Here at last

The day arrived at last, all the packing, sorting, unpacking has at last been completed. Just waiting for take off. Heiko has moved in and we know he will look after everthing for us. Poor guy has been left with a lot of instructions on payments, gardenservices and Sheila. Auntie Joan was in hospital for tests when we left so Peter, Sandra, Caroline, Craig and darling Amy did a drop and go for us at the airport. They were very disappointed about not staying butt now looking back it was a good thing as I think we were all feeling a bit down about the long separation. Heiko stayed but we didn't go back to the eating places as we just wanted to book in, and sort ourselves out. Why is that we very ordinary citizens get jittery, we haven't done anything wrong so we should feel very confident - people in uniforms at airports just bring all our nerves into play,. We met up Margie and on the plane she sat behind Gerrit and me with Maureen. Heiko SMS Andre once we were up in the sky to let him know we were on our way. Well here I am 35000ft above ground travelling at over 900km/hr and yet I'm very calm of course as we have only been travelling for about an hour..... just 8 more hours to Dakar. So far, so good. Gerrit is in newspapar mode so I'll sit and meditate.... no rather pray.
Dinner was good, I had chicken something like Spanish chicken As we are sitting on the wing I suppose you could call it chicken on the wing. You know like they have Beef on the Hoof. At Dakar we sat for nearly two hours while security check was made we must have looked very clean and germfree because no spraying of insecticides took place. Once again the take off.... nerves to the fore!! Now for JFK New York - I slept thanks to a few pills BUT I did walk a really steady flight - no problems - maybe I'll get used to this form of travel after all. At JFK all went smoothly no opening of luggage, nice immigration man and customs guy - are we lucky or what? We were called over the public address system because we had been sent to the wrong gate - not 1 but number 8. Let me tell you JFK is bigger than Cape Town and we had to run from almost one end to the other. Gerrit moaned all the time and I was letting off pops like a jetski. My ankle were like I had elephantitis and wrapped in special white stockings looked like I was the mummy. Oh well as well that ends well. Getting on board to the stares of all the other passengers was quite something and I tried very hard to give them my best SA smile. Another smaller Delta plane and less people but a wonderfully friendly crew. The flight took just about 3 hrs and then we circled over Florida. Wow but it is beautiful .... wonderful housing estates all around waterways green, green grass toooooo beaut. And then Andre, Shelley Vaughan and Emma to meet us - tears flowed mixed with hysterical laughter we could not believe it. At last we are with our kids. Lovely drive home in Sues car because it is bigger than Andres or Jenelles and out onto Route 95. About 30 minutes later we arrived at Boca West and Andre took us on a drive around the resort. I cannot describe to you all just how wonderful it is It is enormous, bigger than Edgemead and Milnerton together - different almost suburbs within a walled area. Five golf courses, tropical trees and flowers. Beautiful houses in different designs and all with water features etc. I will have to try very hard to take a lot of pics so you will at last get some idea of where Andre has spent the last five years. Have I said before how proud we are of him and all he and Jenelle have achieved? We are.... they have a lovely home - sparsely furnished but with enough to be very comfortable. I seem to have gone on quite a bit and hope to continue at a later time to tell you about the braai we had with their friends on Tuesday night. In the meantime love you and many thanks for the good wishes, gifts and prayers that sent us on our way.