A life well lived

If I think of Gary, it's his laugh and those devilishly twinkly eyes first, even after his strokes, he'd charade us into remembering an incident in the past and laugh heartily - delighting in the memory.

And boy, are there a lot of memories- an adventurer at heart, fear and consequence...please....pfftt...that was for us mere mortals - you don't believe me?

Going way back, how about his 'make it or break it' drive to Sun City, a lot of cash was involved and yes, you guessed it, he placed it all on Red - no half measures, he was an all or nothing kind of guy- and yes, Black came in.

I hear the click, clack, clunk of the backgammon board, Fanie and Gary laughing, playing late into the night.

Then there were the poker evenings- you can tell a lot about a person by the way they play poker.

 He won with delight, lost with grace, rarely sat out - even with a bad hand, enjoyed a good bluff- especially if it was on him, loved to go all in and always gave you a chance to win back your money- a good poker player is a rare find.

He loved hang -gliding, not always successfully- poor Lisa!
 Adored nature, one weekend, combining both at either Beaverlac or Porterville, Gary's- 'let's go for a little walk', turned out...well, as you can see below.....fortunately I wasn't a first time mother.

Passionate about horses, to watch him with his horses on the farm in Prince Albert was almost religious.

He wrote well and with humour, he would have had a great blog- Gulliver's Travels a favourite of his, Siouxsie and the Banshees his best CD at our house- good whisky a necessity.

 So many more tales, schemes and adventures to reminisce - but one thing I know- 

your friends are all better people for having known you.

Prince Albert

 

I don't know if it's the air, the spectacular Swartberg mountains or the sheer nothingness surrounding Prince Albert- perhaps it's the combination.

 As you enter the town everything slows, all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the gentle lulling.

 It had been too long and it was a surprise party for our old mate Gary, we stayed at Lisa's beautiful guest house in the main road 'Onse Rus'

I know they are our friends, but what a fabulous place to stay- just take a look and see for yourselves.

Saturday morning breakfast on the stoep watching the town walk by, a meander to the market and of course, late night drinking in the fairy lit courtyard garden.

 We spent the day on their farm 30 kms outside of Prince Albert, this is the road we took- I know..... I'm sure you could meditate for hours on the serenity of just this picture, but to be sure, 

I'm throwing in the roadside tortoise as well.

We drove past a large fig farm, this was very hard, row upon row of almost ripe large black figs - just as well I wasn't driving.

Almost at end, we veered right to reveal their gorgeous little farm, the horses came to greet us.

 We got to eat some of those figs- stuffed with blue cheese, gently roasted in the weber and then wrapped with black forest ham- I haven't stopped thinking about them.

The art teacher chose the hammock and we all wiled away the afternoon listening to sweet sounds of nothing.

We left at sunset- the horses bid us farewell.

Drive by- drive home