Another weekend, another Cookies & Cakes Willowbridge Market, though this weekend was my weekend off, leaving Chantelle and Cheryl to man the stall on Saturday morning. (Of course, this means that Friday evening was dominated by market preparation, capped off with Chantelle exercising her chocolate creativity by putting together a fake glamour cake for presentation at the stall – which worked mind you, bringing in three new cake orders!)
Saturday was of course an early start for Chantelle as she up and packed, and left for Bellville in the wee hours of the morning, where she and Cheryl proceeded to man the Cookies & Cakes stall on what turned out to be a very profitable outing.
Jessica and I on the other hand enjoyed a much more relaxed Saturday morning, going through the normal weekend routine and picking up a household chore here and there. However, come 11:00 and it was action stations, as I finished packing all the weekend bags for Chantelle, Jess and I, loaded up the car (which includes getting Jessie in her seat), and drove off through Stellenbosch, successfully navigating all the way through to Klein Joostenberg Farm without getting lost (it’s the same venue where we attended Saret’s wedding a while back).
There we met up with Ryan, Karl-Heinz, Trish and a whole lot of their friends for a bit of a relaxed, celebratory picnic in honour of Karl and two of his other friends’ recent birthdays. Although a bit gloomy at times, the rain stayed away and the sun did shine through every now and then, making for a great afternoon of lazing about, snacking and playing with the seemingly horde of toddlers on the blankets.
Eventually it was time to pack up, and after saying all the goodbyes, Jessica and I drove through to Bellville, after a quick detour thanks to me turning in the wrong direction as I exited the farm. There I met up with Chantelle at the Montgomery Clan Stronghold, and after hearing the great news about the exciting market, we packed Jessica back in the car and took her to visit my Mom and Pops (and Ryan who happened to drop by their place), where we enjoyed some delicious leftover from the market chocolate cake and plenty of catch up chatter. One of the highlights of the visit was Mom revealing a box of old toys and puzzles they had retrieved from the attic, including a wooden puzzle which still bore the birthday message to me on my fourth birthday – back in 1984!
From there it was back to the Montgomery Stronghold as I sat down to watch the epic Stormers versus Bulls rugby game with Monty, which pleasingly we won, thereby eliminating the possibility that my watching a game is a bad omen (the first and only game I watched this season resulted in the Stormers first loss of the season!).
Delicious pizza from Old Oak Diner rounded out the experience.
Because I had earlier in the week promised to pick up Robert’s car at the end of the wedding that he was attending, I had a couple of hours to kill before midnight, meaning the perfect opportunity to head out to Ryan’s pad where I partook in a number of FIFA 2011 battles on the XBOX 360, the result being me coming out comfortably on top!
Now pretty much at the end of Saturday night, it was time for Monty and myself to make the long drive out into the depths of Durbanville, were we located the remote venue and successfully retrieved Robert and his car. Apart from witnessing a brawl on the way there which turned into a full blown police and ambulance scene by the time we returned, the trip was fairly uneventful, meaning that I finally clambered into bed alongside a snoring Chantelle just after 01:00 in the morning.
Sunday kicked off with the arrival of Evan, Natasha and little Evalynne at the Montgomery pad, where they proceeded to check out our car seats in an attempt to help them choose which model to purchase now that Evalynne is finally ready for an upgrade.
One pleasant visit later, and it was time for Chantelle and myself to leave Jess in the capable hands of Oupa and Ouma (and a slightly fragile Robert), first heading out to Plastics Warehouse in Bellville to look for cupcake containers, followed by a drive out to Cape Town where we headed over to the Village Market at the Cape Quarter Lifestyle Village in a mission to suss out a new Sunday market at which to market our goods.
Unfortunately it turns out that the Village Market is on far too small a scale to make it worth our while, and after sampling a few items on sale, we decided to make a turn at the Old Biscuit Mill, a market we’ve heard plenty about, but one we’ve never actually visited.
The GPS took us to a pretty rundown area of Woodstock, and because we didn’t know what we were looking for, we immediately assumed it was wrong, and then started biting one another’s head off as we got more and more lost as we aimlessly drove about. Eventually a phone call to Claire put us on the right track, and once again we ended up at the exact spot we dismissed the first time around.
Amusingly, we had never bothered to turn our heads and look at the wall next to us, because there, written in big bold white letters is written Old Biscuit Mill – which had we bothered looking around in the first place, would have saved us from plenty of rather unsexy vitriol thrown at one another. (Seriously, when we get lost then you would be forgiven for thinking that Chantelle and I are the most bitter of enemies!)
Now laughing at our silliness again (but disappointed that the Old Biscuit Mill doesn’t operate on Sundays), we headed back towards Bellville, taking a detour as we got to Century City, where we stopped in the hopes of locating another market which we heard operated in the area. Disappointingly, this too turned out to be a goose chase as that market only operates in Summer.
Finally back in Bellville and reunited with our daughter, it was time to tuck into the delicious pork roast which Robert and Monty had prepared for us on the Weber, complemented by coffee and the rest of remaining chocolate cake for desert!
Sadly, during all our playing in the afternoon, Jessica managed to slip and badly crack one of her teeth on the tiles, putting a bit of a blemish on Sunday afternoon, but outside of that, the rest of the day was pretty relaxed and quite enjoyable, leading to a lazy drive back home in the evening, followed by the normal Sunday bed time routine to cap off what had been a pretty eventful weekend after all! :)