At home, I�d made brandy butter which Pat very much enjoyed, and I�d left him extra plum puddings. While I was away, my cousin Ronald Macphail and his wife Muriel visited Pat en route from India, and Pat made his version of (liquid) brandy butter for these missionaries!

I was very flattered when B.K.Long got in touch with me as soon as I reached Cape Town. He was writing the biography of Sir Drummond Chaplin and wanted me to work for him, but of course I couldn�t possibly. He discussed the book with me, however, and asked me to get as much information as I could from Mr and Mrs Brown who owned Brown�s hotel in Umtali where Pat and I always stayed for some years when in Umtali. In due course I had a number of �talks� with Charlie who had been Sir Drummond Chaplin�s coachman, and Mrs Brown who had been Lady Chaplin�s lady�s maid, and sent items to B.K.

The time at Aytoun passed very happily and I saw many friends. Dr Douglas saw me on 21st January and said confidently that the baby would arrive, as expected, in two to three weeks� time. That evening we had a party at Aytoun for Mary Groves� birthday, and we had a delightful time. Everyone had gone by 11.30, and I went happily off to bed, looking forward to going out next evening with Dudley and Qlwen D�Ewes. Suddenly about 1.30 a.m. my waters broke - I roused Mother, and she said: �Off to the nursing home.� Russell drove us to Inverugie at Sea Point, and he hastily slid my suitcase inside the door and then vanished, terrified at the thought that he might be mistaken for the father!

It was a long slow Saturday, throughout much of which I was attended by Dr Douglas and the Matron, until Jim eventually arrived at 20 to eight in the evening, covered with fine downy hair which indicated a slightly premature birth but it soon fluffed off.

As he had come sooner than expected, various plans had to be altered. My parents had arranged that my cousin Margaret Henderson, a Truby King trained nurse from New Zealand, would accompany us to Melsetter and spend a month with us, but Margaret still had charge of a patient in Johannesburg and could not come to Cape Town immediately. Mother flatly refused to have me at home with baby more than a few days on my own before Margaret came, so I stayed in the nursing home for about three weeks, during which Jim got over an attack of jaundice and had his smallpox vaccination, and I happily went out for drives between feeds.