Winter has arrived here in Cape Town with storms and rain. After several years of drought, it is good that the dams are filling up again and most of the water restrictions have been lifted. However, it does mean that there is significant flooding in the informal settlements as there is no adequate drainage or sewers. We currently have regular outages of electricity and no water for days at a time, but we have a wood burner so are kept…
Our apologies, we literally cannot believe so much time has passed since our last post. Back then at the end of September ‘20, it appeared that we would not get home to Scotland in the foreseeable future, particularly annoying as our daughter and son-in-law, Ruth & Justin, were expecting to have their second child in mid-October. To our surprise, however, a travel window opened up at short notice and we made it back on the same day our new grand-daughter,…
This has been a crazy and unprecedented time for everyone the world over and we are no exception here in South Africa. We are still experiencing lockdown levels which prohibit many of the small things in life we all take for granted and a nightly curfew remains in place. I think that when we last blogged we expected that three months later things would be back to near normality. But instead, many of the rules and restrictions remain which has…
Well, the last few months for us all have been almost unbelievable. Virtually the whole world on lockdown, no international travel, essential services only operating… and many hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. It sounds like an apocalyptic Hollywood movie, but it is, in fact, the world we are all part off. We started March looking forward to Don’s family visiting us and although Dorothy and David did arrive, unfortunately due to Covid-19 and the rapid worldwide epidemic unfolding they…
Well here we are in 2020 and already into March. The months since our last blog have been full of “peaks and pits”. As we had reported in our last blog, ‘Peaches and Streams’, we had applied back in September for a further 3-year visa as we still feel a call on our lives to be here in Cape Town and had a peace that if this is where God still wants us to be then the complicated and emotionally…
We travelled back to Scotland in June for a few weeks for a grandchildren binge and to see the rest of the family. We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent, especially with Freya and Sam and have learned that we, in fact know all the words to “The wheels on the Bus” and can still read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” without the book. It’s a pity our memory for more important things is sometimes not as sharp! On the return…
June, and it’s now Winter in Cape Town! No big deal, you may think, you’re in Africa, but for those of you used to cool or freezing nights in Scotland, give thanks for your heated houses. We have been saying to each other that it’s high time we issued another update and looking back on the last one we realise that it has been 3 months since it was sent. But time is flying past with lots happening and both…
It’s been a quite a while since our last blog, which followed the end of Lorna’s cancer treatment in Glasgow. We left Scotland in January, arrived in Cape Town in Summer, and it’s now Autumn. In South Africa, ‘Winter is coming’. We had a very enjoyable festive period celebrating with family and friends, but it was a very special Christmas day as we were able to spend it together with all our children, their partners and grandchildren. It was the…
Lorna ‘Rang the Bell’ at about 10.20am on Tuesday, 11th December, 2018, and was met with applause from hospital staff and other waiting patients. This marks the end for all cancer patients of the gruelling, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment phase of their journey of recovery and Lorna has been discharged from oncology care. Follow up is an annual mammogram for 5 to 10 years. We now go forward into life trusting and living in the hope that the recovery will…
Many of you who have been following our blog will know that as of our last communication from Cape Town, ‘No Longer Slaves to Fear’, Lorna had been through surgery for breast cancer and we were awaiting the results of a genetic test. Unfortunately, the test eventually indicated that Lorna is ‘high risk’ for return of the cancer and this resulted in chemotherapy being recommended by the oncologists. We decided that return to Scotland to be with family for Lorna…