Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

On Friday, we flew to Durban and spent a wonderful long weekend in Umhlanga Rocks, a seaside town about 20k north of Durban.The weather was beautiful and we had a room with a sea view.The vegetation was thick and lush; banana, date and coconut palms, giant tropical bushes, colourful flowering trees. The crop in that area is mainly sugar cane, rolling up and down hills, right to the coast.
We hired a car and drove along the “Dolphin coast” (no sightings) then inland to see the grave of the Zulu King Shaka who was stabbed by his brother in 1828. There was a very good museum there and we had a personal viewing of the AV presentation. We also watched an Indian wedding at the Town Hall in Dukaza. The wedding outfits were exquisite; the groom had a white suit, white shirt and red cummerbund and tie, with a huge long silk scarf that reached right down to the ground. The bride was in red and gold, full makeup and mendhi on her hands. There were a number of tiny children there, all beautifully dressed in traditional Indian dress. In Durban city centre,we went to an indoor meat and fish market which was gross! Sheep’s heads, pigs trotters, gizzards, lungs, it was like a mortuary! Yuck! It was a bit like the markets we saw in Hong Kong, although at least in Durban the fish were dead before the stallholders chopped them up! A breath of fresh air was needed, so we headed for the beach to watch a surfing competition with live commentary broadcast by a local radio station.
This is a strange week. Monday was a holiday and this coming Thursday and Friday are also holidays, so many people are taking Tuesday and Wednesday as annual leave, getting 10 days off for just 2 days leave .Les has closed the factory for the week as so few people would have been in. Today I was at the school again and in the afternoon we went shopping. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are going to Pretoria to visit the big museum there (after the gym, of course). On Thursday, we will need to do some housework as we may have a guest coming on Friday….all the way from Oz, that philosopher extraordinaire, Mr Martin Barnes has cashed in his savings to purchase a ticket to sunny SA. But his efforts to get here have been fraught with difficulties, such as public holidays in Oz, computer problems at the travel agent and RBS refusing to release him his money, thinking he has been robbed in Australia! So we wait and I won’t actually believe it until I see him coming through the arrivals gate!