Epic Adventure -- Day 20 -- 18/09/2012 -- Grahamstown

So Jenny and I have always had disagreements about which one of our home countries has the most extreme weather. I always claimed that the thunderstorms in my area of the states had some amazingly intense thunder and lightning, and Jenny said that however intense those storms may be they would not stand up to an African thunderstorm.

Proof of Jenny's opinion came at about 2 in the morning this morning when I was woken up by the loudest and longest-lasting crash and roll of thunder I have ever heard. The storm was immense. Based on my half asleep attempts to time the lightning flashes and the sound of the tender the storm was probably 20 miles across. As intense as the lightning and thunder was the was almost no rain associated with the storm, and after an hour or so we managed to go back to sleep.

After waking up a little bit later than usual we decided to spend some time in the lodge in the morning before heading into town. We leisurely woke up and had some tea and coffee, took showers in our own time, and departed for town in time to have lunch. Part of the drive, being so high up, was very very misty as you can see! Jenny had been wanting to try a restaurant called Revelations which sits on the sight of a now defunct restaurant called Evolutions she remembered from her time at DSG. The new establishment wasn't quite what Jenny remembered but they did have free Internet so it gave us enough time to catch up on some emails and correspondence. We spent so much time on the Internet that I had 2 more beers simply so we could stay! We also stopped by Pick N Pay and asked a couple standing outside what the ridiculously long que of people that snaked round the corner was for. They told us it was que to hand in CV's for a few jobs with the supermarket, it was quite astounding how very many people there were!

This sign made Dan laugh!

After our lunch of a triple decker chicken and bacon sandwich, and a chicken kiev, we headed up to DSG to have a longer walk around than we had on Sunday and to stop in a couple of the classrooms to see some of Jenny's old teachers. DSG was as amazing as I remember, and they have done so much to it in the short time since I left in 2006! The very first thing we did, as I had promised her in an email that I would do so, was to go a pod see the secretary to the Headmistress, Fran Gradwell. It was wonderful to see her again, and catch up about all the goings on at DSG. The secretary at the front desk also recognised me, which was a great reminder of how close knit the school really was.

Crewe House

I took Dan past my old dining hall, where the entire school would gather at meal times, grab a tray and some food and sit at the long wooden tables surrounded by some of the old girls best works of art. Dan thought it was hilarious that there were a couple of pigeons flying about too :D we then meandered off to my old boarding house, Crewe to see my housemistress Mrs Long. It was wonderful to poke my head aroud the door and say "Hello Mrs Long", watch her greet me formally as she would any other visiter, turn around, turn back and exclaim "JENNY BEALE!" :D I introduced her to Dan and we reminisced about all of the trouble we used to get into, what's been happening in Crewe and DSG since I've been away, and what everyone is doing now. Dan also found me in the old school pictures of our house, and also the ones of me looking ridiculously young in our yearly collages of photos of ourselves during the year.

We then walked to the San, more formally known as the sanatorium, to say hi to Sister Mary and Sister Gail. Unfortunately Sister Gail had just left for the day, but I got to catch up with Sister Mary and tell Dan the stories about complaint to one of the sisters about having a headache just before a class test. We spotted Mrs Carver, the music teacher and waved to her, on our way towards the school blocks. We spotted my French teacher, Madame Fitzgerald in one of the classrooms, so went to say hi to her. It was great to hear the stories about how naughty we were, but how much she loved our class, and also to see Clementine Davies, an old girl who was one year above me in school (but two years older as I was a year young for my grade) who is now also a French teacher at DSG.

Old Pool

New Pool!

I then walked us towards the new aquatic centre, which is hilariously immense in comparison to the old school pool. Looking at the two together made me realise how much DSG actually needed a new, bigger pool, as the old one is tiny and looks very old and sad next to its larger shinier counterpart. The old sports room opposite the tennis courts is now a brand new junior school, it looks amazing and much bigger and better than the old school rooms. At the back of the new junior school is the new boarding house, which they have yet to give a name to. Dan liked the actual tour around the school and agrees that if we have enough money to we can offer our daughters the chance to go there :D

Once we were finished touring DSG we received a text from Laura Bryan saying that her family would be more than happy to see us and said we should come over to their house at 17:30/18:00. It was only 15:00 when we left the school so we headed back to Delizzia to have a coffee and use their Internet for more blogging. While we were there Jenny discovered that Heather had posted the rest of our couples shoot photos and so the blogging got put on the back burner while we loaded all the photos. The photos took about an hour to load, so I wandered to the bank to draw more money in the meantime.

The photos are just amazing, beautiful and more the I could have imagined, and I was more than happy I had chosen Heather once they finally loaded :) Dan was very happy too, and is glad she is going to be our wedding photographer :) This is the link to our page on her blog if you haven't yet seen them on Facebook.
http://heathersteyn.com/blog/?p=6529#more-6529


By this time it was nearly half past five, so we packed up all our electronics and headed up the road to the Bryan's house. As we pulled up, I saw Sean Bryan outside so wound down my window and shouted a hello to him. He had the same reaction that Di Long had, and I was so glad that they had a little time to see Dan and I before we left Grahamstown. Their house is amazing, exactly what Dan and I would love to live in when we grow up! They currently have 8 boarders staying with them, and I know that cannot make for a dull house. We sat in the kitchen and reminisced over drinks while the boarders dinner was cooked. Kate came over to say hi quickly and we promised to see her for breakfast the next morning so she could go study. Laura came home at this stage too and we moved next to the warm log fire in the lounge and chatted some more about where life had taken us all. Once the boarders had all gone off to their rooms we sat down to a wonderful meal of delicious chicken, veggies and rice that Anne had cooked for all of us. We left much later that evening, with promises to come back to Grahamstown see them all again, as it was just so brilliant to catch up for such a short time. Dan was certainly in no capable state to drive after four beers, so I took the wheel for the drive home to our lodge.