Holiday before the holidays

Today is a holiday. How good is that, a day off work the week before Christmas? It is Reconciliation Day. Since we are going away for Christmas, we have no shopping or preparation to do, so we went to Pretoria. I wanted to see the Voortrekker Monument as I had been reading about it in one of my books about the history of SA. It is a huge, stark edifice but inside it has a fabulous museum, stucco panels, tapestries and embroideries all depicting the Great Trek when the Dutch settlers left the Cape area, partly to find more fertile land and partly because, er, the Brits decided they would like to have the Cape, thank you very much, and chased the Dutch out! Oops! We decided we could look, but keep our mouths shut! It was very interesting. Before we set off to go to Pretoria, we joined the local gym. Yes, that’s right, WE joined, me too. I will probably regret it soon enough, but I am going to go to water aerobics and yoga as well as go on the walking treadmill. My induction is tomorrow morning. We’ll see how that goes!
The braii on Friday for the team from Les work was a great success.Drink was taken but not by me, sadly. Not much anyway. We all sat outside from 11.00pm until midnight whilst the gents enjoyed a fine cigar and the rest of the women finished the wine. I had coffee. Hmmph. It was still warm enough at that time of night not to need sweaters on. We decorated the braii area with tinsel and tiny trees and I had Christmas tablecloths and napkins so it all looked quite festive.
On Saturday, we went out for dinner then on to the Johnny Clegg concert which was fantastic. He is big in France but despite being born in Rochdale UK is a real South African and his songs are quite political, attacking racism, celebrating the new South Africa and attacking Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. He is known here as “The White Zulu” as he has such strong sympathies with the people, and a command of the Zulu language.
The freight is here at last! How nice to see pictures of the wedding, graduation, nights out and also The Book which was prepared by kids from GHS and will be going with me to schools after the summer holidays. As for the eight handbags, you will all be glad to hear that included Les rucksack and briefcase, so it is only 6! So none spare, Susan!