Having not seen Jessica for a whole week now was simply far too much, so for this weekend past I hatched a plan which saw me spend time with her both Saturday and Sunday, thereby scratching the itch and making it a little easier to make it through the next week that she continues her stay with Oupa and Ouma out in Bellville, whilst the creché remains closed for their year-end break.10

Whilst Friday night was pretty much dominated by the awesome XBOX 360 game that is Vanquish (Chantelle is working bloody late at the guest house at the moment, stupid In Season period!), Saturday was a different story, when after a decent sleep I arose and gathered everything I needed for my morning outing.

My plans did receive a little bit of a setback when I realised that I had allowed Chantelle to go into work with her car instead of mine, a problem because my baby car seat is currently inhabiting Monty’s Tucson, thus of no use to me. Luckily this was easily resolved by a quick trip through to the guest house where I switched keys with Chantelle, jumping into her little green Getz and shooting through to Bellville where I met up with Pops and Ryan at the Bellville Lotter Stronghold.

A quick check and pack of the boot, and we were off in Dad’s Lexus SUV, heading straight to Wagner’s Golf Academy in Durbanville, where our mission for the afternoon would be a full 18 holes of their not quite so easy and fairly technical little mashie course.

Seeing as neither Ryan nor Dad have ever played at Wagner’s before, I was at a slight advantage having played there once before (in my previous disastrous outing with Robert where he wiped the floor with me as I continued to whack, and lose, balls left, right and centre!), a fact that I seemingly made use of as I managed to win the first nine holes by a shot and tie for first on the back nine, making me overall winner of the day (with dispute coming from Ryan’s corner. In case you’re wondering, the score was a not so stellar 39 on the front and 40 on the back. Luckily for me, neither Ryan nor Dad fired on all cylinders from the get go!).

Last time I tried to play everything with my pitching wedge, a problem because I wasn’t able to extract much lift out of it. This time however it was sand wedge pretty much all of the way, generating enough loft for me and leading to some pretty nice shots, backed up with putting which for a change wasn’t too horrible at all! For the three hours that we were there in the light breeze and blistering sun, I only managed to lose a single ball, something I’m quite chuffed when taking my last visit to Wagners in consideration!

Anyway, following our successful late morning/afternoon out, next stop for me was a pick up of Jessica from Oupa and Ouma’s house, where I was quite pleased to find that Jess still remembered her old man, breaking into a huge smile when I walked in by the door. (Apparently, she didn’t do this when Chantelle went to visit her during the week, going even so far to get a little upset when Mommy wanted to hold her! Shame, Chantelle was pretty devastated about that!)

Back at my folks’ place, it was a quick bite to eat, before a change into swimming costumes for the whole family, and into the pool where Mom, Pops, Ryan, Jessie and I had a complete ball, frolicking around in the water for well over an hour!

A yoghurt later and it was out for the count for a now dry but exhausted Jessica, while the folks and I wiled away the afternoon by watching golf and tennis, waiting for the little one to wake up so that we could get free (and cute) entertainment once more!

As all good things tend to do, the day did eventually come to an end, and so I dutifully deposited young Jess Jess back with Oupa and Ouma, before hitting the road back to Gordon’s Bay, where I patiently waited the late return of Chantelle from work (with more Vanquish).

Sunday was braai day, as Monty, Cheryl and Rob brought Jessica through to come and braai with us in the early afternoon during Chantelle’s split. Once again it was a scorcher of a day, and for some or other reason I made the silly mistake of braaing using the inside braai. Not my brightest of moments and needless to say, I suffered for it! :)

Anyway, regardless of that, the meat came out delicious as we crowded around the little air conditioner in the lounge, enjoying a great meal and great company, as well as exceptional entertainment courtesy of the always cute as a button Jess!

Eventually it all had to come to an end though, as Chantelle returned to work for her late shift, sparking the return of the Montgomery Clan with Jessica to Bellville, leaving me on mop up duty and then with just enough time to blast away plenty more Russian RIs in the excellent Vanquish on the XBOX 360! (Oh, and maybe I squeezed in a bit of blogging here and there as well.)

So yeah, after reading all of the above, definitely a good weekend that was had, even if wifey was on duty for most of it! :)