Skype is wonderful

Here I am (last week) catching up with life, with Rose, via Skype.

Sometimes the long distances seem so small when the conversations just go on from where we last left off. This was our delightful venue in the dining room at Paul & Carol's home in Watertown, CT. Freezing and snowing outside, but plenty warm inside - it was a very comfortable meeting place.

Relocation Relocation Relocation

I had a wonderful hour-long catch-up via Skype with my brother Rogan, last night. One of the enjoyable things of us both having excellent broadband is that staying in voice (and even video) contact is easy. They have lived in Southfork, Colorado since January 2007:

Images from GoogleEarth. '>HERE'S THE PLACEMARK

Nicole, Amy, Caroline, Rogan, Emma - Looking so much more relaxed than we we last saw them 9 months ago

They recently purchased their first home - something they had not been able to do when living in Zimbabwe. It is a typical wooden house for the mountain area they live in, and was originally delivered on a truck, in two halves. Their eldest daughter Amy is home from College for the summer, and they all have had summer jobs. Nichole will start College in the Autumn, about 75 miles away. Emma stays at the local High School. They seem to be very happy with their new life - different for sure - but not so much of the general stress that comes with just living between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers these days.

New home for the Southfork Taylors - check out the Zimbo flag

Snowmobile Pastor

My brother Rogan sent me this picture of his new method for doing pastoral visits in rural Colorado. Can you tell that he obviously hates it! We had a lovely catch-up conversation on Skype lastnight for me and lunchtime for him. They seem to be settling in well to their new home of Southfork, Colorado. 8000 feet up, and loads of the white stuff as you can clearly see.

Rogan & Caroline in their new natural surroundings

From what I hear, their are more of these than human beings in Rogan's church!
Think of all the biltong possibilities...
The picture is in their garden

A perfect likeness

This drawing of me was done by a little fella, Peter, during a meal at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant in Watertown, CT. I showed it to family who reckon they captured the essence of the old man remarkably. Me, I can see it is me ... but the essence of me? But a bit of fun, and probably some of Pete's early artwork that I shall keep and treasure.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Ground Zero for Pacifism

I have never really been a person for patriotic moments, mostly I suppose because my age, colour and background as a caucasian African makes me a nation-deprived person. Last week I stood looking into the big hole that is Ground Zero, at the end of Manhatten in New York City, and I was strangely moved. I stood there on my own for at least five minutes, thinking about the three thousand plus people who perished, the unimaginable anguish of families who lost loved ones, images burned into my brain from 11 September 2001 where people jumped out of the twin towers to certain death ... and I said a prayer that for the first time in a long time made me think hard about pacifism.


The image was taken from Google Earth.

The wedding happened

Being part of the wedding party did not make it easy to take pictures, but here is a first pic of Paul and Carol at their wedding yesterday. We have only had a few hours sleep after a wonderfully marvellous time together. I am waiting for the rest to be ready for church ... Rogan is preaching this morning at the local United Methodist Church here in Watertown, CT. I will post some more pictures when we have had time to see who has what on our various cameras. The wedding took place at the pretty Chippanee Golf Club, in Bristol, CT. The venue building can be seen in the link to the club.

Mark & Rose last night

The eagle has landed

Arrived at JFK around 11.15am local time on Saturday. We had met my mom at the boarding gate at Heathrow, and travelled on the same flight. Interesting to note the quietly efficient way security has been stepped upsince my last (pre 9/11) visit to the USA. There was a cursory passport check as we exited the plane, and then at the Immigration counter, two fingerprints and a photo were taken digitally. The Immigration official was very pleasant and chatty, but managed to competently weave in the 'right' questions to check that our stated purpose of the trip matched my visa data.

Carol met us at the airport, and we had about a two hour drive to Connecticut, and lots of great family reunions. We hadn't seen Paul since dad's funeral 5 years ago. Rogan and Caroline are here from Zimbabwe, and their eldest daughter Amy arrived from LA, where she is at College.