Howdy Strangers

Oh dear, time seems to have been flying by, I hardly know where to start! The last month has been a roller coaster ride of travels, elections, exhibitions, hardcore political discussions on facebook, and very excitingly, planning a trip to Turkey and Bulgaria!So, in no paticular order, here are some images from the last month..... A trip to the Addo elephant park on Easter Sunday was a delightful outing....strangely enough, for us, although we loved the elephants, the highlight for us was the meerkat family, their synchronised antics had us in stitches!Of course, the big news of the month was the election on 22nd April, and it was preceeded by the usual hoopla and promises. Cope came to the party late, due to lack of funds, so while the election posters of the other parties faded on the lamp poles, Cope was noticeably absent, but went big near the end and wrapped whole buildings!Also on Easter weekend, there was a family day rally to celebrate family values.We had more encounters of the wild kind this weekend, when we took our grandson to meet the big cats at the Seaview Lion Park. I am not crazy about caged wild animals (I will never own a bird in a cage for the same reason) but these are well looked after, and the cages are huge, so it wasn't too bad or depressing to see them there. One interesting aspect of the place is their program for breeding the extremely rare white lions. They are not albinos, but have a recessive gene for the blonde colouring. Some of the tawny lions in the park carry the gene, so that they sometimes produce white cubs in their litters.there were also three Bengal Tigers, which must be the most magnificent of all the cats, although this chap was hardly putting on much of a show for his species, he was totally blissed out after lunch! Meanwhile this lioness was waiting for her lunch with great anticipation. And this guy was having a bad hair day!Another adventure during the month was to go with my friend Julie and her daughter Nana, who had decided to conquer her fear of heights in dramatic fashion, by doing the world's highest bridge bungy jump. It was actually a lot of fun, they had disco music pumping under the bridge which created a great atmosphere in combination with the adrenilin of the jumpers, well done Nana! This guy went twice! Don't look down! The Bloukrantz Bridge, about 2 hours to the West of Port Elizabeth.I also had a trip down to East London (about 3 hours the other side of Port Elizabeth, to the East) In fact to the East in more ways than one... because one of the arty events was the opening of a wonderful exhibition by 4 leading Chinese artists, I just adored their work.I also attended the AGM of our National arts body SANAVA and got to meet the heads of several other galleries and art bodies around the country, and even a delegation from the Portuguese Art School in Mocambique. It was a very inspiring weekend. Another exhibition opening I attended during the month was that of Lizo Pemba (on the right)at the Red Location Museum. He is the grandson of the legendary Eastern Cape artist, George Pemba. I had previously met his father Titus (third from the left) who is a character of note, so it was an entertaining evening!So I'll end this update with one of the lovely sunrises we have seen lately, and the bonus is, since winter is almost here, we don't have to get up obscenely early to enjoy them!Thanks for the visit. Please note that all photos are clickable if you want to see them full size.