Lunch with Pat

It's a beautiful sunny day in Cape Town so I'm writing this from my laptop in our backyard. It's been quite windy and a little chilly the last little while so I'm soaking up every bit of sunshine that I can.

Another five days have passed since my last entry. I've been busy, hard at work and have come down with a cold so it's been early to bed for with me this past week. I worked all weekend in Pen 2 with the penguins, along with Chris, an international volunteer from England. We had almost 30 penguins, many of whom were on fluids. Most of the penguins we had were blues (the juveniles) which most people don't like feeding because they tend to wiggle a lot while you're holding them, but they are my favourite!! We have one blue in right now, penguin 263 who is so comical and actually really sweet. Anytime you're doing something in the pen he wants to be around you and be close to the action. When it comes to feeding time he always needs to be the first one fed otherwise you'll find yourself short on fish because he steals them from the bowl when you're not looking!! He's also a free feeder which is nice because instead of having to hold him and force feed him, you just need to hand him a fish and he'll it eat himself. Monday was much the same except I was assigned to Pen 3, most of whom were adults and only needed to be fed twice a day, so the rest of time I spent helping with general duties around the centre. Yesterday all of the penguins in Pen 3, except for one, were released back into the wild. It was a big release of 22 penguins!

On Tuesday I had the privilege of going for lunch with the Ed, the director of AVIVA and three other volunteers to the home of Pat Cavendish O'Neill. Pat was born into a rich family, her mother was married four times, twice to millionaires and twice to men with titles. All men died early and left their fortunes to Pat's mother Enid. Enid was good friends with many well known people of the twentieth century - Princess Grace, Winston Churchill and Coco Chanel just to name a few. From a young age Pat had a love for animals, always bringing home stray dogs and cats. Pat was also married four times, twice to the same man who she is still with today. Once while on a trip to Kenya, one of her boyfriends gave her a lion cub whose mother had been killed by poachers. Pat knew the cub couldn't just be put back into the wild so she decided to move to Kenya and raise the cub who she called Tana. Over the years and still to this day Pat takes in many stray and orphaned animals including baboons, chimps, vervet monkeys, goats and of course dogs and cats. When we went for lunch on Tuesday we were given a tour of her property and shown many of the animals, including Baloo the baboon and Kalu the chimp. She also has many many dogs and cats and a goat who thinks it's a dog. We had a lovely lunch outside followed by dessert and coffee. After coffee, Pat signed my copy of her book 'A Lion in the Bedroom' which covers the first 50 or so years of her life. Pat was a very nice, down-to-earth woman with many incredible stories to share. I only wished I'd had more time to stay and chat, but I'm sure it would take weeks or months to hear about all her adventures. After lunch, Ed took us to a beautiful winery close by, overlooking the area of Somerset West, called Waterkloof where we did some wine tasting. We were told we would have a chance to try six wines, but because it wasn't very busy at the time, we ended up trying all nine wines they had available. Waterkloof carried some of the higher end wines that you will find in South Africa - up to R140 (about $18 a bottle!) If only our expensive wines were that price!! Cheaper wines here range between R20-R60 per bottle ($3-$9). For any wine lovers out there, Cape Town is the place to be!