robbat2 | Thursday, 19 December (Reply)

Got up not too late. Took Greg out to his friend Damian in Umghlanga Rocks, went to Granddad and Nana.

From there my father was talking business with Granddad, and I walked up the hill to see my old friend from kindergarten, Carlo Montemarano. I would call him my first best friend. Sat and talked to him about what's been going on with him and updated him on my life. He goes to the University of Stellenbosch, doing a B.Comm. there. His elder sister, Marisa. Since I've been away, she has graduated from Natal University with a bachelors (spinsters?) degree in English. Right after that she went and working with their family connections in Italy. She now lives in Cape Town and is working in breaking into the publishing business as that is where all the publishing companies in south africa are. Carlo has been living in residence for his first two years down at Stellenbosch, but now, he is moving into an apartment with two friends, since he is in the final year of the 3 year program. Once he is done, he plans to loan some money from his parents and go to London or Italy to work there. When I was there, the moving truck came to pick up some of Carlo's stuff. One of his new apartment mates is somebody else I went to senior elementary and high school with, Matthew Bennett. Matthew's family has a share in a moving company so they were using that to get their stuff down there for free.

After talking to Carlo and his parents and having a small lunch there, I walked down the road to visit the Jacksons. They are long standing family friends thru many connections, grandparents on both sides went to school together and Helen trained to be a nurse alongside my mother. They are the family that had The Cat (Jimmy) that practially owned the house, since it was first bought when the the grandparents (Joy and Donald) had the house. A while after Donald died, Joy moved out, and Helen and her husband Johan moved into the house. Jimmy was still there. Helen and Johan had two daughters. Jimmy was still there. They tried to emigrate to Australia, and that caused a divorce. Johan went there, but Helen and her daughters came back. Meanwhile Allan, Helen's younger brother, a man at 50 who was still a bachelor, moved into the house, and ran his own small business from there. He was originally a newspaper journalist and later the computer columnist for one of the local the newspapers. He now does the occasional newspaper article freelance and runs a small web-design and hosting company. Helen later went back to Australia with her daughters seperetly. Allan later tried to emigrate to Ireland, but ended up in Scotland for a while. When he left, his mother (Joy) and uncle (Mory) moved into the house again. At this time, Jimmy was getting too old, and after going blind and falling into the swimming pool twice, it was decided the humane move would be to have him put down. The family still misses Jimmy and does some things like he were still there. Allan came back as his business venture in scotland didn't work out. He got there shortly after 9/11 and despite a £1000 in free startup capital from the Scottish Government, he didn't get much business and after the theft of his Laptop, Printer, Fax machine and many other bits from apartment, he decided to come back to South Africa. He now lives back in the same house running his own business in South Africa again.Helen's eldest daughter, Jo-anne had been sent over from australia to spend some time with her grandmother and family.I sat and chatted to them for a while. And then Allan gave me a lift back down the hill to my grandparents again. I found my mother cleaning Nana's kitchen, and ended up helping her a fair bit. When the grandparents get old, their eyesight isn't as good as it used to be. I remember years ago, her kitchen was literally clean enough to eat off the floor. She was a very accomplished cook, but with her advanced age (96), she isn't as active as she used to be.We took Granddad and Nana out to dinner at the local steakhouse, RJ's.