Had a good weekend this weekend, a more stay at home one than last weekend of course, but a good one nevertheless. Things kicked off with a rather poor movie choice for Friday evening’s entertainment, with Chantelle and myself opting to catch the newly released Step Up 3, a movie franchise which had proved to be quite entertaining in its first two iterations. However, the same can’t be said about the third, featuring a horribly cliched story, weak acting, poor pacing and really just not much in terms of cinema quality. Of course, the dance choreography was brilliant as always, but that’s pretty much that – and I dare you to try and not laugh the ridiculous restroom ‘attack’ sequence! :)

Of course with Chantelle being back on work duty with Louise and Whammy off to Thailand for another holiday, I was left to my own devices for Saturday and so after a bit of admin work like paying off our Boardman’s account, trading in a couple of games and buying a second XBOX controller to get Chantelle to play Blur with me at home, I popped in at the Strand Municipal Hall to catch some of the karate on display at the 2010 Boland Development Tournament. By the looks of things the tournament was well supported, with a lot of little ones partaking as well as the Boland junior team that will be heading off to P.E. in two weeks time for the national competition.

From there it was off to Bellville (Ryan’s pad to be exact), where we had moved our long overdue XBOX gaming session in the hopes to attract more friends to join us – as it turned out, this didn’t happen and so in the end if was just the three usual suspects as Terrance, Ryan and myself found ourselves battling it out fiercely on the brilliant arcade racing title, Blur, peppered with some FIFA soccer battles just for a change of pace.

The original late lunch braai plan was replaced with pizzas from Scooters across the road and our evening entertainment turned into a proper animated film fest as we managed to watch both the slightly disappointing Planet Hulk together with the awesome Batman: Under the Red Hood all in one sitting – without falling asleep for a change! A couple more games of Blur rounded off what had been a pleasant 8 or 9 hours of guy geekery, and I found myself once more on the N2, heading home and trying to remember that I was now in the real world and should now NOT be attempting to race past ever car I deemed competing with me on the road! :)

Sunday was a change of gear and I found myself listlessly doing some household chores, watching some more of the enjoyable High School of the Dead anime and finally getting some more [Prototype] game time in, before I was summoned out of my shell and called to meet up at the guest house where we were joined by the rest of the returned Montgomery clan and I got to show off my superior braaing skills yet again. The hours slowly passed with plenty of story telling to take in, before we were eventually joined by Retha, Miguel and Helena who popped in after being out in the area, meaning that for pudding and coffee we were pretty much a full house of laughs and gigles!

And that was pretty much that. Back home we rounded things off with some awesome Blur battles between Chantelle and myself (man does she get annoyed when the races don’t go her way!), before I hit the keyboard for some much needed blogging and she got catch up on all the latest Idols developments!

Whew, done. So all in all, a pretty damn good weekend off after all if you ask me! ;)

Apart from the big office move that happened over the course of Friday which saw Touchwork uproot itself from Unit 4 and move everything across to Unit 1 of the office block (lots of heavy lifting and installing everything from scratch), this past weekend turned out to be quite an enjoyable affair! :)

Craig Lotter, certified braai adept.

Friday night was kicked off with a visit to Gordon’s Beach Lodge from Wayne and Candice, Retha and Miguel, Laluna and of course, your fabulous hosts Craig and Chantelle (well considering Chantelle was on duty, she kind of had to be there), and started out with a magnificently crafted braai that saw Tong Master Craig produce some fine specimens of tasty cooked Meat and Chicken, complemented by an array of extra goodies whipped up by the ever handy Chantelle, who seems to have a spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen as of late (peanut butter cookies, chocolate cake, orange tart, etc.). The meal and booze going down a treat, we then supplemented the chatting and food with a competitive game or two of 30 Seconds that saw the ladies take on the might of the men, coming up short on both occasions as expected. As per usual it was loads of fun, and as a bit of a surprise, it turns out that Chantelle isn’t the only one who gets quite into it – Retha seems to be right up there with her! Despite the obvious disadvantage thanks to his Spanish native tongue, Miguel actually held up his end of the team pretty well and a cleverly crafted clue gifted us the final game in a unfair sudden death situation that had been shoved upon us by the desperate girls – Crocodile Dundee for the win! :P

Wayne, Candice and Laluna, all called in action to pose for the camera-wielding Chantelle!

Calling it quits just before the clock struck 01:00, we left the guests to enjoy the hospitality of the guest house while Chantelle and I returned home for some well deserved rest – but not for too long as come morning we were up and ready, dressed in our walking clothes and heading out to the guest house in order to deal with providing breakfast for our guests (Needless to say, you can tell there weren’t exactly any real guests hanging around).

Although scaled back from the normal huge feast (hey, no one is paying right?), the breakfast was still a delicious combination of fresh muffins, eggs, toast and bacon and everyone enjoyed themselves as expected. From there Wayne and Candice bid their farewell and left to take care of all their other business elsewhere, and saved from the walk thanks to the miserable wind that whipped up, I said my goodbyes and headed back home – spending the rest of the day toddling around working on my broken PC, downloaded and upgrading to the new Ubuntu (twice because I screwed up – a whole 1.4 GB needed to be pulled down in the end instead of the 700 MB actually required), and messing around doing house chores and watching television. Oh, and Jackie Chan.

Twin Dragons, an oldie but a goodie of his where he plays his twin brother, the one a street smart low level crook with a penchant with violence and the other a gifted music conductor. Fun, irrelevant and packed with loads of action, the movie went down an absolute treat with my Ooskus fish and chips I ordered for myself! :)

Needless to say, Chantelle was more than happy to have missed out on the Jackie Chan spectacular, but on her eventual arrival home she was mortified to discover that there wasn’t a single thing worth watching on the telly, so after a quick supper for herself, I finally relented and allowed her to entertain herself by taking a rasp to my always in a bad conditions heels. So she was in heaven playing beautician while I got to lie on the bed and finish up my Mythical Detective Loki: Ragnarok manga.

Claire and Chantelle, forced to share a bench while I got to share with the umbrella stand parked next to me.

Sunday saw Chantelle back off to work and me catching up on the latest episodes of Mazinkaiser that I laid my grubby paws on, before getting ready to welcome Claire who decided to pop in for a visit and take us out to lunch at Bertie’s Mooring in the process. As it turned out, the weather did a complete 180 degree turn and we were blessed with beautiful weather, meaning we could sit next to the harbour and all the sailing boats eating our lunch on a beautiful day, followed by a walk down Gordon’s Bay main beach with soft serve firmly in hand and dripping all over our toes!

The view of the day, courtesy of Bertie's Mooring

Of course, Claire couldn’t quite escape without a showing of the fabled wedding album (which really is fantastic – completely obliterated my low expectations!), after which she eventually decided to call it a day and headed off back to her side of the woods on the other side of the Boerewors Curtain. Chantelle too returned to her work and so I spent the rest of Sunday watching the ICC T20 world cup match between India and South Africa and fiddling around on my blog during the breaks.

And supper? Well I got a playful SMS declaring someone’s love of ribs and the desire to have ribs and the fact that this someone must now have ribs, meaning that old Sunset Spur got to host the two of us one more time (so much for this someone’s healthy eating drive, eh? :P)

Oh, and somewhere in between all of this I played some more Red Faction: Guerilla, got extremely frustrated on the last mission and vowed never to play it again.

But outside of that, it really was an awesome, relaxing weekend with a good balance of friends, family and my own little hobbies. Nice! :)

The Craig, a picture of relaxed serenity. Awesome, I know.

Like I mentioned earlier, this weekend turned out not to be all that awesome, despite all the cool things that were actually going on around me. Stupid mighty morphing sickness!

Anyway, Friday evening kicked off with Chantelle preparing us some awesome fishcake burgers for supper before we jetted out in Gina G. on route to catch Steve Carrel and Tina Fey in Date Night at Ster Kinekor, Somerset Mall. The movie turned out not to be completely brainless comedy like I was expected and in the end we both pretty much enjoyed it – all I’m saying is watch out for the rotate around the pole dancing segment – you’ll be in hysterics! :)

Saturday morning we were out and about quite early already, riding all the way through to Cape Town in order to pick up Chantelle’s wedding ring which had gone in for repairs to the jeweller a week or so before (one of the diamonds had popped out of the engagement ring segment of the wedding ring). That pickup went pretty smoothly and so it was a change of direction and off to Durbanville in order to catch Andy in her newly opened games store, Games Exctera (more or less that spelling I think), sitting in 22 Oxford Street, Durbanville main.

The sun ever so sharp off a bakkie's back window, driver Craig had no other choice than to pluck Chantelle's sunglasses right off her head in order to protect his fragile eyes!

I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the size store she managed to lay her hands on and with a good selection of XBOX 360, PS2, WII and PC titles, both new and secondhand, and with decent prices for game trade-ins, I’ve got a feeling that she’s not going to do too badly in this new venture of hers! :)

From there the sickly Craig carted Chantelle off towards Damen and Michelle’s pad, in order to join in on the manly gaming session part of Damen’s day-long birthday celebrations, with only one small snag getting in the way of arriving more or less on time – I managed to get the two of us horribly lost and in Kraaifontein of all places.

Needless to say, again not one of my proudest moments and so out came the GPS and by hook or by crook we made it back to the general vicinity where we needed to be and I joined Damen and Dean for some intense Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer battles while Chantelle stole Gina G. and went to enjoy her Saturday elsewhere.

Dean and Doctor Karl trying to figure out how the Wii works (you'll note the bemused Craig in the background as well)...

Of course, one can only game for so many hours and when the prescribed time finally arrived, the wives and rest of the friends (even little Zandea came along for the ride!) descended upon Damen’s safehaven and so out came the charcoal and meat and what ensued what a great braai, featuring a chocolate fountain, ice cream, salad, snackies, Wii-playing, Lips karoake (Terrance’s fault again!), and just general fooling about get together in celebration of Damen’s 29th Birthday.

Chantelle giving it her all in karoke battle against Terrance and Trish!

Not feeling particularly great by this stage of course, I’m kind of glad we had already made plans to sleep over at Mom’s place on the night, and so after saying our goodbyes, Chantelle drove me to my old home where we sat down and had a bit of a chat with Mom and Pops (who was watching the Masters of course!) before I bid them goodnight and sunk into a restless but necessary sleep.

(Oh, but before I forget, has anyone of you tried dipping boerewors in the liquid chocolate that comes out of a chocolate fountain? Wow, what an awesome taste sensation – it’s brilliant I tell you!)

Sunday morning Chantelle and I decided to skip our initial plans of going through to Church as the sickly Craig (and Chantelle who was starting to develop the same symptons that I had when it first started) needed all the sleep he could get, meaning that the morning was pretty much wasted away in bed and in front of the television.

But of course, that couldn’t last all day, oh no, not in the lives of Craig and Chantelle, as by noon it was time to get showered, changed and ready, before setting off to hit the Montgomery stronghold for a day of family braai, darts and conversation. We were joined by my mom and pops as well as Retha and Miguel and the day turned into a pleasant get together, even if both Rob and I were forced to retire early and crawl into bed while the rest continued to party without us!

From there it was a late evening back into GB where to be honest, not much else happened other than some manga reading, ice cream munching, feeling sorry for one’s self and movie watching (The Mummy was awesome to see again!), before jumping into bed for a well deserved, but probably more needed than anything else, deep rest.

And that my friends is the tale of this weekend past. Not particularly exciting I suppose, but certainly filled to the brim with damp tissues and coughed out bits of lung! :P

And what post featuring Lips would be complete without a photo featuring the king of karoke, Mr. Terrance himself! :P

Well, we’re finally back from what has been an absolutely brilliant break from work, the excellent four day weekend courtesy of Easter Weekend. Unfortunately Chantelle worked every single day of my four days off, but luckily for me, I was able to sketch in some great social time dashed with a splash of personal time! :)

This is what your brother does behind you when you're trying to hide behind oven mitts!

Thursday evening kicked off with a braai at our place (well technically I suppose I should mention that we had already gone out on Tuesday night to Ben’s on the Beach to celebrate Chantelle’s raise and on Wednesday night to Panarottis to celebrate my new car), with Chantelle and myself playing host to Terrance and his new beau, Lize. As what now seems the order of the day, I put in a fantastic performance behind the coals (must be the new braai and classic Champion Braaier apron I tell you!), and ignoring the darkness all around me, managed to produce some rather tasty goodies if I say so myself! We sat and chatted and ate like kings, before Terrance and I managed to goad Lize and Chantelle to accept a round of 30 Seconds, in which the team of C&C actually did rather well for a change! :P

Friday saw me tackle some housework in the morning before my doorbell rang and I ushered in Mr. Brown, back again but this time sans the new partner. In other words, it was gaming time. And so we got stuck in to some Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2 and Modern Warfare 2, before eventually powering down and heading out to the mall with the plan of grabbing some new gear… which unfortunately didn’t exactly pan out as what we had planned. It turns out that on a public holiday, Somerset Mall pretty much shuts the doors of all its shops! So settling for a delicious Subway for lunch, we headed back home in the Getz and got to grips with our game controllers once more. Evening rushed upon us pretty quickly and so the decision was made to pick up some Ooskus for supper (as per tradition) and Rush Hour 2 was selected as the viewing for the night, an action-packed Jackie Chan comedy that simply never lets one down! (Needless to say, Chantelle was quite keen to still be at work when she heard that was what we chose to watch for the evening!) :)

Saturday morning I busied myself with housework (still left over dishes from Thursday evening!) and some shopping, trying my best to hunt down a chocolate Lindt bunny for Chantelle – but can you believe everywhere I looked they were simply sold out!! I also tried my luck in getting some transfer papers from the traffic department, but alas, I should have known that the GB office was closed. Back home I pottered about, writing some blog posts and watching some Mazinkaiser anime, before heading out to the mall once again with the purpose of meeting up with Chantelle and her two miniature charges, Holly and Maddy, for a movie and a hunt to try and locate a standalone scanner.

Now the movie, How to Train Your Dragon, was a really fun blast, thoroughly enjoyed it, but the hunt for a standalone scanner was a completely different animal. Browsing around, it quickly became apparent that it is in fact cheaper to buy a all-in-one printer with a scanning option than purchasing a standalone scanner unit – are these people insane?!? Anyway, I couldn’t find one that I like on the shops’ floors, so it looks like I might buy the entry-level Canon LIDE 100 scanner, but hell, that’s going to set me back R737! On the other hand, I did stumble across Red Faction: Guerilla for a R100 at Incredible Connection, and of course knowing me, couldn’t resist this bargain which I then purchased and went home to play, spending the next three or four hours straight with controller in hand!

Sunday and Chantelle was straight off to work again, leaving me behind to take care of even more household chores and get a little blogging in, before I put on my walking shoes and trotted down to Pick ‘n Pay in order to buy a cooldrink which was to accompany on my lunch time trip through to Claire and Riley’s pad in Newlands.

As it turned out, lunch at Claire and Riley’s was really enjoyable, as it was a family affair starring Mom, Dad, Ryan, myself and obviously Claire and Riley, making it the first family get together since Mom’s birthday back in Feb. Claire’s newly renovated flat looks amazing and now with their large and in charge 50 inch Panasonic plasma and matching PS3 to dominate their lounge, the flat is really beginning to look rather ultra stylish! I took some photos of the pad for Chantelle’s sake, and boy is she jealous! :P

Oh, the food was simply divine as well. Weber chicken, roast potato, etc. You get the idea, proper Sunday lunch! :)

Back home I managed to convince myself not to do any work and instead told myself I’ll just quickly play an hour or so of Red Faction: Guerilla. Yeah right. I spent the rest of the entire day, well into midnight playing the damn game and loving every minute of it. The only break I took was to watch a quick episode of Mezzo DSA (fun show) and have some of the delicious stew Chantelle brought back with her from work. Oh, and to make Chantelle a much needed cup of coffee!

Monday morning, and having survived the embarrassment of Chantelle once again recording my snoring concerto, I set about quickly tidying up the place in expectation of Ryan’s arrival, for a planned day of manly bonding over a super long XBOX 360 session. And when I say play XBOX I mean play XBOX. We started just after 10:00 playing Gears of War and drove all the way through until about 18:00, polishing off all five chapters without resorting to violence towards one another. The only pit stop we put in was for a stroll over the road to Pick ‘n Pay and then a making of toasted cheese sarmies in the pan, but man was it worth it. From start to finish, I can see just why the original Gears of War was a popular a game as what it is.

However, the time for Ryan to finally go home was upon us, and kicking him out into traffic, Chantelle and I finally got to spend some quality Easter 2010 time together by hitting the Tallahassee Spur in Somerset Mall for a nice supper and then into Ster Kinekor for a viewing of Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side.

And that wraps it up for what in the end turned out to be quite an enjoyable Easter 2010, even if it was filled mainly with an inordinate amount of gaming! :)

Last Thursday saw Chantelle and myself meet up in Bellville after work in order to join Dean and Zania for a braai – after all, someone had to eat those crayfish and that Geelbek that his colleague had gifted him! Of course on arrival Chantelle immediately got to work at wrestling the adorable little Zandea from Zania’s arms (as Terrance puts it, every time he sees a photo of us with the Stapelbergs its seems as if Chantelle has stolen the baby!), while Dean and I set up camp outside around the weber on what could only be described as the perfect summer’s evening.

Photographic evidence of Chantelle once again stealing little Zandea and smiling to the world as if she thinks none of us are on to her devious little plan!

We were spoiled for starters with a chilled crayfish little dish that Chantelle thoroughly enjoyed, but as for me, it was definitely the main course of tasty Geelbek that did the trick – a fish that I don’t particularly remember having eaten before. Despite clinging to the grid for all that it was worth after being removed off the coals, we eventually coaxed it off without dropping it and with that done it was time to drop the manners and tuck in – and tuck in we did! (Leaving of course some space for dessert. C’mon, what did you think?)

Delicious.

Having lost the will to live a long time ago, the best this Geelbek could do was then offer up its flesh to us. On a grid. Over coals. (It was good.)

Anyway, outside of the scrumptious food being served on the night, the other story to come out of this particular dinner meeting was of course Dean’s CampMaster outdoor chair which decided to look me straight in the eye and take me on – a decision it would later come to regret.

Despite the fact that before I even sat down, I had already voiced my concerns over those dubious little thin pipes making up the chair, but on Dean’s assurance I gave in and sat down, and sure enough, it was a pretty comfy seat – until I shifted weight to stand up again.

With a loud ‘twang’ there broke one of the plastic catches holding the legs in place and with a great sigh, the chair kind of half folded in on its self.

Of course, there was much profuse apologizing following the incident for at least the next half hour, but damn it, now I feel as guilty as hell. So if anyone knows where I can find a replacement chair like the one in the picture below, please, please give me a shout so that I can ease my conscious and in doing so, prod Dean into one day inviting us back for supper.

You know, because he’d have two chairs then…

The CampMaster chair in happier times. You'll spot it if you manage to take your eyes off Dean's girly shirt for a moment... (note those small cross pipes in relation to the size of my thighs. Now was that not looking for trouble?)

It’s bloody hot out here in Gordon’s Bay at the moment. But I’m sitting here, secretly hoping that the Spur ribs we’ve just had won’t give us the runs tomorrow, and thankful that we once again have running water, after Gordon’s Bay went and lost most of its supply on Sunday afternoon, leaving most of its residents without much choice but to buy up every single liter of still water that the surrounding shops could supply.

But outside of a sweltering weekend with water supply for only half of it, it was a pretty chilled and enjoyable weekend, with some time spent at the sea, some time spent behind a Terry Pratchett book, some time spent watching shows like Queen’s Blade, Stripperella, Dante’s Inferno and even Independence Day. Devil May Cry 4 also fell before me as I knocked the final nail into its coffin and then got reacquainted with the lovely Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Underworld. I finally sorted out the house over at House of C, added a few posts to my growing collection scheduled posts and in even braaied a delicious hunk of fillet on a sweltering Sunday afternoon.

But it was Friday evening that was undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend. Shooting straight through to Bellville after work (though when I say shoot I mean crawl as the traffic was particularly bad), failing to locate a replacement chair for Dean at Tygervalley, I then found myself being the first to enter Damen and Michelle’s pad where I eagerly gripped the Roman’s Pizza they had organised so long and then set up my controller and created my profile, finally leaning back and awaiting the arrival of the rest of the evening’s enemies in the form of Terrance, Karl-Heinz and Dean (not forgetting Damen of course!).

We five warriors then fired up Modern Warfare 2, selected our weapons and proceeded to blast the crap out of one another for the next couple of hours, with Michelle desperately bolting herself up in her room for safety (well truthfully, she was already sleeping). Dean proved himself to be the cautious type, and not half bad with a grenade launcher, generally the weapon of choice for Picaroon Brown, though that said he once again proved himself to be far superior at these games of war than what us mere mortals are (though he didn’t score half as many knife kills as what he usually does). Damen must genuinely have been practicing because he easily occupied second place, while I was generally happy with my performance, scoring some cool rocket launcher sniping kills for a change.

Karl was however cannon fodder. (Not entirely unexpected considering this was his first time of course).

It was an awesome evening of competitive gaming once again and I must say that I really am enjoying putting the time aside this year to spend as much time with my friends as possible. In the past it was sometimes the case that I’d only see some of the guys literally every six months or so, but at the moment I am determined to make this a thing of the past, hence all these frequent gatherings I keep talking about.

It’s good, I’m enjoying it and hopefully it continues for quite some time still to come! :)

It turned out to be quite the sociable and relaxed weekend this time around, with Chantelle and I kicking Friday off by heading out to Bellville after work in order to visit with Mom and the rest of the family in celebration of mom’s 53rd birthday. As per usual it was an excellent braai followed up with lots of catching up chatter between the brothers, sister and folks, all nicely washed down with lots of great tasting little snack goodies – the perfect family get together in other words! :P (Not that Chantelle lasted all that long mind you – before I blinked twice she had taken her leave of us Lotters Original and sneaked off to the couch where she happily snored away much of the evening!)

Saturday was a pretty chill affair for the first part, with Chantelle sleeping away just about the whole morning like a dead person and I happily entertaining myself with Ryan’s Devil May Cry 4, before we finally set foot outdoors in order to hit the Pick ‘n Pay and grab all the necessary goodies for afternoon braai time. So whirlwind housekeeping and setting up, and pretty soon our guests of Damen, Michelle, Robert, Karl, Trish, Dean, Zania and little Zandea arrived, heralding the start of an awesome evening in the company of good friends. As is now quickly becoming the norm, I served up a masterful array of good tasting meat off the braai (seriously this ultimate braai that Chantelle bought me is awesome!) and it combined well with all the light snacks that Chantelle created including green salad, spanspek and some home made garlic roll. And don’t forget the ice cream filled, chocolate lathered sugar cones for dessert either!

Yes indeed, these new couches ARE comfy. Thumbs up!

And while watching the South African cricket team take on India provided the bulk of the day’s entertainment, the evening was not to pass without building some competitive spirit and so out came our 30 Seconds for its maiden voyage, providing some excellent games in which I’m sad to say, Team Lotter/Montgomery were soundly beaten by Team Storbeck/Oosthuizen! (But boy did Chantelle become a little bit too competitive by the end of the matches – get one little thing clue or description wrong and she’ll take your head clean off, mark my words! :D)

Seeing as we had held the braai early afternoon (15:00 to be exact) in order to accommodate the Stapelbergs and their little one, the rest of the crowd bid their farewells while there was still plenty of time left on the day’s clock, meaning that Rob and I got to ring in bedtime by watching the surprisingly fun Death Race starring Jason Statham in the lead – lots of car and gun action in case you are wondering!

Sunday morning saw us sleep in pretty late, before finally rousing and setting Chantelle to work on crafting some delicious french toast with bacon and fried banana for breakfast, after which Rob and I set about playing around with Dean’s copy of Ashes, which turns out to be a surprisingly fun cricket game – not that I can bat to save my life of course!

Following that we kicked Rob out of the house and set off for the mall, where I finally picked up a copy of Twilight (the first book) for Chantelle from CNA and then an awesome little paper shredded for my study here at home. (But no toaster mind you. Still can’t find a four piece toaster that both my wife and I see eye to eye on!)

Back home it was time for serious chillax as Chantelle stretched herself out on the couch in front of American Idols for the next couple of hours while I faffed around writing blog posts, doing the dishes and in the end playing some games (Again, Devil May Cry 4 is awesome. ‘Nuff said). Evening eventually rolled by and we found ourselves surely but steadily drawn in by the amazing Will Smith Seven Pounds drama, before ending the night off with Chantelle working on her Sarie competition entry, toasted cheese sarmies and just some general office and braai dishes cleaning up.

And testing the new office shredder of course! :)

Comfort and style. That's how we roll here in Nagua Bay! ;)

Michelle, Damen and Dean - Group Hug Now! (We command it!)

Little Zandea teaching Craig and Chantelle just who's boss!

Don't ask.

You see that fellow tucked away in at the bottom right of the above picture? You know, that rather round guy all dressed in black and wearing some sort of grille as a hat? Well I’m sad to say he is no more – some bloody arsehole has decided to remove him from behind our flat and whisk him away to parts unknown! :(

I can only assume that some opportunist reasoned, hey these people have both a Weber and a proper braai here – surely they don’t need both and wouldn’t mind if I simply took old Weber and gave him a new home? Or even better, made some cash by selling him off to some unsuspecting sod?

Well anyway, the point is that some bloody idiot has gone and stolen our Weber that was given to us by Monty and Cheryl, and quite frankly, we may now never again experience the taste pleasure that comes from a properly cooked Weber chicken.

Bastard!

Plus, now I need to head out and get some kind of chain or something to secure the remaining braai here on our property – it would be an absolute disaster if that too all of a sudden decided to find feet! :(