Back in E-World

This is Maud, just back from Jamestown (near Aliwal North, hope I get the names right, in Oostkaap / Eastern Cape). After the peace and beauty of die Oostkaap I really have to adjust to the e-world with mail, internet, and etcetera. And after a week of only Afrikaans my English seems to have evaporated…
It's hard to imagine we left Botswana only a week ago! We had a luxury bus trip from Gabs to Rustenburg, where our Avis car picked us up so we could travel on to Potchefstroom. Around 18:00 Gerhard, Nick, Bram and Maud started their Eastern Cape Expotition. Although Maud and Gerhard managed to get lost around Bloemfontein, we reached Jamestown just after midnight (hope you have a map to see the distance), a surprise for Nick's parents, who only expected us the next day.
How to describe the surprise of arriving somewhere in the darkness of the night, waking up the next morning, and seeing the lovely big house, the small village and the wondrous surrounding landscape?
After an excellent farmer's breakfast we drove to oom Nico's plaats – the farmland up in the mountains, where Nick's father keeps sheep and cows. If you've seen our Lesotho-footage: we were near to the border, the landscape has that kind of beauty.
The next day poor Bram had to stay at home, preparing his Pretoria-lectures (although poor? he enjoyed the care of tannie Elsa!), while Nick took Gerhard and Maud to Lady Grey, a mountain-village on the Lesotho-border where his mom's family-farm used to be. Maud overcame her vertigo and climbed on top of the dam - it just was too beautiful to be afraid!
Sunday Gerhard and Bram had to shoot back to Potch / Pretoria because work called. Maud won the lottery: Nick invited her to stay and escape small and big city life a bit longer.
According to Bram's phone-calls he's doing fine in Pretoria. The university put him in a nice flat, and his lectures go well.
Meanwhile Nick and Maud were very busy. Imagine entertaining three little dogs who have to sit on your lap all day, a huge boerboel who thinks she's a chiwawa, lots of good meals, and in between you have to walk around the village, check the village-cows, go to Aliwal to have facials and lunch, drive to the farm to check the sheep and the crop, and a zillion things more.
Today we had to drive back up North because work called Nick. The boys (BGN) really tried to get me to Joburg for the weekend also, but although I love their company, I want to escape Big City more, so I stayed in Potch.