Chris and Enid
My Dad recently re-married, and is currently on an extended honeymoon in New Zealand. Here’s what he has to say about it all:
We first met outside our mutual friend Helen’s house in Clovelly, her hillside home in a suburb of Fish Hoek down the Peninsula to Cape Point, in dear South Africa. We were meeting to travel together to an evening concert in Cape Town.
There is good parking at St Andrew’s Presb’y Church in town and we arrived in plenty of time, chose middle row seating, read our programmes and acknowledged each other, sitting a seat apart, socially correct, observing the other folk slowly arriving, carefully seating with a view of the performers. This was Thursday 19th February.The lead violin player is Helen’s son Quentin, hence our eager support. Later Enid says she saw in me a reserved and quiet man and I saw in her a grey-blonde, slim, casual but smart figure, clear features an occasional sweet smile. We chatted a little, probably about the building and the pieces on our programmes. Earlier I had helped Helen with ticket sales.
St Andrew’s is one of the oldest churches in Cape Town and is unique in that it’s Minister is a lady who did her training at our church in Fish Hoek for several years and is the only Parish Minister in charge of her own church in the Western Cape Province.
After that, we bumped into each other a couple of times at local shops, where I got a bit tongue tied. Later we again went with Helen to another concert, this time in my car as they seemed more comfortable with me driving. This time we spoke a bit more freely.
Again we met shopping in the local Hardware store, where Enid was struggling with what to buy for fixing a wooden trellis on a cement panel garden wall, so I was able to offer some advice and then offered to help her to secure it later that day. With electric drill and some tools I was able to fix the trellis firmly in place, we sat in Enid’s garden enjoying coffee and starting to get to know each other.
Then there was another DIY job (wonky loo seat!) and concerts, day trip outings and dog walks (she has three small ones) and our friendship grew, her family noticed and watched. We decided that we would continue to meet with a plan to review our future in a couple of months time, specifically Sunday 16th August.
On Friday 17th July my daughter Fiona phoned from New Zealand to ask if I would homestead “sit” for six months and it was urgent as she and her husband Patrick had a work contract offer they really couldn’t turn away at this time. So I was faced with a very difficult decision and as I was most reluctant to leave Enid for six months, I went to talk to her about this on Saturday following. Enid’s SA passport was out of date so we went on Monday to our Home Affairs Department which incidentally has just about the worst reputation for taking months to do anything, even routine. But they came up trumps! (We collected the required temporary passport the next day) That afternoon in her garden at about 3 o/c I got on my knees and asked Enid to marry me and she said “Yes”. Her children and grandchildren were most encouraging and her all sisters were very kind, as were my local family.
As you can imagine, we had to scrabble around to get ready for the marriage ceremony, arrange the air tickets, pack, numerous other matters, but things kept going right! Isn’t God good? That’s what we found, Yes! We were married at St John’s Church Fish Hoek on Thursday 23 July 2009 at 11 o/c by a most lovely Priest, Father Frank who had previously taken us through a thorough meeting of wisdom, experience, support and guidance. I’ve been a widower for over eight years and Enid a widow more than four. One of Enid’s sons, Michael, played the organ for our marriage service in a very beautiful church setting. Our witnesses were our respective daughters Melissa and Wendy.
We were blessed by Russell and Wendy with a supper and over-night stay at a country Casino complex (I’ve never eaten four courses before!)
On Sunday 27th July we set off for NZ. Our flight was long and tiring but we loved it, a long stop at Dubai airport – where we bumped into a couple related to Enid. Fiona met us at Dunedin and we had a day and a half hand-over before she and Patrick were off to Dublin, to work.
So we are now responsible for 9 sheep, 4 guinea pigs, 2 chickens (1 or 2 eggs each day!) a border collie named Dave plus a large ginger cat (guess the name?) and a few acres and some gardens where Enid has got stuck into the veggies and planted some more.
We are very blessed to be together, in such a beautiful country, friendly people, lots of cold ,wind sunshine, some frosts even snow, quiet, stable, safe, serene at times beside the river, among the animals, it is lambing season – most sheep have twins, so cute calling their mothers, running snoozing jumping nuzzling in wide eyed wonder at us.
We enjoy outings to town, coast – rocky sweeping wild expanse little spoiled by human hand! We think their coffee is not good!
We are regularly exercising; walking Dave, do some Yoga each day. Enid is into healthy food stuffs etc, loves cooking, music, reading and faithfully we go to our Christian meetings. We are very happy here but we do miss our respective families, though they keep in touch with us through e-mail including photos!
We are only due back in Cape Town late January 2010.
Together we send you our good wishes and love, in Jesus’ name!
Chris and Enid
Congratulations, folks! We wish you all the very best.
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