there was a howling Westerly gale blowing. Port Elizabeth is known as The Windy City but we have been reminded of just how windy it can be, especially at this time of year. Wednesday was a very busy day for us. Warwick had sent out an email to all the ZOBOs to report on the Sunday reunion and as a result, on Tuesday I was in contact with David Betheldo who now lives in Cape Town and whom we haven’t seen since he came to see us in Los Angeles not long after we moved there in 1985. He said he was coming to Port Elizabeth on Wednesday to visit his suture factory (news to us) on and he’d like to see us and show us around. We met him at the factory at 9am and had a tour of the facilities. I was amazed to find that they manufacture over 400 combinations of needles and “thread” for stitching up inside and outside the body, all manufactured in a completely sterile environment, so that part of the operation was viewed through observation windows. It was a very interesting experience. We are hoping to see David again when we get to Cape Town again in a couple of weeks time. From there we dashed to an appointment at the bank where we met Vic and then we dashed to meet Vic’s accountant for lunch. It was a long lunch. Wednesday evening eight of us had dinner at “The Stage Door”, a 
pub/restaurant that has been going forever and looked no different from the day we left SA. Vic joked that it was the same sawdust on the floor (I think it was a joke!). To give you an idea of how far a dollar goes in SA (except for car hire), here are the approximate details of the meal. We started with a few beers, seven of us had the fillet steak, chips & 2 veg special (one had fish). We had four bottles of wine with dinner, then a couple of after dinner drinks and the bill with the tip per couple was R260 or less than $19 each!We went to bed quite exhausted.
Thursday morning I went back to the Virgin Active gym to work out (it was too windy go for a walk). The same day we met two of my old 
work colleagues from my Shatterpufe Saftey Glass Co. days. We had lunch with Mike & Felicity Campbell at Lavenders and then we went to an internet café to post Monday & Tuesday before a quick visit to Wout & Vilia Offerman (see earlier blog). Early evening we stopped off to see Mike & Felicity at their new home before we went off to dinner at Lawrence & Imelda Augustine’s home where we had a lovely curry. Lawrence recently celebrated 45 years at Shatterprufe. Both Mike and Lawrence were IT guys back in 1968 when it was then known as Data Processing! We keep in touch with emails but it was good to see them again.Friday I started the day with a long walk on the beach and then in the evening we drove out to Amsterdamhoek where we had been invited to dinner at the home of Rob & Jenny McWilliams 
and then stay overnight. Their home had been devastated in the 2006 floods (they live on the banks of the Swartkops River) and they have had to rebuild a good portion of their home. They took the opportunity to make some improvements which included the building of a new guest wing, and we had the privilege of being the first guests to use it. Netty Green also joined us for the evening, as did other friends of the McWilliams, John & Myrna Mowbray. Rob cooked some magnificent prawns for the main dinner dish and a good time was had by all.
Saturday morning we were up very early (it is already light by 5.30) and we went to Bluewater Bay beach for a walk along the 
shore and to the mouth of the Swartkops River with PE around the bay in the distance. Breakfast at the McWilliams and then back to town where we met Brian Rainbow and Peter & Jenny Aston for lunch at Barneys, a sports bar on the beachfront. In the evening we 
went out for an early evening meal with the Wolffs and Hendersons before returning to the Wolff’s flat to watch on TV the final of the 2007 World Cup Rugby in Paris at 9pm, where South Africa (Springboks) were playing England. 
The Springboks won 15-6 with all the scoring being from penalties, no “tries”(equivalent to an American football team winning a match with no touchdowns – pretty boring!). There is much celebration going on in SA as I write this blog as the 
“Boks” have just returned to Johannesburg from France. We had a little pool for predicting the winning score, which Alison won as she was the closest. We were late to bed. 
I had contacted the people (Meneer J.D. Steyn) who had bought our home in Bluewater Bay (in 2004) and asked if we could visit them to see how the house now looked. Danie Steyn was very excited to have us come and look at the house which we did. It was a very emotional visit for me as I had owner-built the house 
over a two year period in 1973-75 and it had been quite a wrench to actually sell the house. Fortunately, Danie has made some terrific changes to the house, completely remodeling the kitchen and all the bathrooms, retiling all of the living area, adding a lapa, and building what I think is about the nicest home “pub” I have seen. 
The house really looks great. I was also able to inform Danie about the double front doors and the oak paneling in the entrance hall. I have promised to send him a series of photographs of me building the house. Danie and his wife said it is the nicest house they have 
ever lived in and they are there to stay. We are welcome to visit anytime, but please be sure to come when we can sit at the pub and have a few “dops”. It was a wonderful visit and something of a closure for me to see how great the house now looks. Danie was very happy to let me viseo, so I have got good video of all of the living area and Melanie & Clare's old bedrooms.
We were a bit behind schedule as we had to drive to King Williams Town, where we would be having lunch with Lorraine Rudolph. Alison and Lorraine were working side by side as conveyancing secretaries at the Borman. Scharges & Solomons law firm in PE when Alison received the phone call from the adoption agency in late September 1977 that our long-awaited baby (Clare) was available for us, and could we be at their office to receive her the next day. Lorraine saw Alison start to cry and was really concerned that she’d received some bad news; but of course it was tears of elation, and within a couple of hours the whole office staff, organized by Lorraine, were standing around Alison’s desk giving her a baby shower! Lorraine moved on to KWT a number of years ago, but her friendship with Alison has continued. She prepared a most enjoyable Sunday lunch, and it was a lovely visit.
On the way to KWT we were stopped by traffic police at a random road check where they checked driving licenses and car licenses. It was something of a shock to be told that the car license of our hire car (picked up on Oct. 16th) had expired at the end of September! Fortunately, the female traffic cop was sympathetic to our situation and declined to fine us R500, instead telling us to visit our car hire company in East London as soon as we could. We finally arrived at the Murphy’s home in East London at around 5pm, just in time to watch the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix, the last race of the season. Hamilton had another “incident” which resulted in him not winning the World Championship which he had looked set to do before the Shanghai Grand Prix two weeks ago. We got Chinese takeaways in for supper, reminiscent of the many Sunday evenings we shared with the Murphys at each others homes when we all lived in Port Elizabeth. We collapsed into bed after an exhilarating and exhausting day.
and then stay overnight. Their home had been devastated in the 2006 floods (they live on the banks of the Swartkops River) and they have had to rebuild a good portion of their home. They took the opportunity to make some improvements which included the building of a new guest wing, and we had the privilege of being the first guests to use it. Netty Green also joined us for the evening, as did other friends of the McWilliams, John & Myrna Mowbray. Rob cooked some magnificent prawns for the main dinner dish and a good time was had by all.
Saturday morning we were up very early (it is already light by 5.30) and we went to Bluewater Bay beach for a walk along the 
shore and to the mouth of the Swartkops River with PE around the bay in the distance. Breakfast at the McWilliams and then back to town where we met Brian Rainbow and Peter & Jenny Aston for lunch at Barneys, a sports bar on the beachfront. In the evening we 
went out for an early evening meal with the Wolffs and Hendersons before returning to the Wolff’s flat to watch on TV the final of the 2007 World Cup Rugby in Paris at 9pm, where South Africa (Springboks) were playing England. 
The Springboks won 15-6 with all the scoring being from penalties, no “tries”(equivalent to an American football team winning a match with no touchdowns – pretty boring!). There is much celebration going on in SA as I write this blog as the 
“Boks” have just returned to Johannesburg from France. We had a little pool for predicting the winning score, which Alison won as she was the closest. We were late to bed. 
Sunday we were up early as we had a very full schedule and needed to get moving. We had to pack everything as we were vacating the flat and would be making our way to East London. We stopped off at the Offermans and left a suitcase there as we did not want to take everything to East London.
I had contacted the people (Meneer J.D. Steyn) who had bought our home in Bluewater Bay (in 2004) and asked if we could visit them to see how the house now looked. Danie Steyn was very excited to have us come and look at the house which we did. It was a very emotional visit for me as I had owner-built the house 
over a two year period in 1973-75 and it had been quite a wrench to actually sell the house. Fortunately, Danie has made some terrific changes to the house, completely remodeling the kitchen and all the bathrooms, retiling all of the living area, adding a lapa, and building what I think is about the nicest home “pub” I have seen. 
The house really looks great. I was also able to inform Danie about the double front doors and the oak paneling in the entrance hall. I have promised to send him a series of photographs of me building the house. Danie and his wife said it is the nicest house they have 
ever lived in and they are there to stay. We are welcome to visit anytime, but please be sure to come when we can sit at the pub and have a few “dops”. It was a wonderful visit and something of a closure for me to see how great the house now looks. Danie was very happy to let me viseo, so I have got good video of all of the living area and Melanie & Clare's old bedrooms.
We were a bit behind schedule as we had to drive to King Williams Town, where we would be having lunch with Lorraine Rudolph. Alison and Lorraine were working side by side as conveyancing secretaries at the Borman. Scharges & Solomons law firm in PE when Alison received the phone call from the adoption agency in late September 1977 that our long-awaited baby (Clare) was available for us, and could we be at their office to receive her the next day. Lorraine saw Alison start to cry and was really concerned that she’d received some bad news; but of course it was tears of elation, and within a couple of hours the whole office staff, organized by Lorraine, were standing around Alison’s desk giving her a baby shower! Lorraine moved on to KWT a number of years ago, but her friendship with Alison has continued. She prepared a most enjoyable Sunday lunch, and it was a lovely visit.On the way to KWT we were stopped by traffic police at a random road check where they checked driving licenses and car licenses. It was something of a shock to be told that the car license of our hire car (picked up on Oct. 16th) had expired at the end of September! Fortunately, the female traffic cop was sympathetic to our situation and declined to fine us R500, instead telling us to visit our car hire company in East London as soon as we could. We finally arrived at the Murphy’s home in East London at around 5pm, just in time to watch the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix, the last race of the season. Hamilton had another “incident” which resulted in him not winning the World Championship which he had looked set to do before the Shanghai Grand Prix two weeks ago. We got Chinese takeaways in for supper, reminiscent of the many Sunday evenings we shared with the Murphys at each others homes when we all lived in Port Elizabeth. We collapsed into bed after an exhilarating and exhausting day.
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