Number 76: When we married in January 1983, my parents bought us this  beautiful  yellowwood  dining room table and 8 riempie chairs as a wedding present, which we used  in our dining room for the first twenty years of our married lives. (The chair at the table is one of the original chairs – no longer riempie!).

When we moved into Alamein Road in 2003 we bought a larger table and other chairs at an auction. This table I took to our bedroom where it is now my desk.

When Ilana, my sister, moved to a new home in 2019 she gave us the dining table  that she had been gifted by Aunty Sylvia. Aunty Sylvia and Uncle Benjy had used this dining table all the years that they were in Cape Town. It was probably also the table they used in “South West Africa” in the 1950s. So many family functions and meals took place around this table. When Aunty Sylvia and Uncle Benjy left on Aliyah they shipped the table to Ilana in Johannesburg. To be able to use a dining table that has been in the family for over 50 years feels absolutely wonderful.

As an aside , the dining table and chairs we purchased on the auction were donated to an NGO. I was thrilled that they were able to come  and collect the dining table and chairs from our  home and auction them off for a tidy sum  – given to the NGO. So a win- win situation for all of us!