Menu
Having
been through all my parents’ photographs we are now sorting through all my
mother-in-law's pictures. We found these two menus in an old wooden cigar box, in amongst some old Brownie Box pictures. The larger one is from a holiday
they had in the 1960’s at Umhlanga, outside Durban, South Africa and the
smaller menu is from the Cecil Hotel from when they lived in Umtali, Rhodesia,
now Mutari, Zimbabwe. Just for fun I
have just Googled them both. The Oyster
Box is still on the beachfront at Umhlanga, looks very upmarket, and the Cecil
Hotel is also still there though twice the size and very modern, not the old
two storey, colonial style hotel with a large veranda, complete with potted
ferns in half 44 gallon drums. I
scrolled down to read some of the comments and found this one below.......note
the chicken sandwiches mentioned are on the menu, the most expensive item, at
2/9p – which Google tells me today is
worth £3.65 – not bad for a chicken
sandwich!!
Trevor Walton Writes:-
A picture of my favourite waterhole, the
Cecil veranda! It was a great meeting place and the toasted chicken sandwiches
were to die for. We also had a good view of the police charge office and can
recall many amusing events. One of them was that a grossly overloaded local
truck, chickens and all, was hauled in and in no time there was a hen with her
chicken on the Cecil veranda looking for scraps!
Album(s) - dozens of them
As I have already mentioned last month and again above I am
presently going through all the family albums.
We have already taken 8 to the Recycle centre as the sticky pages are no
longer sticky and the pile just does not seem to get any smaller as you can see
from the photograph below!! Oh dear!! They are still my mothers’ and I have about another
12 more of our own photograph albums not
to mention a large box full of photographs that I took out of large albums
before returning to the UK. Oh dear
again!!
Shoe (s)
On a
trip to Anglesey a few years ago we
stopped at a lovely tearoom for tea and scones (which were delicious, by the
way) and in the yard was a selection of oddments made out of old farm implements
and included this fire pan made out of horseshoes, the centre of which was
filled with many more horseshoes.
In my hand
This
little shoe was given to me by a gypsy lady who knocked at our door in Hemel
Hempstead in 1988. She offered to tell
my fortune if I crossed her palm with silver.
Never having met a gypsy before as I had lived in Central and Southern
Africa almost all my life, I could not refuse.
I left her standing at the door whilst I got some money out of my
purse. When I returned she told me I had
lived in Africa and would soon return there.
She also gave me this little shoe as a good luck token. When I told Brian afterwards of my encounter
he laughingly told me I had been ‘had’.
Where she was left standing in the front door she had a clear view into
our dining room where we had many African artefacts which were a complete give
away. I see that the silver is peeling
away – a real cheap souvenir of my first and only gypsy encounter. Anyway
I have always kept this little ‘silver’ shoe in my handbag – just in case!!!
Macro
A very small moth I found on this sign in my garden last summer. I think it might be a Cream-spot Tiger Moth, but I'm not too sure. 
Morning
Every
Easter Sunday all the local churches get together to have a Sunrise Service at
De Gama Dam, near the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga, South Africa. This picture was taken a few years ago just
as the sun rose at 6 am. The cross like
structure in the foreground is quite by coincidence but very appropriate, it is actually the mast of a sailing boat moored there.
Rule of thirds
Many of
my ‘rule of thirds’ are in error, but not here.
I wanted the aloe to contrast with the far distant haze of the Low Veld
looking eastward toward the Kruger National Park. The picture was taken from the top of the
escarpment at ‘God’s Window’.
Something beginning with H
There are
so many words that one could choose beginning with H but I always try to find something a bit
different and have chosen this picture of baby hyena. They had been left by
their mother in a culvert under one of the many roads around the Kruger
National Park. She had not abandoned
them I am sure, just gone off hunting.
Normally one cannot get so close when mother is around so we were very
lucky to spot these cubs. When we
stopped to get a better look one brave little cub came out of his safe
shelter.
Tools
My father
was given this little set of tools in 1960.
It had everything you could think of and it all clipped into the
handle of the knife in the centre. It
always fascinated me as nothing had been seen like that in Rhodesia before. It
is small, only 3” x 5” when zipped closed.
It now belongs to my husband but
sadly is never used as multi tools seem to have taken over these days. It has Dreizack Solingen GDR of the old East Germany on all the pieces. .
My own choice.
While
looking for the picture of the young hyena cub I came across this picture of
Southern African Starlings mobbing a Hornbill over a piece of bread we had
thrown for it. We had been having
breakfast in the Kruger National Park rest camp at Skukuza when we were suddenly
surrounded by birds. I love the iridescent
colour of these starlings. They have the
same characteristics as the European starlings but are just much more
colourful.
I would like to wish all you Bloggers a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful Blogger year in 2017
