Right, so the first part of my bachelor weekend was a good start, so let’s get on with recording down the rest.
Saturday morning I enjoyed a good sleep-in for a change, followed by a lot of chores and DIY, pretty much taking the whole morning away from me. Afternoon however was my time, and after a quick pop in to the shops in order to re-supply, it was back on the road to Bellville, where I joined up with Ryan, Evan and Natasha, Damen and Michelle, Karl-Heinz and Trish, and the biggest surprise of all, Terrance (from Japan) who had managed to completely take more than half of us surprise by nonchalantly strolling in and just joining up with the braai. I was completely flabbergasted at seeing the man himself, more so because just seven days ago I told Retha (who is down from South Korea) to her face that there was no way that it was Terrance that she thought she had seen on her flight because if he was coming to South Africa then I’d definitely have known about it!
Yeah, definitely wrong on that one! (Sorry Retha, looks like I owe you a drink…)
Anyway, it was loads of fun catching up as we proceeded to braai a literal heap of boerewors on Ryan’s little Weber braai, before loading up on boerewors rolls and sitting down to catch the all important Stormers versus Sharks Super 15 semi-final. Unfortunately as we all now know, that game didn’t exactly go very well for the home team, and unfortunately thanks to Ryan being not a drinker, there was no alcohol to drown our collective sorrows.
As it was Terrance was on hand to save Trish from her boredom (not a rugby person) by taking up a game of Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit with her, and as the rugby game continued to worsen for the Stormers, we pretty much lost both Ryan and Evan to the game as well! (The only other ones not interested in the rugby was little Evalynne and Logan, though to be fair, I was pretty distracted playing peek-a-boo with them anyway!)
Something not depressing was however the whipping out of Top Spin 4 for the XBOX 360, and with four controllers at hand, the group settled down to start playing some pretty serious tennis games, keeping us pretty busy for quite a long stretch into the evening. The numbers eventually began to dwindle and the boys switched over to some pretty hardcore FIFA 11, and having the FIFA king that is Terrance back made for quite an enjoyable evening of soccer, so much so that we only got rid of Terrance and Evan well, well after midnight! (Shame, poor little Evalynne and Natasha were forced to crash on Ryan’s spare bed whilst Evan got in his fix of virtual footie).
Having opted to sleep over at Ryan’s pad, I then hit the sack, enjoying a pretty decent sleep which might have gone on for much longer but for Ryan’s penchant for listening to television in the morning at quite a loud volume! After he got back from gym and I helped myself to a little cereal for breakfast, we put in a couple of games of FIFA ourselves, before making a spur of the moment decision to invite mom and dad out to join us for an impromptu early lunch at a cafe in Tygervalley. It was nice to see the folks again as always, and pleasingly, my chicken mayo tramezzini was pretty damn good!
We were on a bit of a time schedule though thanks to Zania’s birthday celebration / braai room launch get together in the afternoon, so after bidding the parents farewell, I quickly hit the shops to pick up something for Zania, before managing to completely get lost looking for a toilet in Tygervalley whilst clutching a beautiful white bouquet of flowers. Not my finest moment in the end, and certainly one that meant arriving late at Dean and Zania’s pad.
Dean’s braai room really came out nice, and pretty soon we had a good fire raging, and the group consisting of Dean and Zania, Damen and Michelle, Evan and Natasha, Ryan, myself and of course the kids, enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon of playing in the sun and talking a lot of rubbish.
Over and above the awesome braai meat, Zania then proceeded to spoil us with cake and champagne, capping off an awesome Sunday get together (well technically it was capped off by Ryan and Dean zipping through to his mom’s place in order to collect a big fish tank. But that story isn’t quite as nice as the cake, or the fact that unlike last year, I managed to actually not break a plate!)
I made the long drive home, only to arrive to a Gordon’s Bay which was completely dark – apparently the electricity had been off for maintenance since 6 o’clock that morning! I managed to make my way into the house, successfully pee without wetting the whole damn bathroom, and finally retrieve my candles and set about lighting them, only to have the lights come back on at exactly the moment when I lighted up my final candle. Sigh.
To be honest, I was secretly pleased that the power did in fact come on, because it meant that I could at least see Cameron van der Burgh put in his awesome World Record, gold winning Olympic swim!
So yeah, that was my awesome home alone weekend, pretty jam packed after all. I did of course miss my wifey and child, but after hearing just how much hassle Jessica was for Chantelle over the weekend, perhaps I’m now not quite as sad at Chantelle’s last minute decision to take Jessie along with her to Nieuwoudtville! ;)