Dinner with an international flavour …

On Monday evening Gigi and I invited a couple of Cape Town turners over to ‘dinner’ with Carol Rix. Gert Ferreira, Bert Parker, Izak Cronje and Peter and Ineke Nicolle were able to join us. All had a great time. We had a data projector available for Carol to show us many of her turnings as well as those of some leading and some not so well known, but nevertheless very accomplished, Australian turners. Some of the names that I recognised included Anderw Potocnik and Neil and Liz Scobie.

Carol Rix admiring some of Peter's pieces and she and Peter chatting to Izak Cronje (out of frame).



To top off the evening I noticed Stuart Mortimer come on line. Aware that he knew most of the people in the room from his recent visit to South Africa and also that he had just returned from a month long visit to the USA, culminating in the AAW Conference in Louisville, I Skyped him and asked him to join the party. I had a webcam attached so he could see everyone in the room.

Once I had adjusted the webcam to compensate for the low light conditions in the room we introduced Carol properly and he could confirm that his first impression of her having a beard was mistaken! Our group were tickled pink to chat to Stuart and I think he had equally as much fun. It was also fortunate to have had the chance to introduce Carol to Stuart. Carol is intending to arrange a trip to the UK (and elsewhere), on a recently awarded AAW grant, to meet some of their innovative turners. Stuart disagrees with the opinion of a well-known British turner (who shall remain nameless) that told Carol in a moment of pique that ‘innovative British turners’ was a contradiction in terms! To be truthful he did recant on that opinion when Carol contacted him later.

The conversation with Stuart topped off a delightful evening.