The Rissington Rag - September 2023

Welcome to The September Rag - back to normal(ish)...

There was a ‘secret’ reason why June’s Rag was different as you will see further down but, in general, the aim is going to be to vary the format of the Rag a little more often in the coming years. This is partly in order to keep it fresh and sharp – and maybe sometimes just a little shorter(!) – but also to change the emphasis from time to time and broaden the appeal. A few aspects are guaranteed, though... 

The Rag will continue to be published four times a year; it will always contain news, views, good deals and prizes. It will always entertain. Other than that … well, anything goes. Let’s see what music and laughter this September Rag has in store for us…

What’s in store:

Maybe it’s a poor and pointless pun but, firstly, Hazyview has a Woolworths food store as of September. This is very exciting for us locals. In a bizarre way, it recognises our town for its increasing influence as a great place to live, a gateway to Kruger and an adventure hub. For time-sharers, it means no more panic shopping before you leave the major cities. For Kruger visitors, it means you can stock up before you head into the park. For the rest of us, it simply means great fresh food and quality ingredients. Our town has come of age! And for the British readers, as you know from your own (unconnected and now-defunct) version of the chain: “That’s the wonder of good old Woolies!”

Hazyview has come a long way in the four decades that I have been associated with it and living nearby. In fact, when I first worked at the late lamented Cybele Forest Lodge, forty years ago this year, there were only eleven shops in Hazyview, including a couple of basic hardware shops, a mechanic, two petrol stations, one or two general dealers, the fabulous Hazy Dazy Café/Kaffee, a Post Office and a very small Spar – called the Soenie Spar because it was tiny and shy like the small Suni (in the English spelling) antelope.

Nowadays, thanks largely to developer Arnold Pistorius, uncle of Oscar, we have several hundred stores and our little Soenie Spar has become a giant Ndlovu (elephant in isiZulu) Spar. Everything is now bigger and better except that our Post Office is smaller, not often open and, when it is, it doesn’t even have any stamps for sale.

The demise of the postal system is one of South Africa’s more embarrassing disasters. It could be argued (somewhat disingenuously) that we are ahead of our time because we all use email instead of snail mail, just as we are getting on with solar because we have run out of electricity and just as it likewise doesn’t matter that all our telephone lines have been stolen because we all have cellphones. This way, though, lies madness. We could stop fixing the roads (maybe we already have?) on the basis that we will soon all be flying around using jetpacks.

Anyway, the lack of a postal service has led to a flourishing network of planet-battering courier companies all plying the potholed roads, accompanied by their own security back-up vehicles (now that the police ‘service’ has also become dysfunctional) and sometimes even their own helicopter escorts. Note that I have even found you a cartoon featuring a Hazyview banana-courier, as befits our status as one of the world’s largest areas for banana-growing. Such attention to detail.

This may seem like an odd discussion for what is essentially a cheerful missive, trying to persuade you to come back to Rissington and to send your friends and clients to South Africa, but it isn’t really incompatible. The solutions are the embodiment of the old Afrikaans adage of ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan (I don’t think you need a translation for that one) …

For example, when we don’t have electricity from the national grid we make our own and anyway Eskom, the electricity supplier, is usually thoughtful enough to minimise the power outages at weekends so that, although ‘loadshedding’ has led to the collapse of hundreds and hundreds of businesses, it doesn’t interfere with our crucial leisure time and we can always watch the rugby on television. We also have VOIP telephone lines and high-speed internet at Rissington, supplied from a nearby tower. The bad roads slow down the rhino poachers and gangsters and are anyway being fixed up in time for next year’s elections, which will almost certainly bring about some ground-breaking changes in our political landscape, one way or another. The sun shines almost all the time and we have the nicest people in the world (OK, after the Malawians, maybe, and the Zimbabweans, but then most of them live here anyway). And we still have a better infrastructure than almost anyone else on our continent, as shown by this photographic map, taken with the lights on. Look how well Nigeria and Kenya are doing, though. Eye-opening!

So anyway who needs post offices? They only lead to corruption in pension payments. We will just have to find a new way of measuring distance from one town to another instead using their post offices as the central references. Maybe the police station? Oh no, wait. That’s also corrupt. Perhaps we should start measuring the distance from one Woolworths Food store to another …

Driving us Mad:

Potholes notwithstanding – and we had a discussion about those in the March Rag -  the fact remains that there is no-one we curse louder than a driver who has just carried out the exact infraction (such as undertaking, using the yellow line area or overtaking on a white barrier line) that we just thought of ourselves and then rejected, even though we would normally have done the same.

In South Africa we treat the rules of the road not as firm laws but as guidelines. Here are a few more useful tips to be borne in mind:

·         The guy speeding up at the approach to the robot is a sure sign that the light has just turned red from his side – and the use of the word ‘robot’ for a traffic light is indicative of just about the only functional and predictable aspect of driving here. Robots are incorruptible and, unlike on the rest of our continent, here they actually work (except during loadshedding when anything goes) but the humans generally anyway ignore the robots, possibly as a form of pushback against Artificial Intelligence.

·         We talked before about South Africans driving not on the left or the right but on the best side of the road. So the driver coming at you over the hill on ‘your’ side is probably avoiding a car-swallowing crater on ‘his’ side. Be ready for that when cresting any rise.

·         It’s an old one but increasingly true: if you see two ears sticking out of a South African pothole, it’s not a rabbit. It’s a giraffe.

·         The second most dangerous vehicles on the road are the so-called first responders. The ambulances and the tow-trucks rush vulture-like to be first on the scene and scoop up the body-parts and panel-beating jobs, causing a demolition derby of more accidents. The most dangerous vehicles on the road are, of course, the police cars.

I Queue – like everyone else, but not exactly …

However maddening it can be to deal with the authorities in South Africa there is always a lighter side, even if it is just the spectacular people-watching to be enjoyed whilst sitting in the queue. Yes Britain, you may have invented the queue, but we have perfected it here ... by adding chairs. Every time someone (agonisingly slowly) progresses to the very front of the queue to be served, everyone behind them moves up by one seat. It’s like musical chairs without the music, whether you are waiting for your turn in a pharmacy, trying to check into a hotel or applying for a driver’s licence, the same system applies. We queue sitting down, shuffling towards the front, one seat at a time.

The Department of Home Affairs has however taken this whole concept a few steps further. Masters of frustration and holders of the key, in South Africa, to every critical moment in our lives such as being born, getting an ID book, obtaining a passport and dying, they know that we can’t avoid them. They have us completely at their mercy and they are therefore ruthless in their handling of their patrons. In the case of the Hazyview office, in addition to the inside lines of dozens of chairs (which are always filled with hopeful punters) and the lines of desks in front of them (which are almost inevitably completely devoid of officials for long periods at a time) there is an outside section, separated off from the access to the building by strips of danger tape. Outside the said danger tape are more lines of people, sitting on the tarmacked ground of the dusty car park, rain and shine, filtered into unmarked lines of 1) ‘new applications’, 2) ‘collections’ (wishful thinkers) and 3) ‘enquiries’ (not a chance!). They sit outside there day after day just in the hope of getting inside the office and having a proper chair to sit on. And we are defenceless against this system, with no way of speeding up the process, let alone bypassing it … except …

… this morning, I went to pick up my replacement SA passport and a miracle occurred. It was raining slightly as, armed with a book to read, an umbrella and a flask of coffee, I gingerly made my way past the snaking queues towards the danger tape. I just wanted to talk to someone and make absolutely sure that I didn't squat to no avail in the wrong queue for the rest of the day. There was no-one to be seen. I waited. Then I waited a bit longer. Inside I could see long lines of ominously full chairs. Still, I waited at the tape and …

… just as I was about to give up, a short glaring security guard (as I took her to be from all the badges she was wearing on her uniform) appeared at the cordon and this is how it went:

Guard: What do you want? You can’t come in.

Me: I have come to collect my new passport please. Which of these lines should I be in out here?

Guard: How old are you?

Me: How old am I? Does it matter?

Guard: Yes. How old are you?

Me (truthfully): I am 59 years old.

Guard: That is the wrong answer. Try again.

Me (not-quite-so-truthfully): OK. I am 61 years old.

Guard (lifting the danger tape): You can come in.

And so it was that I went straight to an inside seat in a special section, with only two people in front of me – both of whom, I noticed, were holding babies – and I was in and out in 20 minutes. So, South Africans, when you next go to the Dept of Home Affairs, be at least 61 years old. And if you don’t think you can get away with that, take along a baby (someone else’s will certainly do, if you don’t have one of your own). It can only help.

I felt a little guilty as I passed the sinuous lines of patient souls on my way back to my car, but I can’t apologise. Getting older has to have some perks, after all, doesn’t it? And they would all get as far as a comfortable inside chair eventually, I was sure, even if it was on another day. The never-ending patience and calm of the South-African-in-the-street (literally, in the street in this case) never ceases to amaze me.

Just as I got to the car, the power in the building in front of me went off. Load-shedding had just added another three hours to the waiting time of the people in the snaking queues. Oh dear.

Our country might be in a bit of a mess at times but as a well-connected 'someone' said to me only the other day: “Don’t worry. The whole world is in a mess!”

And, in the words of the great John Betjeman: “thus we dissipate our fears”.

The War is Over :

Covid-19 was our generation’s war. It taught us to be cautious and never wasteful, just as the rations system did the same on a larger and more painful scale for our grandparents during ‘The War’. It also taught us never to take anything for granted. Not our health; not our businesses; not our holidays.

Life is always going to be a conspiracy for some. The potholes are always on their side of the road. But for the rest of us optimists here are a few Positive Spin-offs of the Covid War:

·         WFH Work from Hotel – it’s a Thing. We can all become Digital Nomads and work where we want. We can micromanage to our hearts’ desires but let’s do it from the bush or the beach or the berg. Rissington offers great deals to long-staying Digital Nomads.

·         Health and Safety has improved everywhere. We never want to have to go back to wearing those horrible masks again. Rissington recently underwent a ruthless health and safety check by international consultants and passed with flying colours. I think the same is generally true everywhere. We had never heard of Sanitiser five years ago. Nowadays it is ubiquitous.

·         Hotels have stepped up their game. Well, most of them have. There are still a few hiding behind Covid as an excuse for short-staffed teams and broken-down facilities but that’s a bit like blaming apartheid for the potholes. The majority, though, have really invested for the future. 

·         Rissington is one of them, of course.  How? Well, we have told you before about all the upgrades, but here’s an exciting new one. We have a Cappuccino machine in the restaurant and … wait for it … a Nespresso machine in EVERY room. How sophisticated is that? As the team here would say: “We are like a really really hotel.”

·         And in case you are wondering about the environmental impact of the coffee pods, they are all recycled and turned into … wait for it again … bicycles. Even Gretha Thunberg approves of bicycles. 

We have also received another chart-topping accolade in that our old nemesis-friends at TripAdvisor have awarded Rissington the TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Award for 2023. How cool is that? OK, in the dying days of TripAdvisor maybe it’s not actually that cool, but it is better than not getting one. All fads die out eventually and mercifully Covid seems also to have killed (or at least dampened) the (wo)man-in-the-street’s formerly-endless enthusiasm for constantly reviewing things. And also for repetitive web-based addictions. I bought a shower-arm online from China (sorry, Gretha) and I was amazed a) that it arrived at all, b) that no-one else on ‘Hello Peter’ seemed to have received their items from the same supplier (because only the ones who don’t receive their order will post a comment, I suppose) and c) that the suppliers have emailed me daily since my first contact, begging me to post a review of their 'shower-arms-to-Africa' service. I never do these reviews. Do you?

Quite honestly, I don’t know why anyone thinks it can possibly be constructive for them to air their dirty linen in public, but then I also think that airing your clean linen is just as bizarre. Look at this lingerie sullying the architecture of Rissington’s most recently-built rooms, as seen from the road just inside the gate. What weird behaviour. I mean, seriously?! We offer a laundry service. For goodness sake use it instead of subjecting us to sights such as this!

As for other web-based addictions, I am slowly tiring of Wordle after 600 days of play without missing even one. I am sure we are having repeats of words we have had before although the Internet swears we are not. I have only failed to get the word twice and I just want to beat my 292 highest streak before pulling out. Only a few more days to go.

As for Birdle… what? You are an Afrophile and you are not doing Birdle? It is BRILLIANT. Start now! And then come and do the birding trail at Rissington to help you to up your game. We have had a beautiful black-headed oriole flitting around in our trees, right through the winter, its mellifluous call filling the cool morning air. Even the semi-migrant bird species are staying put at Rissington throughout the year. An example to digital nomads everywhere.

Play now on www.birdle.co.za It's great!

Reading and Writing:

In a bored moment, I worked out that the 50 Rags I have written, averaging around 5000 words each, have amounted to 250 000 words, which is the equivalent of two decent-length books.

My current oeuvre is still underway and taking shape quite well. I do find though that, when I am writing, I also read more. I thoroughly enjoyed Sihle Khumalo’s Milk the Beloved Country. Sihle and I shared an editor a decade or so ago and he has an upliftingly fresh and frank take on South Africa. My other writer-friends have been busy too. Tony Park has just released his 21st book, Vendetta, and it is topping charts all over the place. Of course, you must also still read James Hendry’s Return to the Wild if you haven’t yet done so.

In the meantime, here comes a bit of travel writing, exclusive to The Rag. The newspapers seem to have stopped taking pieces from random freelancer travellers like me, so I shall write for my own publication instead …

As Mad as Madagascar:

Why did we go?

No, not to see the penguins. As it is for just about everyone, Madagascar was a bucket list thing. JJ wanted to see lemurs and chameleons. I was interested in the people and the history. We both wanted to hike, bird-spot and also chill a bit.

Where did we go?

·         Antananarivo – three nights of restaurants, city vibes, markets and galleries

·         Andasibe for mountain walks, birds, chameleons of many different shapes and shades and, naturally, lemurs, especially the huge indri with its haunting cry – three nights

·         A boat trip down the Tsiribihina river – three days of relaxing drifting, birding and camping on the river banks. Thousands (literally) of white-faced whistling ducks, stunning kingfishers and more yellow-billed kites than you could shake a stick at

·         Tsingy de Bemahara, near Bekopaka – for the amazing rock formations, the hikes, the climbs and the river kayaking. Fascinating remote villages, fresh fish and sacred skulls in the caves.

·         Kirindy – for more lemurs, the elusive fossa (yes, we saw one), different birds, including the loerie-like coua, and the baobabs. Yes, those baobabs. The ones where you need to be photographed. (See photo of JJ, who is now officially taller than a baobab)

·         Morondava – for the clean beach and the prawns, the fish markets and the soccer on the sand

What did we like most?

The walks in the forests, the tranquillity, the lack of tourists, the well-planned itinerary, the well-organised comfortable accommodation (not luxury, but definitely ‘comfortable’).

What was most surprising?

The food was extraordinarily good, almost everywhere, and included some real delicacies, great fish, prawns and even foie gras. There was a lot of rice, admittedly, but you could always have more prawns instead.

What did we not like quite so much?

Make no (rattled) bones about it, the roads are appalling. Travel in Madagascar takes patience and fortitude. We had excellent drivers but every journey took forever. So, book long stays and plan for a full day or two driving in-between bases. The people are (it's a stupid generalisation, I know) tolerant, helpful and likeable but not overwhelmingly friendly. Service is adequate. Standards of guiding are generally not comparable with South Africa or other African tourism destinations. The effort is usually there but the knowledge is arguably not, although there were a couple of exceptions, whom I would happily (and strongly) recommend.

Was it good value?

Yes, very much so – even if you are paying in rands - with the only proviso being that expectations in terms of tipping are ludicrously high, adding a large chunk to the cost and leaving a bit of a sour taste on occasions.

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely. For the young and the young-at-heart, as long as they are fairly fit. It was a great trip, packed with superb memories of fascinating wildlife and wonderful birding; the lingering taste of gorgeous prawns. And not a penguin in sight.

Who should you book through?

Pulse Africa in Johannesburg. Exemplary organisation and a perfectly-matched itinerary:

www.pulseafrica.com

Contact the fabulously efficient Nicci Lenferna de la Motte by email on:

[email protected]

Nicci will fit you out with the perfect tailormade itinerary. Tell her Rissington sent you, if you like. For more photos of this trip (including our fossa) and his other adventures during his wildlife-based gap year, follow JJ's Instagram feed #thewildersideofafrica by clicking on the button below. Make sure you follow, though because there's much more to come!

#thewildersideofafrica

June Rag Winners and Answers:

Yes, that is where I was in June. Madagascar, so I couldn’t publish the usual Rag. Sorry! But we had fun in Madagascar and you had fun with the quizzes.

The answers and the winners of the June Rag competition were as follows:

Rissingtonian Questions    WINNER: SARAH BISHOP (yes, remember her?!)

1)    When was Rissington founded? SEPTEMBER 1995

2)    What was the first name of Rissington’s first Head Chef, after whom the Rissington Kitchen is named (and the lemon cheesecake was once named)? THE LATE GREAT KUKI NGOBE

3)    What is the name (not the number) of the road from which you turn into the Rissington dirt road? MAIN ROAD

4)    What was that same road’s previous name? TZANEEN ROAD

5)    Who was Sweaty Betty? SHE WAS A MUCH-LOVED RISSINGTON WAITRESS. SHE CHOSE THE NAME HERSELF BECAUSE SHE SAID SHE WORKED SO HARD

6)    Rissington’s address is Portion 38, a subdivision of the farm De Rust, but what is the actual individual name of Portion 38? LENTELUS (MEANING ‘THE JOYS OF SPRING’ IN AFRIKAANS)

7)    What is the first name of Rissington’s oldest and longest-serving staff member (excluding Chris)? SIPHO, WHO, APART FROM CHRIS, IS NOW THE ONLY SURVIVING TEAM MEMBER OF OUR ORIGINAL TEAM OF SIX.

8)    Who hosted the ‘Rissington Challenge’ on SAfm radio in the 1990s? TONY LANKESTER

9)    What were the names of the two dogs at Rissington when it was founded? FITZ AND SPORT

10) What is the most frequently-occurring tree species on Rissington? SILVER CLUSTERLEAF

South African Questions   WINNER: STEVE HALL

1)    What is the English name of South Africa’s national fish? BLACK BREAM

2)    How many presidents has South Africa had since (and including) Nelson Mandela? FIVE – MANDELA, MBEKI, MOTLANTHE, ZUMA, RAMAPHOSA

3)    Who was South Africa’s Head of State during the Second World War? KING GEORGE VI OF GREAT BRITAIN

4)    Who presented ‘Top of the Morning’ on the old English Service of the SABC? PADDY O’BYRNE

5)    When under siege during the Anglo-Boer War, British soldiers ate a Bovril substitute. What was it called and why? CHEVRIL BECAUSE IT WAS MADE FROM HORSES

6)    What is the smallest bird species found in South Africa? PENDULINE TIT (THERE WAS SOME DEBATE OVER THIS!)

7)    The art of which South African artist used to adorn the panels on the walls of Johannesburg station? JH PIERNEEF

8)    Which (then-called) Radio 5 presenter was also the presenter of South Africa’s most popular television cookery show at the time? AMANDA FORROW

9)    Which is South Africa’s third oldest town? SIMON’S TOWN (THERE WAS SOME DEBATE OVER THIS TOO)

10) Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Harry Oppenheimer were all members of which organisation? THE FREEMASONS

Pictorial Questions – Where in the World

WINNER: URSULA SANER-DAVARE

The photographs were taken in the following locations:

1.    Pella Cathedral, Northern Cape

2.    Murchison Falls on the Nile, Uganda

3.    Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London

4.    Rissington Inn from a helicopter

5.    Inanke Cave, Matopos, Zimbabwe

6.    Roundstone, Connemara, Ireland

7.    Beynac, Dordogne, France

8.    Mekelle, Ethiopia

9.     Nascer do Sol near Xai-Xai, Mozambique

10.   Voortrekker monument, Pretoria

Anagrams  WINNER: PAUL MAY (FOLLOWING A HAT-DRAW)

1.    Proud new treats PUTSONDERWATER

2.    Felt boon in me BLOEMFONTEIN

3.    Re a zit grub permit PIETERMARITZBURG

4.    Drat it rich soul LOUIS TRICHARDT

5.    Dale con CALEDON

6.    Hi Bosh BHISHO

7.    Lame bomb MBOMBELA

8.    Net prods Rev VENTERSDORP

9.    Fear great fin GRAAFF-REINET

10.  Ripe rota PRETORIA

Crossword Answers   WINNER: PETER AND SHERRYL SCOTT (FOLLOWING A HAT DRAW)

Here are the clues with the answers. Take a look through, even if you didn’t attempt it. See if you can get into it. Once you start to enjoy cryptic crosswords, I promise you will never go back. My clues should each give you two separate leads to the answer.

Clues – Across

1. Showdown game cancelled (7) PLAYOFF

5. Headed for small Father Edward (5) PATED

8. Feline form loses number to give us a sign (3) LEO

9. Dumpling mixed up endlessly with cog and China (7) GNOCCHI

10. Value reward (5) PRIZE

11. Backward kids jump up high (4) STOT

12. Drinks from point on fossil skull (7) TIPPLES

14. Serious crime committed with iron on lost single (6) FELONY

16. Untidy cloth label (6) RAGTAG

19. Trap in drum after measurement of type (7) ENSNARE

21. Performers pitch (4) CAST

24. Struggle in court case (5) TRIAL

25. Elliptical in shape after no six (7) OVIFORM

26. Possess but concede (3) OWN

27. Approve of something numeral (5) DIGIT

28. Visionary remade in chaos with Dexter (7) DREAMER

Clues – Down

1. Summon lowly servant (4) PAGE

2. One part of fight reversed (5) ABOUT

3. French language, of course initially German van (8) OCCITAN

4. Cruel describing dry crisp wine (6) FLINTY

5. Emerge surprisingly. On website? (3,2) POPUP

6. Perhaps a small journey. One of three. (7) TRIPLET

7. Horse discipline from robe era (8) DRESSAGE

13. Influenced albeit a bit put on (8) AFFECTED

15. Longing for pain after short affection (7) LUSTING

17. Records buzzing source behind curve (7) ARCHIVE

18. Reassign in a jiffy (6) SECOND

20. Sounds like maybe too many to apportion (5) ALLOT

22. Controversy on the attack (5) STORM

23. Ruler emerges when hoar frost returns (4) EMIR

September Where in the World:

Here’s September’s challenge. Where in the World was this photograph taken? The closest answer will win three nights’ accommodation for two at Rissington. Send your answer to [email protected] by midnight on 30th September 2023.

It’s a Deal:

In addition to quoting very favourable rates for any long stay, we are offering our mind-bogglingly good-value 7-night stays for fixed periods in the coming months. You can have a full seven nights, dinner, bed and breakfast at Rissington for only R5800 per person for the entire stay during any of the following periods:

·         20 November to 14 December 2023

·         11 January to 1 February 2024

·         The whole of May and June 2024

New direct bookings only. Email [email protected]

We are also offering a 20% discount on all direct bookings made more than six months in advance, at any time, if fully prepaid at the time of booking. (Prepayments will be refunded if the booking is cancelled more than 30 days before arrival, after which the usual cancellation fees will be applied).

This offer is open to Rag readers only, so please quote ‘September Rag 20% Discount’ when making your reservation and give us the email address or social media handle on which you connect with the Rag. This offer may also not be combined with any other special offers or added to any other discounts given.

Bear in mind that we are also always happy to make activity and game drive bookings in your behalf. There are quite a few unscrupulous and unprofessional operators loitering about on the internet these days, so we strongly recommend sticking with one of our recommended suppliers. Also, if you are a Rissington regular and you are going into the Kruger overnight, we are always only too happy to help you with the bookings and to lend you coolerboxes and any other camping equipment you might need. Just let us know in advance.

Some music to herald the Rugby World Cup

This is a bit of a gulp-maker actually. South Africa has just welcomed its twelfth official language - South African Sign Language - and here is a performance of Mtakamama, performed by the 'Silent Choir' of Johannesburg's St Vincent School for the Deaf, in an advert wishing good luck to the Springboks as they head off to France to defend their title. Watch the very short video here: MTAKAMAMA

Our country is so magnificently uplifting when we get things right. You might not think this one will get to you, but it will, every time you watch it. And I can guarantee you will watch it more than once.

And finally …

We are currently enjoying our four busiest months ever at Rissington. Thank you for supporting us and being excited for us. We love what we do and we love seeing our little place full with happy people. It’s what we live for.

Come and see us. After all, the whole world is a mess and there’s no better place to sit it out than here.

All the best from all of us with a flashback photo to last Christmas. Only 3 months to go until the December Christmas Rag. Watch this space!

Chris and the Team: Shirley, Natasha, Nonhlanhla, Princess, Nkateko, Rosa; Gertrude, Dudu, Yvonne, Angel, Conny and Dellina; Futhi, Betty, Noggs, Patience, Bonisile, Lilian, Mildreth and Maureen; Aubrey, Selby, Lucky and Peter; Sipho, JJ and Lungile; And Philippa in the office, whom you may email on [email protected] for all your booking requirements. Or simply book online on www.rissington.co.za and tell us all about yourself in the ‘Special Requests’ box. See you soon!