Here are my answers to this week’s Share your World questions.

What is your earliest memory?

I am always intrigued by what sticks in my mind and what doesn’t.   I forget what I did yesterday but my memories from before I was four are still there!  In my earliest memory I am three years old.  Big Brother is already at school. He is six.  I am holding Mommy’s hand and she is pushing Little Sister in her push chair.  She is one.  We are meeting Big Brother who is walking home from school.  I have no idea why this memory sticks – nothing significant happens but I remember my brother looking very pleased with himself while I feel a tad jealous that I am not big enough to be at this important place called school.   Other memories from this time in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg are vivid.  Sitting on the pavement with our nanny Siena – she chatted to other nannies while we played with their young charges.  The gold mine dump near our house, the
“bumpy” road we took as a shortcut to the main road that took us to wherever we were going, our enormous garden with its very long driveway and extremely tall trees – my first bird call memory  is of the turtle doves calling at sunset. We left this house to live in Cape Town when I was five. I returned with my brother when we were in our thirties. He had not been there since he was 8 but he found the house without a hiccup.   I couldn’t believe how the garden, trees and driveway had shrunk over the years!

I do remember one significant thing –  I am standing in the dark street with my father (and mom and siblings) He is pointing to a moving star in the Sky- “That’s Sputnik,” – he said, “One day they’ll put a man into space!” That would have been in October 1957 and I was not yet five years old.

What was the last photo you took with your phone?

I don’t often take photos with my phone but if I see something interesting on my walk I like to show my hubby a proof shot. The last one was of a pair of rock kestrels but they’re too blurred to show here.  Instead I will post one of harbour. I can never resist photographing  it.

Struisbaai on a still, winter’s day.

Have you ever danced in the rain?

I can’t believe I haven’t because I have danced in the oddest places at inappropriate times but I don’t remember any dancing in the rain incidents.

What is the longest you have gone without sleep?

More than 24 hours.  It was the last day of college.   I was in a residence called Lincoln at Grahamstown Training College.  We came from all over the country and had been together for three years. Now we were dispersing to different parts of the country and didn’t know when or if we would ever see each other again.   We stayed up all night to get the very last of each other. The next day there was a final chapel service and we sang, “God be with you till we meet again”  Well, the refrain, “till we meet at Jesus Feet” set me off and I couldn’t stop crying.   A fellow student gave me a lift from Grahamstown to Port Elizabeth where I boarded a plane to Cape Town and I cried all the way in the car and on the plane.  Of course, it was the lack of sleep the amplified all this emotion.   I had just calmed down before deplaning and was ready to meet my father with a smile – but as soon as I saw him – I burst into tears again!   However, it didn’t take long for me to get over it and enjoy the next phase of my life!

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

I am grateful that the cupboards are complete, the workshop is painted, the bunk room is tidy, the burglar alarm is installed and all that is left is for the burglar bars to be fitted.

I am looking forward to my grandson and three of his friends arriving tomorrow for a five-day visit.   We used to bring the boys and their friends for holidays to Struisbaai when they were kids – now they’re old enough to drive themselves here!