Sunday
Dear Elsie
Today was the day Grandpa and I revisited my 1st embarrassing moment. You will have many embarrassing moments in life and best is to laugh them off, but occasionally one or two will linger in their sting. The main reason for this is because them may cross a subtle line from mere embarrassment to a tinge of humiliation borne out of ignorance.
This embarrassing moment was 40 years ago. Yup, we were not yet married and someone had told us about a ‘fun’ run at Silvermine. Mike was fit and liked to run, so I thought this would be ideal. I was a little fit & it was something we could do together. What we didn’t realise it was a ‘mountain fun run’. The groups were divided up (so I was not with Mike) and we each were given maps. When I looked at my map, I got the orientation all wrong and went the wrong way. The red arrows show where everyone else went. I went my own unique purple route.
By the time I figured I was on the wrong track, turned around and got back to the start, the organisers were about to send out a search party. It was very embarrassing! Today we went on a long walk in Silvermine Nature Reserve to find the path I took. First we went up to the old foresters hut.
This is the back of the hut. It had solar panels on the roof, but had been burnt out.
View of Elephant’s eye from the hut…
Mike pointing to the path that we wanted to get to… 
We tried one track but soon discovered that was going to take us just about to Tokai forest, so back-tracked and went the more known route. This was on the path to the track of humiliation!
On the path – 40 years ago it was forested and there were towering trees on both sides. It was very quiet and solitary.
Now the views are wonderful.
Looking back at Elephant’s Eye…
The road is Ou Kaapse Weg, the fields below are on Steenberg Estate.
It was a wonderful walk. I’m glad we did it. I’m no better at reading maps today, but gratefully we have Google maps that tell us where we are going. Any embarrassment I feel from that day is in my head alone. No one else cares! It was Eleanor Roosevelt who is credited with this quote,
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
This is the walk we did today.
We came home, had breakfast and a cappuccino and then collapsed in a heap. I even had a solid midday sleep where I was absolutely dead to the world. It was wonderful.
We were refreshed enough to pop in at John and Avril’s to pick up a book they are lending us on Ephesus. Their garden is looking absolutely amazing. What a lovely retreat.
It’s a beautiful evening with not a breath of wind and the setting sun momentarily swished pink across the sea
A good long weekend.
Psalm 66:5
Come and see what God has done, how awesome His works in man’s behalf
It’s not about now – we are only passing through.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Gran xx 🙂
