Boxing Day flight and lunch at Alverstone

Christmas Day we make merry at home. Boxing Day we usually go out to visit family. This time there were 9 of us with Llewellyn's kids and Dad, my kids and my mom, all visiting the Galways on their farm at Alverstone. There is a little airstrip which ends right at their gate on the farm across the road, so we decided to fly in while our kids drove up there with the eats and drinks. But the left-over Christmas food was aplenty and what a feast we had.

Christmas at home with the brats 2011

Some Christmas Day photos

I have awesome kids and a wonderful family and Christmas is the one day we get together for a feast. We kept it simple this year - tried my hand at cooking a smoked gammon which turned out excellently (as a side dish) and for mains we had a braai and salads with potatoe bake, finishing off with an incredible Lemon Merangue Pie that Lynn baked and loads of sweets and things the kids spoiled me with. After lunch the kids coaxed me into the pool - what is wrong with our water that it's still on the cilled side at the end of December. Thanks Llewellyn, the kids and my brats for all making this an awesome day.

Taking my kids in the Red Rocket

Now that the kids are on holiday and home, now was the chance to take them with me in the Red Rocket. Kate-Lynn and Mark and their friends each took a short flight and felt the controls and saw Durban from the air.

Jeffreys Bay

Bringing Mark's car back to Durban for his holidays proved a challenge.. flying to Cape Town to fetch it, then driving back over 2 days, via Jeffreys Bay. The uBuntu backpackers we stayed in was awesome then we battled the rain, mist and dark the next day - 13 1/2 hours to Durban from Jbay arriving past midnight.

1st stop Stellenbosch to Durban - Jeffreys Bay

This is the first time I have driven in a car the whole day and not been the driver. We left Stellenbosch this morning at 7.30am with my daughter kate-Lynn driving and ended in Jeffreys bay with Mark at the wheel for opur first stop on the 2-day trip in Mark's car back to Durban after finishing his 2nd year at Stellenbosch University. Kate-Lynn also got her final year B.Ed results in Stellenbosch shortly before we left... completing her degreee with a 91% aggregate. Wow!! Well done Kate-Lynn.

Exams over !! and it's holiday

Both my kids have finished their exams for the year - Kate-Lynn her final year B.Ed degree and Mark his 2nd year Engineering. Wow, well done brats!! So Kate-Lynn is snapped here jetting off to Cape Town for a few days to join Mark. I will then fly in on Thursday and we will all drive Mark's car back to Durban over the weekend so he will have it here for the holidays. We're going to try and make it back in 2 days so will stop over at Plettenberg Bay, Storm's River or Jefferies Bay, depending how the road goes. Should be a fun road trip again.

Into the Blue Sky

Durban's blue skies yesterday was an opportunity to get a clear photo of our World Cup Football Stadium from the air, while on a breakfast flight to Pietermaritzburg before work.

Awarded my Wings today

Today was an awesome day as I completed my flight test and was awarded my wings - National Pilot's Licence in our Sling airplane. My instructors Brad (left) and Noel (right) congratulate me on the achievement. Thanks guys for your guidance and great training. Check more photos on my flying blog here.

Mom turns 79

Congratulations to my mom on reaching the ripe old age of 79!! Next year it's the big one! Here she is with her brothers and sisters-in-law and good friend Jean at the Durban Country Club where we enjoyed a spectacular dinner.

40 year Reunion - Kloof High School Matric 1975

So I started another Facebook group today.. this time for our School Matric 40th reunion intended for a date to be arranged in 2015. Can we be planning so far ahead, and can it really be so many years in the past since we left school!! I have looked over the past few years for school friends on Facebook with little success. The only ones I have some contact with are my friends Greg and Ingrid Boothe over in New Zealand and Linda Peterson (now Rethman) I bump into at our local Spar from time to time. So I have found Shelley Cooke today - both she and Linda helped organise the 1990 - 15th year reunion which was a huge success, and I will delve into old records and see if I can recreate the class lists again. I was in Form VI A (Standard 10) which would now be called Grade 12 and I think there was up to a D class.... a huge project, particularly as it seems my generation don't seem to be particularly computer literate or on Facebook. So if you know anyone from Kloof High School in the 1970s, they are all welcome to attend and they may have brothers or sisters who were in Matric in 1975. Click on the link to the Facebook group here, join and let's chat and make this happen. I'm also on cell 083-7033329.

Kate-Lynn's first job

We were out celebrating with a sushi-feast last night as Kate-Lynn scooped her first job for when she completes her teacher training B.Ed at the end of this year- and it's a lecturing post at her training college. Wow that's awesome and a great achiement!! Well done big girl and another milestone.

So we were out celebrating the big news.

New life in Durban for our Sling

Our new baby has arrived (well my instructor Brad and I actually flew it back to Durban from the factory at Tedderfield Airfield in Johannesburg). Here Llewellyn, Kate-Lynn and I welcome the plane to Light Flight School where I will complete my NPL training in our plane.

Come check it out!!

You're invited to a bring-and-braai on Sunday at my Flying School, Light Flight in Cato Ridge to check out our new plane. Will be flying in the am but the plane can be seen any time from 10am and I will light fires from 12.30.. so please come and be part of the excitement.

Damascus, Syria

For some reason most of my photos of beautiful Damascus seem to have been overwritten by later pics with the same image numbers as my Damascus pics, so I seem to have lost them.

Having toured Jordan, which itself was incredible, we took a taxi up through Jordan on the road to Damascus from Amman. It was ridiculously cheap, like R200, for a 2 hour journey that took us into another country and border crossing all for that price.

Here are my only images of the border crossing and subsequently our palacial suite in the Al Shahbandar Palace Hotel in the old city in Damascus. (pics to follow.. my external drive is suddenly not working)

Al Shahbandar Palace Hotel in Damascus

Petra - incredible temples in the rockface

Red Sea at Aqaba

We met a great bunch of people on our tour to Wadi Rum and then together on to Aqaba where we stayed at the Bedouin Gardens (hostel) for 8JD each sleeping on the rooftop under the stars overlooking the Red Sea, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Sunset over Egypt seen from Jordan across the Red Sea

Desert safari in Wadi Rum, south Jordan

What an experience - cruising the desert with a group of foreigners and our Bedouin hosts, climbing rocky mountains and dunes and bedding down in a desert tent camp; finding a hedgehog in the sands and enjoying a feast (braai cooked underground)... and meeting our host Tyseer in Wadi Rum.

First views of the Jordan desert and Amman

First view of the Amman residences from the Citadel

Work is in the street

Hole in the Roman wall

Desert everywhere en route to Amman

Stopover in Dubai - Emirates everywhere

Misk Hotel, Amman - one of the better Hotels we stayed at

A culture experience describes our first glimpses of Jordan and it's capital city Amman.. house/boxes everywhere and not a blade of grass/flowers anywhere.