Jessie's web-site letter - September 1998
Family news from Cape Town and around the world...

After our Golden Wedding celebration, Carl and Colleen returned to the USA, Julia to Australia and Mish and Family to Johannesburg.

All the happy reunions were suddenly over.


Hans and I went back to routine - disturbed by my heart problem during January, the second since mid 1997) - till doctors advised open heart surgery for early February - in fact February 5th.

It was quite a big deal, about which I recall very little, but which Hans found hard to live through: triple bypass and valve replacement. I suppose I must have looked a bit of a wreck for the first few days, but things seemed to go normally, and after some weeks I was discharged, only to suffer a pleurisy for which I went back to hospital for a couple more weeks.

After that, improvement went smoothly, with Hans being master-of-medication, handing out the pills I had to take morning and evening. (Now, six months later, I take only a couple, which I can remember myself!)

As I got stronger I could even submit to the prescribed "walks" which seemed so futile after the life of energetic exercise I had always loved.

Of course, once one accepts certain permanent limitations, one can get on with day to day chores. Having to give up riding was one of my harder decisions. But there's more to say about that a little later.

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New York Visit - June 1998

By April-May Carl was urging us to visit him in New York, promising us ease and comfort and nothing more to do than what we felt like. With doctors backing we left for New York at the beginning of June. I was glad because I was sure Hans would find it stimulating, and the trip turned out a great success.

Carl and Colleen had moved from Honolulu to Mt Vernon, New York, to be near his boys living in Bronxville. They were soon into jobs and bought a house which Carl very soon improved and Colleen's good taste made a very pleasant and attractive home. There is a good bit of garden, which Carl loves to work in, and a couple of great trees.

The whole of Mt Vernon and Bronxville have beautiful trees, and Hans and I loved to walk to the shops, or just walk for pleasure.

Some of Carl's old friends were really kind to us, inviting us out, including Lisa and Anton Barth (ex South Africa) and Lisa's parents, the Christensens. All of them we knew before. Lisa took me to two pony days with their middle daughter who is mad about riding, me being about as mad about horses as little Laura!

We were able to spend some time with Lybi in the "next door" suburb of Bronxville - for supper once, for walks along a very pleasant walk where Zak could ride his bike all over. Amiel was still not too keen on his little bike with training wheels, nor quite in control! I found a good remedy to be a length of rope to tether him from behind, to keep him from running down slopes into the lake.

Lybi works at Disney publishers on the magazine "Discover". She showed us over the premises and I was very pleased to see she had the most spacious office with the best view from her window. Together with a colleague of hers we had dinner in downtown Manhattan on our last night there, July 1st. After dinner me were amazed that her friend insisted she was quite safe to walk to her train alone. It seems New York is a far better place than it used to be. They say the present Mayor was responsible for the big "clean up". Perhaps it is also because of America's prosperity and low unemployment that most people have jobs and are not desperate.

Carl and Colleen's jobs have progressed. Carl is Sales Manager at SE Technology, based in Stamford north of New York. Colleen works as dual manageress at Movado Watches at a big new shopping mall in White Plains, Westchester.

The boys spend equal time with them and with Lybi. Enjoying the love of both households, they are bright and cheerful. Zak exceptionally bright, being an eager chess player at 8 or 9 years. Amiel has just graduated from baby school to real school this September 1998.

[There are some photos from our New York trip on this web site too.]



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Birthday season in Cape Town

Hans and I returned home on July 2nd, all the better for our trip. Next thing, what about visiting Julia in Australia while the going was good?

First, on July 17th, came my 80th birthday - I could happily have postponed for another 10 years! However almost sharing it with Nelson Mandela (18th July) makes up for a lot.

Hans decided it would be nicest to invite whoever of the family were available locally, to have lunch on Table Mountain, going up by the new cableway to the new restaurant up there, well camouflaged not to disfigure the summit of the mountain.

All week it had rained intermittently, and it seemed "plan B" for an ordinary restaurant would have to be resorted to. However the weather gods were with us, and the day turned out like polished crystal, as only an occasional Cape winter day can.

The family turn out included of our generation Hans's brother Walter , Eva Engel our old friend, and Gertrude, Hans's sister. Of the next generation there was Walter's son Robert and his wife Maryke, our son Paul and his wife Lindsay and their children Marc, Jeff, Laura and Cathryn. Mish, our son, and Colleen from Johannesburg, with their children Shingi and Temba.

All were delighted with the day.

 [There are some photos of my Table Mountain birthday lunch on this web site too.]

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Leipzig Synagogal Choir at the Baxter Theatre

Julia again urged us to visit while North Eastern Queensland was still reasonably cool. However Hans had the visit of the Leipzig Synagogal Choir, which he had been instrumental in inviting to South Africa, after he heard them in Leipzig. (That was when he and Walter had been in Germany in October last year, 1997.) He was very anxious that the two concerts organised at the Baxter Theatre in Rondebosch should not prove a flop.

He had no need to bit his nails - both concerts were almost fully booked out, and one heard only praise from all who were there. Very gratifying to all concerned, and particularly to Hans and to Rodney Philips, the Director of Baxter Theatre.

Hans has always been very closely connected with the Baxter since it was in the planning stages, based on a bequest by the Duncan Baxter family of last generation, to provide a dramatic center for the University of Cape Town and for "all the people of Cape Town". Of course the Apartheid Government of those years didn't like that aspect of it! The board of the Baxter stuck to their guns and the theatre has always had open doors, even though at first few of our black people availed themselves of it. Now it is the most popular venue in Cape Town. Having been Chairman of the theatre board for a number of years, Hans is still very concerned with its welfare.

Besides the Leipzig Synagogal Choir's visit, Hans also claimed he had too much of his own affairs that had been somewhat neglected since the beginning of the year, and couldn't go to Australia.

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Off to Australia, Aug-Sept 1998

I didn't want to delay till the cool season next year, and even my doctor encouraged me, so I set off on my own on Singapore Airlines from Cape Town to Cairns direct - Cairns now having an international airport. I did though have a long sit at Singapore airport, but the joy was to be met by Julia early Sunday morning in Cairns.

I spent a couple of days in an apartment in Cairns town centre, as Jeshan was moored right across on the opposite side of the water, meaning a heavy pull back and forth in the rubber dinghy.

Julia then arranged a two day stay for us at a cattle station at Mount Mulligan, away over the coastal ranges and very dry and barren by comparison with the coast. We found it most interesting, even if the accommodation was a bit basic. The young man who runs the place almost single-handed, plus the cattle work, deserves to be congratulated. Also staying there was a young Israeli lad who was apparently paying for his keep by doing some hours of domestic work each day. An interesting young man who had taught himself to play the didgeridoo very well.

There were a bunch of young sheepdogs and cattle dogs, and a pure dingo the young man, Owen, had found in the "veld" when its mother fled. He had brought it up like any puppy and it behaved just like any of the other dogs, a very nice animal.

Mount Mulligan was a coal mine town from about the turn of the century and quite a little town grew up there until 1957 when it was closed down and the houses all removed, except the hospital which now serves as the homestead for the cattle station. Mr Mulligan, after whom it was named, was one of the early gold prospectors up in Northern Queensland.

[You can see some of Julia's photos of Mount Mulligan on this web site too.]

When I arrived in Cairns, Julia's sailing friends Todd and Elsie - whom we met on their boat Coquitlam in Annapolis when we visited Julia there in about '85 - had just arrived there too. They had sold their boat and become caravan nomads for a while! They very kindly invited me to join them for a drive to Port Douglas, a little way north of Cairns, while Julia was working.

While making our way south a couple of weeks later (more about that shortly) we also met other friends of Julia's, Alan and Patricia Lucas, at Tweed Heads. Alan was delivering their previous boat, which they sold recently, to the new owner and Patricia was keeping pace in the car in order to return together to Maryborough where they are building a fine new boat.

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Cairns to Tintenbar by camper van

Our journey south from Cairns was by camper van, in fairly easy stages - it's a long way! All arranged by Julia, me being a spoiled passenger.

We left Cairns in a southerly direction, climbing out of Cairns' ring of hills and mountains by the Gillies Pass. Heading somewhat inland bia Atherton and Malanda, we touched at the Millaa Millaa falls where Palmerston is said to have camped. A beautiful spot in the rainforest where we saw a fabulous blue butterfly and several tiny birds, one very like our sunbirds.

Not far from there was the National Park camp site where it started to rain at supper time and rained off and on till morning. The area is said to receive 3.5 metres (yes, metres) of rain per annum! But our van was wonderfully cosy, and the night very quiet as only one caravan shared the camp site.

We returned to the main coastal highway and travelled south, via Townsville, Ayr, Bowen, Mackay and Rockhampton, only stopping in towns for supplies or for Julia to send and receive work by email and camping overnight at National Parks where possible.

[You can see some of Julia's photos of our camper van trip on this web site too.]

Not far from Maroochydore we visited another sailing friend, Jill Knight, who was house sitting for friends of hers who had gone on a three month sailing trip. It was a lovely house and garden, right adjoining the Wetlands Sanctuary where we walked along the very pleasant circular boardwalk. We had lunch with Jill and her much-travelled cat, still going strong since she got it as a kitten in Saldanha Bay in South Africa.

Our last night was in a conventional caravan park on the outskirts of Brisbane, where another friend of Julia's, now living in Brisbane, was able to come and have supper with us.

The next day we got to Tintenbar late afternoon (after visiting the Lucases en route), and the little shed was as welcoming as ever. Julia has had the two big garage doors replaced by windows and a sliding glass door, a great improvement but not yet finished so everything a bit cluttered.

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Maitland and "North Eelah"

I didn't have much time to get my fingers into the overgrown weeds before I was booked to go down to Maitland by bus, to visit Jan McDonald at "North Eelah", her family's longstanding cattle and pony breeding property, where she built up a Welsh Pony stud second to none. Now she concentrates on cattle, Herefords, assisted by Pat and Susan who live near by. Susan looks after the garden, Pat the ponies and everything else, an all-woman world with Jan as the laird!

One day Jan drove Susan and me to see some bulls she was intending to buy at Armidale, a full day's journey there and back. The whole journey was through beautiful pastoral country flung over green hills dotted with trees. The whole Hunter Valley, along the Hunter River, is excellent, productive land.

A couple more visits and then it was time to catch the bus back and be met in Coffs Harbour by Julia with the camper van. We drove a distance out to see friends who have a smallish property where they keep their many horses. John Hurst only rode a few times, as I remember, in South Africa but encouraged by his step-daughter's love of riding, he is now working on making the perfect dressage horse out of a big fellow of about 17 hands high. There are about half a dozen other (full size) horses, and a dozen or more miniature horses to which John's wife Roz is devoted. They are very cute, more pets than ponies really!

Next morning we pushed on, back to Tintenbar and a little more time for me to potter about the garden. While I was away Julia had found time to slash the rampant grass around her trees, citrus smelling wonderful in blossom, some mandarins ("naartjies" as we know them in South Africa) very ripe and delicious, a few bananas and custard apples ready to harvest, and some pawpaws much enjoyed by birds. Several other fruit and nut trees looked thriving. Julia has since the beginning planted rainforest trees and other indigenous plants, the grevilleas being most noticeable this time for their flowers, being visited by noisy miners and friar birds and other "honey eaters".

I was sad that our time seemed so short, but we had to return the camper van in Brisbane and catch the plane back to Cairns. Julia had of course continued her computer work all the time, and now back on board Jeshan, is busy all the time. She had left the boat in the marina at Yorkey's Knob, just north of Cairns while away. The weather here is fine again, and appreciably hotter. The journey south was progressively cooler and sometimes rainy.

And now, in five days I must take wings back home to South Africa.

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My horses: Redskin and La Lune


  Redskin
 December 1997

Back to horses. As I said, having to give up riding after my heart surgery was one of my harder decisions.

I had been unable to ride since January, so was somewhat weaned.

Then Redskin, my beloved mare for 23 years, died on Good Friday, aged 29. She was only really ill one day, though she had been declining, so I was thankful not to need to "put her down", which I was dreading.

That left La Lune, Redskin's daughter.

I trotted her round the paddock a bit, and it was very comfortable. But I did think it would perhaps be unwise to ride her out into the veld as I had always done. What good then to be confined to the paddock?

My decision was helped by a young woman contacting me, offering her a home. I invited her to come and see La Lune. Of course it was love at first sight for her and a couple of little girls, and I liked them. So now La Lune lives out at Stellenbosch on a grassy smallholding, petted and adored, and I am happy for her.

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A "PS" after returning home

Just to fill in on the last week of my trip.

It was wonderful to relax on Jeshan after so much travelling. We stayed on the boat at Yorkeys Knob, just a little way north of Cairns, and had dinner a couple of times at the boat club restaurant there. While Julia did her computer work all day, I strolled about to look for interesting birds.

Then I returned to an apartment at Inn Cairns, and Julia sailed her boat back to the relative peace of the anchorage opposite Cairns city.

The day before I returned home we went on a launch trip from Cairns to Green Island, where the highlight was going out by boat some two miles, for snorkelling over wonderful coral reefs.

I was a little scared but Julia swimming strongly towed and guided me, and by relaxing I was able to enjoy the wonderland of a coral reef - I had a life jacket on too!

 [There are some photos from my stay in Cairns too.]





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