) King James so they could replace him with his daughter, princess Elizabeth. He was discovered and arrested on 5 November and this is still remembered and celebrated by fireworks and bonfires all over England. So we were expecting fireworks in the evening and we were not disapointed!

But first we met Sean in front of the Queens Gallery. The Queens Gallery is part of Buckingham Palace and it has themed exhibitions of artworks and other memorabelia wich are mainly owned by the Royal family. There are about 3 exhibitions each year, which each are open for 3 to 4 months. In May we saw the 'Dutch Landscapes' and currently they have an exhibition of original photographs of the Antarctic exhibitions of Scott (who missed out being the first man on the South pole by 35 days, the Norwegian Amundsen was there first) and of Shackleton (who planned to cross Antactica but his ship got caught and eventually crushed in the ice). Both expeditions had a professional and official photographer as part of the team and they provided a very interesting and complete 'pictorial report' of the expeditions. Remember that in those days, pictures were taken on glass plates, not easy to bring home!


In front of the Queens Gallery with Sean



Mount Erebus in the backgound. Taken during Scott's expedition. Note the man with the sled in the foreground, clearly showing how enormous 'nature' is.






Two pictures of the Shackleton's ship stuck in the ice.



After visiting that exhibition, we walked through Green Park to see Sean's office in Jermyn street (he showed us his desk). Of course Green Park is not all that Green at the moment, with the leaves all turning yellow and brown and dropping off:



We had a pizza near Trafalgar Square. That is also the address of South Africa House, the SA Embassy which is surely the most valable piece of real estate the SA state owns (even after the 'renovations' on all of President Zuma's residences).


The Springbok above the entrance to South Africa House. Why has it got wings? Looks like an advert for SAA (the old logo was the 'flying springbok).


Finally, we went into the National Gallery. This is quite amazing, it is full of paintings from between 1500 and 1850, Rembrands, Van Goghs, Matisses, Renoirs, it's all there! As it is considered a 'National Treasure', the entry is free (they do like a donation, but no-one pushes you to make one). We just spent an hour or two there, but one should go back there time and again, it is massive!


To end off, here are two pictures of the fireworks that evening, taken from the back garden in Kew. It must have been many thousands of Pounds worth going off, just in the close behind us. As Gwilym remarked: "The bonuses of the lawyers (there seem to be quite a few lawyers in that street) must have been good this year"!



Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween

Although Halloween is really an American 'event', it appears to be quite popular here as well. For several weeks now, aisles in the supermarkets have been full of Halloween 'props', stuff to make kids look 'scary' and pumpkins have been selling well (although by Saturday afternoon they were giving them away!).
So Gwilym and I manufactued a proper Halloween pumpkin with a tea light inside, which this evening as it got dark was put outside as an indication that 12 The Avenue was open for 'trick-or-treating'. In no time our supply of treats had run out, we went to the little convenience store down the road for more supplies and when these were also finished, we decided to extinguish the pumpkin light and close up shop. The kids are mainly very small, and are accompanied by their parents who watch from a small distance. Some have very nice costumes!

Talking about getting dark, we put the clocks back on Saturday night (well, actually early Sunday morning) and now it gets dark around 5!

Here are some halloween pictures. But the first one shows Melody, the neighbour's cat who often comes and sits on the windowsill here, hoping for a treat...


Melody is waiting for her 'treat'


'Planning' the pumpkin


It actually looks quite a 'friendly' pumpkin!


These witches and one wizard also got their treats.


Some costumes are more scary than others!