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Thursday 1 January 2015

A Very Happy South African New Year Greeting

Happy New Year!

May you be Blessed with Health, Wealth and Happiness in 2015 and beyond.

I have two New Year resolutions:  (1) Finish Book One of The Daighacaer; and (2) Post here every week but if I can't manage that, at least once a month.  I know it's taken a while for me to get myself half-organised but life has been a bit manic of late.  My first project in this year is to introduce some of the beauty of South Africa.

Such Good Friends August 2014.
Beth, Maria, Felicity, Anita enjoying an early morning coffee in the bush at Nambiti Game Reserve
So, in honour of and to welcome in 2015, here's a bit of news from a trip I took in late August last year.  I was privileged to spend a few days with dear, dear friends of mine in the Nambiti Game Reserve in Natal (one of the provinces in South Africa) at a lodge called Elephant Rock. It was a wonderful back-to-nature experience. 
On my birthday, which fell on our second last day, we celebrated with a birthday party combined with a sundowner.  A sundowner is, I understand, a uniquely Southern African (or perhaps colonial African) tradition of having a drink to watch the sun go down (generally out in the bush)  We have some magnificent sunsets as you can see. Here's a sunset taken from my car window on my way home from work one evening.
Johannesburg Sunset May 2014

As the sun was setting, I took some great photographs like this one:
Nambiti Game Reserve August 2014


as well as this video of the actual sunset at Nambiti. 



I love that my video (which I've uploaded to Youtube) was photobombed by some guinea fowl.  From the video, it appears as if I am following the guinea fowl with the shot but, they were photobombing me.  I was really checking that the three hippo which were in the pool on the right were still in the water. You can see the top of the head of the largest hippo peaking out of the water as I pan back to my sunset.  Taking on irritated hippo isn't something I would enjoy. The little birds must have noticed that I was panning back again and photobombed me on the way back to my sunset. Cutest.
The song is by Two Steps Left; a wonderful South African band which just happens to include my two sons - as the lead singer/rhythm guitarist and bassist.
LaterI'll do more posts of sightings on the trip; of beautiful wide open vistas; of lion and elephant and other animals, including the most unbelievable and definitely the luckiest sighting of the trip - a serval cat, going quite nonchalantly about its business of catching its breakfast in bright sunlight.  I'll also keep on putting up photos for you to enjoy.  

Enjoy..
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4 comments:

  1. How lovely that you'll be sharing the beauty of South AFrica with us, and memories from our wonderful time together. xoxoxo

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  2. Beautiful photos!
    Happy New Year to you and your family, Felicity!

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  3. nice blog dear
    follow?
    http://melodyjacob1.blogspot.com/
    thank you

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  4. Hey Fe! It's been a while. Hope everything is all right.

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