The rooms were ready for the Rhodes and Founders' weekend in July, Melsetter�s annual big event. We had invited Vere and Neta to stay with us, and they met us at the Calling of the Card on Saturday evening in the packed hotel lounge. Then we were a bit disconcerted when Budtz appeared from Que Que with Barbara Grantham, and we found that they expected to stay with us! So I learned early on to take the unexpected in my stride in our farming life.

At home late that evening we sorted everyone out - Vere and Neta in the little spare rpom, Barbara in with me, and Pat and Budtz on stretchers in the sitting room. We all spent Monday at the race course (betting and Calling the Card were all a deep mystery to me), and Budtz rode in one of the races.

We all drove back to Orange Grove for dinner and to change. To relieve my indigestion I mixed a dose of Maclean�s, and Vere, who was a great one for trying out mutis, asked what I was having and insisted that he needed some too! (Another remedy I tried on Dad�s advice was a drop or two of iodine in milk. But only time helped!)

Vere tripped and fell into the tub in their tiny bedroom, but luckily that was before he had his dinner jacket on. I wore my ivory Liberty satin frock, and thoroughly enjoyed the dance in the basement of Meikies� building until Pat and Vere quarrelled over something trivial. During their unpleasant altercation, Ann Olivey tried to reassure me: �Don�t worry, Shirley, this sort of thing does happen only once a year.� Next morning all was friendship between them before Vere and Neta returned to Cashel.

A few weeks later Mother and Auntie came by train to Umtali. To meet them, Pat drove the lorry and I drove the pickup. I went ahead, and when darkness fell I carried on at what I thought was a reasonable pace. Each time I glanced in the rear-view mirror I saw the glow of lights, so knew that Pat was just behind me. Gradually I put on speed without realising it, until suddenly I was made uneasy by the steadiness of the glow behind me. I stopped the car, and found I was all alone in the Rhodesian Bundu with not a sound anywhere - the glow I had been watching and trying to keep ahead of was my own rear lights.

In a panic I started to try to turn the car, hoping to get back to Pat; the road was flat, but narrow, with a ditch on each side, and I had just managed to get the car stuck straight across the road with no hope of my getting it the right way round, when I thankfully heard the lorry approach. 1 was in tears from fright and loneliness, but Pat was furious with me.

He�d had to go flat out in the lorry and was horrified at the speed at which I was travelling. He sorted out the pickup, and we carried on at a more sedate pace to Umtali. We met Mother and Auntie at the station next morning, put Auntie in the lorry and Mother in the pickup with me, and drove home. It was lovely having them and they enjoyed their stay. Mother particularly always liked farm life, and she always gave us some solid gift which improved our primitive life-style.