More pics of Jessie's travels - 2003

VIP visitor to North America - Jessie-Ma continues her travels
Oct - Nov 2003


After her long visit to Townsville and short stop in Brisbane, Jessie went on
via Canberra (sorry, no pics received so far) to Canada and USA, then back home
via Johannesburg. Here are some excerpts from emails and some of the pics I received
about that part of her journey.

From Raoul in Canberra:

Just to let you know that Jessie left this morning here from Canberra. She
was in good spirits and had enjoyed her stay with us. Helen noticed that
she had become much more mobile while with us. We showed her quite a few of
the sites in and near Canberra. She especially liked Floriade, a 1.27
million (according to today's paper) flowers display. The weather was
unseasonally cool. It did, however, provide some of the rain we need to
replenish our water storages. Naturally, she was appalled by the
devastation caused by the fires last January.

From Mary in California:

My mom and Jessie seem to be having a great time. Jessie was over for
dinner after her long flight on Monday. Yesterday they went to the bookstore
and out to lunch. In the evening, they went to a dinner honoring one of my mom's
friends at the Historical Association. Today they are off on a tour of some
beautiful gardens nearby and then they are taking my daughter out to see her
horse. In between they are watching the news.

From Jessie right after her return to Cape Town:

As far as my travelling went, everything went smoothly and no problems. Those terrible fires in California had not started yet I am glad to say, and any way were rather more South than Redwood City. I was glad to find Nita and all her family well. Victor looked fine now and his doctor has said he may return to work two days a week. Mary was very busy organising a big pony show for the Saturday after my visit. Anna has a newish horse they bought unseen on the reccomendation of a friend, and doesn't put a foot wrong, quiet and willing. She did so well she has been asked to ride in a show to be held in Kentucky next year. A nice feather in her cap!

Up at the Dawsons, it was very nice being with then a couple of days but raining most of the time, to remind me that one doesn't dawdle about North America once November is there. We went for one walk in the rain, all kitted out in our rain gear. Even then we had to change almost everything when we got in. It was good fun!

Then it was down to Carlo, and seeing him there, like when I saw you, it was just GOOD, GOOD!! It was just nice being with him. Perhaps he has sent you a picture of his flat? A bit small but adequate. What furniture he has kept is a bit big for the space, but no matter. Amiel let me have his room and slept on a couch in Zak's room. Carl is kept very busy, not least being deluged by boys and friends! We saw quite a lot of Lybi too: dinner at her flat twice, once to meet Mark and the last night to see Hamil who had come down. Bobby was her friendly kind self and besides having a super dinner there, she and Lisa took us to the Yacht club on a perfect day, a nice spell of "Indian summer". They also took us to an old historic spot on the Hudson river where an old water mill a large old building for some accomodation and business and some farm animals. All the staff were in period clothes and gave us the history. The original Dutch who took up the land, of course had tennant farmers doing the work and paying their rent in grain, hence the mill. All is timber, great beams, even the cogs, all wood. It is now of course, a museum place and well worth a visit, quite near. The best part was seeing Carl's properties up in the Catskils. The part he is working on is the most forested and as you will have seen, there are an awful lot of trees and a lot of cutting to make timber for houses, but he loves it. I think he has made a wise move. Already prices have gone up. After all the land does not get more and people seem to have rediscovered the charm AND safety of the country as compared to the city of New York -- a bit removed from Bush and his war!!

From Mish in Johannesburg: I scanned some of Ma's pictures taken while she was here but lost them on the home PC - now here they are. Of course you will see Shingi's new guitar featuring in the pictures - his first day with it and we are all very excited and grateful to Carlo and Ma for making it possible to get it in the US. The family group picture has the tree (Acacia Abyssinica - African flat-topped thorn tree) we planted on the first anniversary of HWM's death in the foreground on the left. It nearly died in a heavy frost in August this year while we were in Oz but has come out strong again and looks set to shoot up this summer.

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