The Gift of Giving: Leaving a Legacy for Future Generations

15 June 1956 was the day on which the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital first opened its doors.

60 years later to the day, the Children’s Hospital Trust invited supporters, patrons, donors, friends and staff members of the Hospital to a special High Tea at Kelvin Grove in Newlands in celebration of that important event.

The two main speakers were Emeritus Professor Jenny Thomas, recently retired head of Paediatric Anaesthesia, and Braam Malherbe – extreme adventurer, conservationist, youth developer and international motivational speaker.

A delightful morning tea at Kelvin Grove with the Circle of Life legacy programme

On Tuesday, 12 May 2015, I joined my friends Glynnis and Max of the Pinelands Muse (our monthly community magazine) at another delightful event organised by the Children’s Hospital Trust: it was the annual morning tea for supporters, patrons, donors, and friends of the Circle of Life legacy programme.

Happy Halloween!

Quite frankly, I wasn’t planning to do anything for Halloween this year. Some years ago, when little trick-or-treaters came trotting down our street for the first time, we had been totally unprepared. As we didn’t have a stash of chocolate or sweeties to hand out as treats, I confess that we turned off all the…

Tea, Talks and a Tour at Vergelegen with the Children’s Hospital Trust

At the start of October 2014, I spent a delightful morning at the historic wine estate of Vergelegen on the outskirts of Somerset West. The Children’s Hospital Trust, which is the fundraising arm of the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Rondebosch had invited supporters, donors and benefactors to a relaxing mid-morning tea at the estate. The Trust often holds such events, usually at beautiful venues and with interesting guest speakers; on this occasion, it was military historian and author Willem Steenkamp.

Afterwards, we were given a guided tour of some of the magnificent gardens at Vergelegen by Richard Arm, the very knowledgeable manager of the gardens. What an incredible place – I definitely want to return here!

Anti-rhino-poaching rant

Stories in the media about the plague of poachers who are slaughtering our wildlife – especially our rhinos, elephants and lions – make my blood boil.

Thousands of our beautiful, magnificent, irreplaceable, unique rhinos, elephants and lions have been killed. Resources have been thrown at the problem for a couple of years, but it may be too little, too late. They’re even talking of capturing large numbers of rhino and relocating them to Australia to keep them safe. Yes. Seriously.

Hear me roar!

We visited the Drakenstein Lion Park – a sanctuary for lions bred in captivity and rescued from sometimes appalling conditions – near Klapmuts in March 2014. This blogpost appeared originally on my Finding Frohsinn photography blog. The visit to this place made such an impression on me, that I wanted to share it with my readers on this blog too.

An inspiring morning tea with Premier Helen Zille and the Children’s Hospital Trust

On 22 October 2013, I had a thoroughly inspiring tea with the Premier of the Western Cape Province, Helen Zille, at the elegant Southern Sun Cullinan Hotel on the Foreshore. Well, sort of. The tea with the Premier bit, I mean.

The function, which was organised by the Children’s Hospital Trust, was a delightful Morning Tea at which Premier Helen Zille was the keynote speaker. The topic of her talk was the valuable contribution of the ‘elders’ to the community.

As Cape Town is battered by a severe hailstorm, we build our first-ever little hailman!

It was a very wet weekend in Cape Town, with torrential downpours blocking stormwater drains, flooding streets and causing dams to form at the side of the road. Gale force winds tore the limbs off trees and carelessly scattered them everywhere.

This afternoon, it suddenly felt as though the temperature had plummeted another couple of degrees. And then the hail began to fall.

The Pinelands Muse leaps into its third year of publication

Since October 2010, a glossy community magazine has popped into our postbox towards the end of each month (I wrote about their first anniversary here). Known as the Pinelands Muse, or just affectionately as ‘The Muse’, it focuses on the comings and goings in the neighbourhoods of Pinelands and Thornton, and it is a wonderful treasure chest of information about the fascinating people who live here and their unusual or exciting occupations, hobbies and travels to near and far.

Flowering fynbos, veggie patches and quaint cottage gardens: The Rotary Anns’ annual Spring Garden Day in Pinelands

Once a year in springtime, five brave residents of Pinelands generously open their gardens to crowds of curious visitors, as part of a fund-raising event organised by the Rotary Anns of Pinelands. Since moving to Pinelands about eight years ago, we have attended several of these Spring Garden Days, and they have always been most enjoyable and inspirational