A short break in South Africa

 At the end of October Amanda, Phoebe and I went down to South Africa where Sebastian is at St. Andrews College,  Grahamstown.  This is a prestigious school with a strong tradition to its Scottish roots and one of the events the school put on was the cadet corps of seniors performing the Beating of the Retreat when the flag is lowered for the night.  Typical to the Scottish roots was the weather which suited the occasion and had us all in warm clothes and umbrellas!

Sebastian is in his first year here and is immersing himself in the many events, sports and other activities the school has to offer.  He says he is enjoying it which is a relief to us and he does appear to have settled in well.

After a few days of formal school activities including speech day, parent/teacher meetings and the athletics tournament, we were able to escape the orbit of Grahamstown and shoot down to the beach for half term.  Three days at Rugged Rocks self catering cottages at Port Alfred gave us the relaxation and fun which we all needed.  Although the Indian Ocean laps against our beaches here in Kenya the same Ocean roars up the beach in South Africa and we thought the water close to freezing! I braved the chilling water with Phoebe but Amanda said that she didn't want to get her camera wet.

Having decided to leave the Ocean to the whales and seals we set our sights on the dunes at the back of the beach and tried out the fun to be had on a piece of polished hardboard and the steep face of the dunes.  Dune boarding is just like tobogganing down hills on the snow but on sand instead.  After our tentative first attempts we got more adventurous and tried ever bigger dunes and ever more daring slides such as standing up or going down backwards.....

Sebastian quickly mastered the finer points of balance and technique as you can see in this photo.  The rest of us did our best to emulate him and many had great success although my best efforts mostly ended up in disaster....

 Anyway despite the sand, which seemed to get everywhere, much fun and laughs were had by everyone and we thoroughly enjoyed our  South African Holiday.

Cheers for now,

Simon.