During the early part of 2008 we took the whole family to Cape Town in South Africa. As well as having a great time on what we considered to be a holiday of a lifetime we bought home a whole new way of living.
Our best friends had moved to the Cape in 2005 to live and work and had consistently pleaded with us to come and visit them. Even though we new that we could stay with them and would not have to pay for hotels anyone with a young family will appreciate that finding the airfare from the UK alone is still a bit of a financial challenge.
Anyway after a bit of deliberation we decided to just go for it. Get cheap flights actually worked well after we discovered that we could convert points earned on the loyalty card program of our local supermarket to vouchers in the Airmiles scheme. In addition to this because we purchased the ticket over six months in advance we managed to knock another 10 -12% off the peak price.
The flight itself was a real adventure 10 hours long my kids had a whale of time. Mainly we watched movies back to back but the whole experience of a long haul flight was very exciting.
This did not compare to the feeling of actually putting our feet on the continent of Africa for the first time. The air was cool yet the sun shone bright in a gorgeous blue sky we had arrived.
For the next two weeks we spent time with our friends visiting all the major landmarks such as Table Mountain and Robbens Island where Mandela had been imprisoned.
What stood out most to us about the people of South Africa was the pace and attitude towards life. Even though they had all the responsibilities that we have in the west they seem far more relaxed and certainly a lot less driven. You could put it down to the weather and views, but more than that it seemed to be a cultural approach to life which really appealed to our family. Long lazy meals in the evening and weekends spent at the beach or by the barbeque.
So much so in fact that since returning we have adopted the same lifestyle as much as we can in wet old England. Certainly we no longer have any TV dinners and sit together either at the dining room table or outside if the weather allows. As a result we have a far more relaxed and content family.
