The Visitors Book

On the 25th of May 1996, Dave Walker, a UK Oracle consultant who was out to do some highly specialised work for me on one of my projects, bought us the Visitors Book from a curio shop as a thank you gift for taking him out for the day to experience a bit of Africa. He had never been to Africa so we felt it appropriate to take him to a small game farm in Muldersdrift where he could see lots of game closeup.

You can drive for days in the Kruger National Park and still not see some of the The Big 5, so we opted for a sure thing, The Rhino and Lion Safari Park including a visit to the The Wonder Caves all in one day as it was so close. Dave saw Lions, Buffalo, and a two Rhino's very close to the car. He wound down the window and you could hear the sounds of the munching of the grass as the Rhino was eating. A quick call to his mother in the UK on his cell so she could also hear the sound. Never seen someone so excited about seeing wildlife, but then I guess we were so used to it. I digress.

After the day of excitement and a nice home cooked supper he proudly added the first entry in our new Visitor Book. It's not something we would have thought about or buy but without a doubt it is one of our priced possessions and always has it's special place in the house ready for some new entries. The book has now entered it's fourth "Era" as we always "Turn Over a New Page" when we move.

Entrees are only made for special occasions and not just normal visits. It has to be something special like The Legendary Eviltwin's Feast, Halloween, Christmas, Birthdays, Office Parties, a stay over at our house or any other memorable occasion. Over the years the book has grown to 176 entrees from friends, overseas guests, family and other people deemed to be special enough to write a entree. Sadly some of the people who did make entrees are no longer with us and makes the book even more precious.

Some entrees were made by children,drawing little pictures who are now adults, friends who fell by the wayside, and to be honest the book should have more entrees, but there were always those parties that resulted in nobody remembering to actually present the book at the end of the evening. Still great fun. Sometimes we take the book and read some of the stories and reflect back on the fun times we had together.

I did not think we would have any entrees in Singapore for at least the first year, but how wrong I was. Trevor came over last Saturday for a Eviltwin home cooked meal and made the 3rd Singapore entry. It's a very special book and some of my readers having contributed with their entrees.