May 07 - Jake's Forget-me-not-Ball

The Parkers arranged a formal ball to raise funds for the leukaemia fund in memory of Jake. Most of us are unrecognisable in our new guises.

The Lord of the Manoir dressed for the occasion.....

The Lees

Graham and his women

Wendy and I watching the caricaturist working on the Bok Pack!

The Bok Pack - sort of like a six pack, you know, a few dumpies and screw tops Jenny, Ann, Karen and Wendy
Our turn for the caricaturist to capture our spitting images

It couldn't last - could it!

It was a forget-me-not evening.

That's All Folks!

May 07 - Bank Hol Weekend France

We spent the first Bank holiday of May in France at the Manoir. One of the days we went and tried sand sailing. The worst thing about it was that we had to get up at Sparrows to make it to the beach before the tide came in and the crowds came out to play.

It was the best EUR28 we ever spent, 2 hours of amazing fun. Graham came out of the sailing closet and whipped around the beach like he was born under the star of the great cleats and sheets. Even the wicked headgear did not detract from it all. Here are the Jones boets with Cobus and Paul modelling the orange and red pip varieties in the background as Baxter the new Lee dog takes himself for a walk on the beach.

The chariots await.... Jenny and Robin being uber cool.....
The masts are clothed and ready to whip the bucket seated ones off into the sandy distance, or bog them down in quicksand.

May 07 - Last Days Shell

After 2 and a bit years at Shell, it was time to go. We had some wonderful times and I met some great friends. Before I get into the farewell party side of it, there were some 'healthy' moments like joining the swim team for the Corporate Decathlon in which we came second and the races I entered...second....100m back & 2 relays, but we had tremendous fun and it brought back many memories from the teenage years and the various chlorinated ponds we used to inhabit all those years ago.
Then came the farewell party. Here are 'the girls'. We are usually ever so quiet...... Gill, Lorraine, Nat, Hobbsie and Me. I don't have that many pics of Nat here but I think she must have taken most of the photies instead of being on our side of the camera!! Nat and I reckon we spent more time in each other's company some weeks than we did with our other halves!!We were missing some colleagues who could not make it (Eloise, Kathleen, Olu....the Hague contingent...Terry...oh boy - a lot of them, but I will still see them all around town I hope!

Nat and Mike...naughty ABAP man...

Becks and Phil (with his shirt on!)

Haren, Sid and Valeria

Mike and Graham....we have Mike to thank for introducing us to some new friends, the League of gentlemen.....and local things for LOCAL people...yiessssssss

Joz, Tressan, Steve and Jerzy

Warren sort of munching in background, Lorraine, Hobbsie and Gill

This is Nat with Andy (Hobbsie's boyfriend).

Apr 07 - Graham's Trip to ZA Part 3

Lyn, Bonnie, Maurice and Toffee.

Will and Luka

Mike & Laurie-Ann had booked a weekend in Ballito for their hols, before the storm took away the promenade (see behind Dom on the balcony...."all gone"). They could not take the kids down to the beach as it was all still like a landfill site.


Laurie, Mike, Dom (about to try on his Ferrari shirt), Caitlin & Audra (hidden).

Emma-Lee

Apr 07 - Graham's trip to ZA - Part 2 : The Drakie

The Joneses dropped Graham off at Witzieshoek where he met up with the rest of the (chain) gang... I refuse to be corny and say anything about mist and gorillas....but...the curtains were closed and a lone silverback or two was spotted at the start of the path...

Destination...Cathedral Peak, some 70km across the escarpment. Apparently there were no travelators laid out for them, nor any Pret a Mangers along the way... and I bet there was no-one checking up on their warm up exercises either...hmmmm.....


Will in this season's best, on the Drakwalk.


Daisy fresh still....even the Khakibos has not launched an attack yet.

And here we have Graham showing the casual Italian sweater over the shoulder meets Camp and Climb's latest in backpack retro look of the hiking year.



The Clapham Junction equivalent of the Berg. The waiting list to scale the chain ladder. Although there were plenty of people waiting their turn for the Ketting Express, Graham says they never saw another soul up the mountain other than their own party (when the mist cleared that is).



And not a Big Issue vendor in sight...this was the entrance to Heaven I think (Heaven is twinned with Tipperary as you can see!)



Camp the morning after the heavens opened (and Tipperary still stayed far away). G says that when they pitched camp, their tents were on a slightly raised piece of ground above some rocks and sand - where you see the huge puddle below, which filled up when they were trying to nap.



B-I-G Sky...... you can almost smell what it was like...thanks Will for taking some of these amazing shots!

Part of the group. unfortunately I don't know everyone but I'll see if I can get Graham to fill in the gaps along the way? I thought traditional weapons had been banned in SA, maybe this was taken on the Lesotho side?

Who needs a beer to chill out? And not a kit-kat in sight.

A few days and quite a lot of (painful) kilometres on, the end was in sight but I doubt it was near! (Take that Pudley Gorge) - the camera could not have done justice to what they must have seen before them and I'm not talking about the hallucinations involving cheeseburgers, cokes and aromatherapy (?)
Graham described this part like 'God's Window' and like its famous relative in Mpumulanga Province, he said that the curtains would flutter open every now and again to offer a peek at what lay behind and after a few minutes of a teaser campaign, the luscious green and gold dappled valleys were exposed. (I have tri-nations on the brain now). Would that he had a hang glider and state of the art DVD machine........
G's camera battery was dead by now but he did get some amazing pics from the others in the group, especially of the descent but they are on the laptop and we haven't transferred them across yet. In G's words it was "hectic". This is one of the only ones I can find.

It wasn't made pleasant either with what sounded like one helluva wind blowing as they clambered down. they eventually hobbled into Cathedral Peak and persuaded the hotel to make them cheeseburgers and serve up the very finest ice cold beers they could find.

Apr 07 - Graham's Visit to ZA Part 1 : PMB

Seeing that Graham is not usually found thrashing out long epistles on the PC, I have had to do this for him so hope I have not got anything wrong or mixed up!!

Will have to relay the stories to you as he told them (okay so I will embellish a bit so that I can write sentences ;-)

He said that his first impression of PMB was just how green everything was and how beautiful the garden was looking at 84 Blackburrow.

Looking out towards Hayfields shopping centre.
I'm not sure if Graham jumped out from behind a bush to catch Lynn or if he made her move over?!


The dining room / lounge looks huge now with the wall knocked down.


Graham spent some time in PMB, visiting the folks and stocking up on last minute purchases for the Berg hike.

Lyn divvying up the stash for Graham and Will.

Bonnie and Cynthia


Maurice, Bonnie and Lyn on the way to drop Graham off..