The Times They Are A-Changing

Released just before I wrote my final school exams in 1964, Bob Dylan wrote:

"...Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is 

Rapidly ageing.

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin' ..."

Whilst there are all sorts of explanations as to what he is saying, there can be no disputing that places change with time. Familiar places can change dramatically over time, and a visit down Yesterday's Lane can be quite sobering sometimes.

Just before leaving Cape Town in 2013, we drove around a bit, visiting familiar spots and ones not quite so familiar. 

Like the site of one of the first schools in which I was incarcerated I was taught at Simondium. I stopped and parked on the verge under some ancient oak trees, probably planted by the founders way back in 1852. It is now known as the Simond Private School.  

It amazing what one can learn from Facebook half way around the world, who would have thought?

Wow, even a school-badge! From 1954 to 2016 the time has been a-changing!

The country road through the Drakenstein Valley was quite on that hot afternoon, and my mind flashed back to 1954-ish as my foot trod awkwardly on a large acorn : I remembered us having to collect all the acorns in the grassy school grounds on what-they-called a "lawn" so that the new-fangled lawnmower blades would not be damaged! At the time I was tiny, and the school was also tiny, held in the old church building -- I suspect our class was conducted in the vestry. And the class teacher did the mowing of the "lawn" - and his pigs were given the acorns -- we were told.

What brought on this bout of nostalgia? Well, I was checking something on Googlemaps and somehow I saw a Google Earth photo of Reikorangi. Curious to see whether the date, I found that the aerial shot is 2016, and sure enough, the roof of our extension (yellow arrow) is now clearly visible. For other readers, who have asked the question, Goat Hill, home of the famous ex-refugee Jean-Pierre Goatiere is the area in the yellow rectangle:

53 Kents Road, showing the roof of the 'North Wing' extension and the Goat Hill 'camp'

They say I'm an inquisitive busybody, but I like to called myself a curious explorer-discoverer. So, true to form, I checked what Number 53 looked like in 2008 and 2009. Google Earth is good in that respect.

Taken last year, whilst Tyler was still on a 'Learner's Licence plate.
This was before August, before the driveway was cast and the wooden gate fitted.

2008 - See how small the trees were? Apparently the property was for sale at that time.

A year later in 2009