Friday
Dear Elsie
Today we mainly hung around Carmel. We started the day with a long ramble through the grounds, leaving during the early morning dew – 6:15am and returning at about 7:25am. We came back, hot, damp and a little scratched by bramble bushes. But certainly we were satisfied! The path down…
We found an abandoned railway track and walked along there for a while. That became quite overgrown and there were brambles…
If we had continued along it we would have got to the road to Victoria Bay (and we would have missed breakfast). So we walked up a long road to get back to Carmel.
Breakfast was well received. We sat with an American missionary called Ember and boy, did she have a story to tell. I don’t have time to recall all the events now, but part of it involved a nasty car accident in 2008 where 3 occupants of the car she was in were killed. It happened in the US. Six of them were on their way to hear Philip Yancey speak when a man collapsed at the wheel of his car and rammed into them. They rolled for 100m. A South African lady named Karien was in the car and died. A young 21 year old named Jessica was sitting next to Ember. Jessica was killed and so was the 18 month old son of two of the other occupants. Ember had her neck broken, but not enough to paralyse her. She had a long recovery but eventually made it to her missionary calling of Botswana.
We sat for more than hour listening to her story. It was quite something. It made us think of death and dying. One day I’ll write more what Ember said about Karien.
Then it was back to our room to change and we hit the tennis court. Mike carried 3 tennis balls 1000s of kilometers hoping to play tennis on the ship but there were no racquets so today was his day! Tennis was played in our simple ping pong fashion for 20 minutes. Then I’d had enough. Mike hasn’t lost his tennis touch…
Off to the beautiful pool… 
Me in the pool…
It was wonderfully refreshing. Carmel is looking lovely and very child friendly…
We then took a drive down to Victoria Bay…it’s beautiful down there…
Back in the car and into George to pick up a new tyre ahead of our trip to PE tomorrow. No more dirt roads for us! Dirt roading may make us feel young and hip but it does no good for car tyres!
In between all of this a bunch of wasps built a nest very quickly under a chair on our balcony. When I walked outside to get something, they were disturbed and I got stung on my foot. It was really sore, but soon improved. The poor guy who came to remove the nest also got stung but on his lip! Also, very active today have been a troop of baboons, so we are keeping all doors closed.
This afternoon, I’ve done some work and now we are going to chill before having dinner in the Wilderness. A very enriching time here. Carmel, albeit lacking in technology, is still as quiet and peaceful as ever. I don’t think it has changed in 25 years.
Psalm 41:13 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.
The best is yet to come – we are only passing through.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Gran xx 🙂