Here are my answers to this week’s questions from Cee’s Share Your World.

What did you or did not like about the first place you lived without your parents?

The first place I lived without my parents was at my college residence.   There were four houses and mine was called Lincoln.  To say that it was Spartan would not be an understatement but I thought it was amazing.   In my first year I had my own little ‘cell’, which was part of a partitioned dormitory which housed five of us.  The only private part about these cells was that you could not see each other but you certainly could hear each other!   My cell had a narrow single bed, a dressing table with three drawers and a curtained off hanging space.   It was tiny!   The bathrooms were also partitioned and there was but one loo per floor. But what fun we had in spite of the very strict rules of the establishment.  Today’s girls would be horrified at what we thought was perfectly normal.

What is your most favorite smell/scent?

I think that would be the sea.  Jasmine comes a close second.

Would you prefer snowy winters, or not, and why?

Snowy winters?  I have not had many of those but when I have been in a snowy environment I have absolutely loved it.  I grew up fantasizing about playing in the snow, building snowmen and skiing down steep mountain slopes and it only became a reality when I was forty years old!  I had only been in snow once before aged nineteen when  on a College educational trip in The Hogsback Mountains of the Eastern Cape. We were all hugely excited to wake to a snowy landscape and we all ran out in inadequate clothing to experience it.   By midday it had all melted.

But then my dream came true when I went on a skiing holiday to Verbier in Switzerland.  It was awesome!

Me on the Alpine Slopes

Not even falling snow will stop South Africans having their braai! – That’s me in pink hat and scarf!

But of course I have never had to deal with constantly clearing driveways of snow, being housebound because it’s too cold to go out without donning layers of furry clothing or braving icy roads in a motor car.   So – Yes – I think I am perfectly happy with the mild climate I am privileged to live in.

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. 

I smiled this week when while visiting my friends, I was mobbed by a flock of Cape Sugar-birds.   They know that it’s humans that fill the sugar water feeder and so when they see someone who might be about to do that, they fly toward them in anticipation.   I feed the birds in my garden but have never been quite as warmly welcomed as I was when my friends’ birds came to greet me.