Paradise!
About mid-afternoon I turned onto the road leading into the Cederberg and to Gecko Creek. As I stopped to open first one then the second gate on the drive into the Lodge, I stopped to drink in the landscape. Still not what you would call “beautiful” in the traditional sense of the word, I was again struck by the power this place has for me. It is more the feeling you have here that is beautiful rather than what you see per se. There is a tranquility that envelopes you and calms your soul yet fills you with a sense of anticipation and discovery and promise.
Ingrid was waiting for me and such a greeting it was! It was as if the months just fell away; as if I had never been gone. We sat in the sunshine on the lappa lawn and laughed and exchanged stories of the time that had passed since we had last seen each other. It is that easy kind of friendship that picks up exactly where you left off, regardless of the time or events that have passed. Once more I experienced that comfortable sense of the familiar that I have come to associate with my return to South Africa.
After hours of catching up, Ingrid prepared the most wonderful meal of Ostrich Steak, boiled potatoes and broccoli. Absolutely out of this world. She had thoughtfully brought in my favourite wine and we enjoyed the rest of the evening sitting on the porch, sipping our wine and reflecting on the strange path our lives sometimes take and the chance encounters that bring us together, all the while looking out beneath a velvet blanket of the stars of the southern hemisphere.
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Morag