Our plans for today were completely scrambled, but in a good sort of way. We picked Mark from his sleepover at 09h00 and went to church. On the way in to the sanctuary, I met Louis who asked if Bob had reached me by cell phone (he hadn't). Louis told me that one of Bob and Liana's cats died overnight. The girls (Frankie and Julia) were in mourning about it, so they were canceling our lunch plans.
OK, so we decided to go for lunch by ourselves as a family. We drove half way to Somerset West to try for lunch at Eikendal, only to find that it was closed. At this point, we decided to go back home. But, we needed a few groceries, so Catherine and I dropped Mark and Tracy at the house and went to the store.
When I returned from the store, Tracy informed me that Bob had called and said that picnic baskets had been reserved at Vergelegen and that we needed to meet them in Somerset West. So, we retraced our steps toward Somerset West with Vergelegen as our new destination.
Vergelegen is one of the oldest wineries in the Western Cape. Current owners Anglo American (the huge multinational corporation) have restored it beautifully and are maintaining immaculate grounds. Our light picnic lunch under the canopy of trees stretched until 5 PM as the kids played and the adults enjoyed chatting in the cool shade.
My only regret is not bringing my camera. Things were so crazy that I didn't even think of packing it.
On another topic, Lydia, one of the people in the Sustainability Think Tank (STT) at the University of Stellenbosch won a sustainability award from Eskom yesterday. This is a great piece of recognition for her and a real publicity boost to the University of Stellenbosch. Congratulations to Lydia!
On yet another topic, the screen shot above is further evidence that Standard Bank is really lame. I received this email, presumably in response to the difficulties I'm having with purchasing cell phone air time via their website. Never mind that they have escalated the issue twice and still haven't resolved it. The first escalation was to the "wrong department." I was promised a call on Friday for the second escalation. Never happened. And, I still don't have my airtime.
--Matt