Gauteng Smallholder June 2017 | Page 51

Family memories D istance, it is said, lends enchantment to the view. I was reminded of this recently when we hosted a long- overdue family reunion sparked by the visit to South Africa of a cousin now permanently resident in London, where she has been for the past 30 years. At short notice we summoned up as many cousins as we could, all the uncles and aunts being now no longer with us (and it must be said that even among us cousins there are those whose time upon this earth has come to an end). From Pretoria came one, from Boksburg came others, even from Welkom came yet others and those that couldn't come all had pretty cast-iron reasons why. And apart from the absence of the now-late aunts and uncles and the fact that we cousins are now all well into our 60s, it was just like the family gatherings we had decades ago. And, my oh my, we were a family of gatherers. Just about every Christmas I can remember from my childhood there was a family affair at one or other aunt's house. And, ours being a Pretoria family, other occasions were celebrated in the Fountains Valley, where family members who had moved away could bring their caravans for the weekend and where we kids made memories of our own riding on the miniature train that ran around the grounds on Sundays. As a young adult I was never much of a family person and when I moved away from Pretoria after my school years I naively supposed that th