Action-packed weekend

A courtyard scene, similar to the Al Shabandar Palace Hotel we stayed at in Damascus Syria just before the violence escalated.

We had an action-packed weekend finally putting up our Damascus wallhanging in our middle east corner of the house, and celebrating the arrival of 3 Sling aircraft in Durban. On Friday we partied at Ayre Aviation whose new training plane arrived, our Sling ZDL also being delivered by Mike Blyth of The Airplane Factory, and our friends Marc and Lee whose Sling SAA flew back to Durban the same day too.

Fellow lecturers Tarryn and my daughter Kate-Lynn with Llewellyn at the Ayre Aviation celebration

Around-the-world celebrity and owner of The Airplane Factory delivers Sling ZDL to Dave

Getting back into the pilot seat after a 2 1/2 month gap

Llewellyn has the camera on zoom as we take to the skies

Friends celebrating the arrival of our two planes with instructor Brad

The new rainbow colours of ZDL

Click on the link to see more photos and my flying blog here.

 

80th Birthday party

What a celebration - my mom's 80th Birthday on Thursday 18th October, dinner at home, followed by a birthday bash with family and friends hosted by the Galways at Alverston on Sunday. Mom was surrounded by probably the biggest gathering of the Galway family clan since "pa fell off the bus", and we enjoyed a lamb on the spit, drinks and scruptious salads and puddings.

 

The "old ducks" - mom, Val, Jean and cousin Marie at the party

Birthday dinner at our home

Mom and son, Dave

Granddaughter Kate-Lynn (my daughter) and Llewellyn tuck in

The Galway family clan

My Mom and Kate-Lynn

 

Mom turns 80!

My Mom (left) turns 80 today and she is still working part-time at my attorneys practice, Mc Naught and Co. Incredible!

Mom joined Mc Naught and Co as our conveyancing para-legal after a high-powered career with SA Breweries in Johannesburg and when she moved to Durban, Clements and Johnson Attorneys.

Mom worked tirelessly for me at the Bluff office until she retired in her 60s and re-located to my brother's smallholding in Johannesburg. She lived there for over 5 years until he sold up and emigrated to New Zealand. Mom and Gordon then returned to Durban to be closer to her family and friends and re-joined Mc Naught and Co in a part-time capacity, but coming to work 3 mornings a week, which she has been doing through her 70s, now reaching the milestone age of 80!
 

Thanks Mom for your incredible hard work and commitment to my business over all of these years. Have an awesome birthday today and party with your family and friends on Sunday.

 

Day 10 / 11- Barcelona to Dubai and Durban

It's home james. We had an incredible adventure and visited some of the most amazing places in the world, all in the space of a week. Now it was time to hop on our Emirates plane to Dubai, again arriving in the middle of the night - 1.30am, getting to our complimentary hotel near the airport at 3.15am, only to rush back after a brief sleep and shower to the airport again at 8am for our day 11 flight back to Durban.

The World's tallest building, the Burj Kalifah, just peeing out from behind the building under construction in the haze of a hot (30c at 2am) Dubai

Rear screen projection instructions to passengers.. almost like a hologram

Virtual shopping my daughter taught me.. take a photo and send it for approval before you buy. No, we didn't buy this camel, was just horsing around ha ha

Kate-Lynn meets us at the airport on arrival at King Shaka. The journey has ended.

 

Day 9 at sea on the Liberty of the Seas

We set sail from Naples heading back to barcelona and a day at sea. This gave us a chance to enjoy the ship and it's incredible facilities, particularly for kids - putt putt, FlowRider wave pool, ice rink, movie house, kids pool area H2O zone, kids adventure park, jacuzzis for each age group - kids, teenagers and adults, even jacuzzis that hung over the oven 12 floors below.

Liberty of the Seas - a ship for 3500 passengers

Trying my style on the flowrider

The glass lifts looked out over the decks below and the royal promenade - a street on deck 5 open for 4 floors up.

Our cabin door told a story



Touchscreen infoscreens at every deck allowed you to find your way, or check the program of activities on now and get directions and info on each activity

We thought we might buy an artwork for the house at the ship auction - set myself a limit of $200. But a smaller one than this by the same artist fetched $850 so we gave up. Turns out Britto is quite famous and these were handsigned limited prints which do fetch in the region of $2000 in a gallery. Not prepared to lay out that kind of hard-earned cash sorry.

Large screen TV around the main pool deck showed sports and close-ups of the deck activities - bands playing or fun and games around the pool..

 

 

Naples and Pompei - day 8

Some of the European cities we visited on this trip I have been too as long ago as 1980, but I have always wanted but not been yet to Pompei. This is because I studied Latin at University and one of the major Latin exercises involved translating passages from the books of the time of the Roman Empire. Several of these involved the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on my birthdate 24th August AD 79 (AD also being by name initials btw), which entombed the town of Pompei.

 

The walls of Pompei

Whole rooms are preserved even with their murals and wall paintings and this ancient hot tub

These urns recessed in the surfaces appear to be the kitchen ovens

Several entombed bodies 2000 years old are on display

I'm pointing to Mount Vesuvius which overlooks the city of Pompei. The lava flow killed 3000 citizens in an unstoppable wave. The mountain erupted again in the 1600's and again during the 2nd World War.

Sex symbols were evident in the ruins which gave rise to a hoard of curios depicting the same, alongside pottery and other souvrenirs.

We lined up in Pompei in the colours of the Italian flag

A classic photo of Naples from the ridge with Mount Vesuvius in the distance

Incredible ceilings and glass and metal roof in Naples



The buildings and walkways were in pretty poor state in Naples

Kate-Lynn recommended well that we look for a Canolo in Italy.. yummy like a custard slice in a icecream cone textured roll

Naples of course is the city where the pizza was invented and mighty fine it was too

A drawing we dubbed Pizza Smurf

Our Naples "Italian" restaurant with the tiled mural of early Naples and Mt Vesuvius

We did some good clothing shopping in Naples - here's some jeans I chose for my son

Gelati is what Italy is also famous for and we loved them

Each harbour we entered was already host to several cruise ships - 7 or 8 max and they were arriving and sailing daily