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This place could do with a re-birth

This tatty looking building (admittedly made worse by the fact that it was photographed through the windscreen on a wet and miserable day recently) is where a huge number of Port Elizabethans (including our son) were born... it is the old maternity wing of the Provincial Hospital. Definitely in need of some tlc, but given the abysmal state of the Health Department in this province, I imagine it is low on the list of priorities.

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21/08/2008
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Coral Aloe on Oukop

Coral Aloe is one of the many aloe species found in South Africa. Unlike most other aloe species, the coral aloe does not have thorny or spiky leaves. These aloes are in full bloom at the moment and in some areas in the Karoo the fields of aloe looks awesome at the moment. This coral aloe is growing on Oukop in Cradock.

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20/08/2008
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All fresh and new…..

Until recently these were very run down houses in Richmond Hill. I love the new colour scheme on the dark one! And as you can see, these properties enjoy superb views across the bay.

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20/08/2008
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British Settlers – Settling down

After my first British Settlers post Ann had a couple of questions which I will hopefully answer today. The British public was invited to apply to come down to the Cape Colony. Because of the hard times back in England, nearly 100 000 people showed interest out of which 4 500 were selected. The Settlers came in parties and each party was allocated a farm. For this and the seed and implements they had to pay a deposit.Most of the…

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19/08/2008
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The Mosque that stopped a freeway

This is Pier Street Mosque, now marooned on a patch of lawn between the harbour and the freeway.After forcibly removing the residents of South end in the early 70s, even the all-powerful Apartheid Government had to yield to a higher power over this.... and so our settlers freeway has a truncated offramp hanging in space, because they were not allowed to go ahead and demolish this mosque, which is considered to be on holy ground.

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19/08/2008
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Karoo cottages at moonlight

Ok, so its not the second installment of the Settler story yet, but that will still come. Last Thursday I took the step up from my compact digital camera and bought myself a new camera. Ok, so the budget does not allow for a professional camera with different lenses, but it did allow a Fujifilm Finepix S8000 with 8 megapixels and 18x optical zoom. I took it along to Cradock for our weekend away and here follows the first post…

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18/08/2008
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Byebye blogger

Well after weeks of utter frustration, and hours of wasted time trying to upload pix on other programmes, copy them across, only to lose the lot because publishing keeps failing, we have decided to move to wordpress. We have tried and tried to avoid it, because we much prefer the flexibilty offered by blogger as far as picture size etc is concerned, but I guess we will just have to accept the compromise, because there is no way we can…

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18/08/2008
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Elaine Hopewell Gallery

We seem to keep popping back to Parliament Street and vicinity, which is not too surprising because it is home to some delightful old buildings. This is actually in Ivy Terrace, but is seen from Parliament Street. From this gracious old house, Elaine Hopewell has been running her well known Art Gallery and framing business for many years. It is in one of the little pockets that you can find in Central which have remained relatively untouched by the urban…

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18/08/2008
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one day i’ll grow up….

This tiny yacht is called an Optimist, which is pretty appropriate really. Maybe he is optimistic that one day he will grow up into a big boy's toy like the one behind him, which in turn looks pretty skimpy in contrast to the bulk ore carrier being loaded behind it.

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17/08/2008
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Kelp Gull

Today has been one hectic day. I am actually on leave for two days, but has four people from the office contact me during the morning regarding work stuff. Aaarrgggg!!! Anyway, we are also going away for the weekend to go and explore the little Karoo town of Cradock as well as the Mountain Zebra National Park. As it is it is after midnight already and we want to leave at 07:00 in the morning, I have run out of…

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15/08/2008