Food smells great

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The smell of food cooking in a dozen brasseries around the apartment wafted up to our fourth floor apartment. Good thing we had already eaten! Ashleigh and Liam left just after lunch, and Jules and Ed left early evening - we have had a fun time. We are now sharing the apartment with Rita and Marge, plus Jason and PJ. Good to spend time with family.

A happy Christmas to all who read our blog

Mark & Rose wish all our friends, family, and others who read our blog - a very happy and peaceful Christmas. Enjoy your families and relationships. As we have placed the nativity scene centrally in our little lounge again this year, we are reminded of the the most amazing thing in all our lives - that God so loved the world that He gave His son ...

I just got the leftovers

So, youngest brother, Paul, has made sure that I am not the only one in the family making podcasts. He was recently interviewed for a show called THE LABMAN ...

April 2008 click the link to listen

Designing Experiments the Automated WayExperiments tend to work better if they're planned, and experiments are less laborious if automated. This month The Lab Man explores the combination of both - Automated Design of Experiments. It's all about software to design great experiments and then sitting back and watching your automation carry out the plan!

It is only when you listen that you realise in the eternal scheme of things, when God was dishing out the old IQ rations to the Taylor family, he held back on the first born, and had a bunch left over for the last born!

Family Pics Time

Here is a picture taken last weekend just before we left for the airport. Jason and Michelle with Rhys and Matthew, on the deck of their wooden home on the farm, near Craddock in KwaZulu Natal. We had a really lovely time with them at the farm and at the beach - I will post some more pictures of the beach and the kids, soon.

When you just want to get on a plane

When I get pictures like this that just came in early for my birthday (Saturday), I just want to get on a plane and head straight for Durban to get a hug in person. Real phew stuff I can tell you. Still, we will be with them all in April - counting the days.

Family Secrets Revealed

It had to come out sometime - but this old newspaper, circa 1969, surfaced during my mother's packing up of her life in Harare, as she prepares to drop kick King Robert of Jongwe into touch, and come live in Mud Island. This is a life she must have kept hidden from the children, and comes as a great shock to us, obviously. Who would have thought that this great-granny had such a lively past? I suppose I had better add, just for those who might become genuinley shocked and think of dropping mother from their Christmas Card list, that this is not really true at all. I think.

Cafe Med in Harare

Tuesday night this week, my mom took me out for supper - not quite a first, but it has been a while! And it only cost 20 million dollars, for racks of spare ribs, and some strawberries and cream. 20 million smackaroons ... well it was not quite £6.00 in real money. The owner of Cafe Med is Lew Hughes, who before it burnt down also owned the much remembered Clovagalix Restuarant that operated in the Avenues. A few years back the menu at Cafe Med was brilliant, but sadly today, Lew was telling me this week, he can offer spare ribs, grilled chicken, or pizza. No ice cream, because the power is not on long enough each day to keep the freezers cold. It was strange to think that I had early morning coffee on the deck at the farm near Pietermaritzburg, lunch in Johannesburg, and supper in Harare.

Old Fashioned Guilt and Fun

Sunday was an old fashioned day! We started it by going to church in a little chapel in Wales, with our hosts. The people were very friendly and welcoming, and the visiting preacher had some good things to say about love and charity out of 1 Corinthians 13 - but he sounded like something out of Charles Dickens - lots of words used you don't really hear spoken anymore in everyday conversation. As we discussed the service afterwards, travelling along the M5, we had both gained the sense of being in a bit of a time-warp. Maybe that is the way of the small Welsh chapel? Whatever, it is always pleasant to join with others in worship.

Rose, Sunday, outside the chapel. Reformed Welsh congregations don't mince their words with their PR! We like to think we are prepared, so Rose's worried look was mere photographic licence.

Afterwards, we headed for Shrewsbury in Shropshire, to meet up with Rose's cousin, Nick, and his family - Jan, Jack and George. What a delightful family, and we had a wonderful time catching up and getting acquainted with Jan and George who we were meeting for the first time. A steam festival fair thingy was on over the Bank holiday weekend, and we spent a few hours really soaking in the atmosphere, enjoying the lovingly and beautifully restored engines of yesteryear. Briefly, we felt a bit guilty, because the preacher earlier that morning had been delayed by the traffic going to this fair, and had made a comment about all those people going out and having fun on the Sabbath day. I wonder if having being to church first to hear him say that, so we could all nod our heads in agreement, offset our great enjoyment of the steam engines later? A sort of a spiritual version of offsetting one's carbon footprint.

Nick & Jan Gibb - spot the family resemblance between Nick and Rose! Here's a clue - look somewhere between the eyes and mouth. Dead give-away.

George Gibb Esq. did not really want me to publish a picture of him wearing this authentic top hat, but I think it makes him look so dashing that I just had to. I could not get him to lean against the wall, legs and arms crossed, like an Eaton schoolboy though - just way too uncool. And anyway, young George was sort of allergic to my camera, and managed to get out of being in most pictures. So, here is a slightly cooler picture of George playing cricket with his dad in their driveway.

It's cool to be in KwaZulu Natal this week

Snow in South Africa - Yesterday

This pretty, wintery scene is yesterday, in the sub-tropical Drakensburg, in South Africa. Snow fell in many places in South Africa yesterday, it seems, including Gauteng, which last saw snow in 1981. For the past five years, when we lived in Johannesburg, I anticipated snow in Joeys, but it did not come. We leave, it comes! It was our daughter Michelle's first chance to get up close and personal with the white stuff, as for grandsons Rhys and Matthew who just thought is was too cold!

Front page of The Star newspaper in Joburg, today

Celebration Continues

Mark with his favourite dessert - Rose's Pavlova

To wrap up a week a week of fun things to celebrate my birthday, Julie & Ed, and Ashleigh, came down from Oxford to spend the weekend with us in Worthing. Rose put together a magnificent meal around a Salmon Mousse starter, roast leg of New Zealand lamb, and Pavlova for dessert. Add lots of laughter, some excellent Shiraz compliments of my Uncle and Aunt (Dale & Yvonne) in Johannesburg, and it was a family memory to treasure. What was missing of course was the presence of Michelle, Jason, Rhys and Matt ... which would have made it 100% perfect. It has been a fabulous week, and I have been made to feel very special by all my family.

Ash, Rose, Ed, Julie