Back in April this year we enjoyed a nice long weekend thanks to Freedom Day falling on a Monday, and looking back at the photos, it looks like we might just have filled up the weekend with visits to perennial weekend favourites of ours – namely Root 44 market, Mondeor Garden Restaurant, and of course, ponies and pancakes at the Blaauwklippen Family Market.
Seems like a decent way to spend a family-orientated weekend to me! :)
And Monday the public holiday? Well that saw us drive through to Grabouw of all places.
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Related Link: Freedom Day
Birthday Weekend away in Franschhoek (2015-05-08) Photo Gallery 23 JUN 2015
The fact that I was going to be away for business in Sandton for my birthday back in May, meant that Chantelle and I bumped things up a little and headed out to breathtaking Franschhoek the weekend preceding Monday the 11th, free of the kids (thanks grandparents!) and ready to take in some culture!
Early Friday afternoon saw us hit the road, and the impromptu decision to head out to Franschhoek by looping around Viljoen’s Pass and then Franschhoek Pass was a good indicator of how the weekend was going to be. Relaxed, fun, and full of beautiful things.
An unplanned stop at the Peregrine Farm Stall resulted in some delicious coffee and cake to start things off, and then it was back on the road for what was one of the more scenic drives that I’ve enjoyed for quite some time!
The guest house that Chantelle had picked out for us (she organised the entire weekend mind you!) was a place by the name of Maison d’Ail – a luxurious guest house nestled under the Franschhoek mountains, fronted with a beautiful pool and even more majestic views. Given that there weren’t any other bookings for the weekend, the owner graciously upgraded us to his luxury suite – which came with its own little balcony and even more views of Franschhoek mountains!
The guest house was perfect, the food great and the accommodation comfortable – not that we spent all that much time there mind you. This was to be a proper weekend of being out and about! :)
Chantelle and I enjoyed a relaxing stroll around Franschhoek before heading out to supper on Friday evening, picking out the French Connection Bistro as our place of choice for the evening. As expected, both the food and wine was excellent, and seated outside for the view and fresh air, we were treated to a fantastic night out and about in Franschhoek.
Saturday morning was an early start, as we raced away after a hearty breakfast to an undisclosed location, me genuinely excited at not knowing where we were heading or what my big birthday surprise was meant to be, Chantelle super excited by the fact that I was both so excited and clueless at the same time!
Sadly for her though, her big surprise was ruined, when, after arriving at the Stellenbosch Flying Club (my mouth was hanging on the floor at this stage), a young pilot let us know that due to the overcast conditions at all the other landing strips, my intro flight had to unfortunately be cancelled. Absolute devastation.
Shame, Chantelle was literally in tears! (Note: a lot of rescheduling later, I did eventually go up in a Cessna Skyhawk – it was awesome!)
So it was a sad drive back to Franschhoek for Chantelle, but thankfully our next stop was exactly what was needed to bring back a little cheer to her face – the ‘chocolate experience’ tasting and informational session at the Belgian-trained chocolatiers, Huguenot Fine Chocolates.
Delicious!
Following that, we strolled around Franschhoek a bit, taking in the great sunshine and atmosphere, stopped for some coffee at Sacred Ground (the coffee shop / bakery that Chantelle used to supply with cupcakes and cakes back in the day), and booked our tickets for the Wine Tram experience on Sunday.
With that done, it was on to the next site for the day: Johan Rupert’s fabulous Franschhoek Motor Museum at the L’Ormarins Estate. Chantelle had organised a tour guide for the session, and we spent the next couple of informative hours strolling through the four massive barns filled with some of the most beautiful classic cars you have ever seen – an experience which even load shedding couldn’t take the shine off of!
And then the day got even better.
As we stepped out of the front door following our excursion, I was greeted by a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Series 62 convertible – to which Chantelle then strode and climbed in!
Yes, Chantelle had organised for us to be driven along the estate, stopping for a light snack in between. What a fantastic experience!
The excitement of the car museum behind us, we then decided to head out on a bit of a drive, and made our way through to the Hillcrest Berry Orchards for some scones and tea – a personal favourite of Chantelle and something we do without fail at least once or twice a year! :)
Relaxed, full and rather content with life in general, we finally headed back to Maison d’Ail to put our feet up for a little bit, before once again heading into Franschhoek, our goal the fabulous Roca restaurant perched on the top of a hill on the Dieu Donne wine estate.
Needless to say, the food at this particularly cosy and majestic eatery was absolutely brilliant!
Sunday was to be the day of wine, and following a good night’s rest and a great breakfast, we packed our bags, bid farewell to Maison d’Ail and headed off to the pickup point for the Franschhoek Wine Tram, looking forward to our first ever taste of their hop-on hop-off tour.
We selected the estates that we wanted to visit (in the end, we only made it to three of the six on our particular line!), and off we went, the cute and clever little tram and busses shuttling us off to the most wine tasting sessions we’ve ever experienced in a single day!
Rickety Bridge, Grande Provence, La Couronne – we had an absolute blast, took in some beautiful views of both landscape and art, enjoyed particularly good wines, experienced a cellar tour and even paired chocolates, cheeses and wine!
An absolute stunning day out which I can only but highly recommend to anyone who enjoys drinking wine!
And that was that.
The weekend was over and reality returned, meaning that after a quick stop for a bite to eat and coffee to rid us of the last tipsy effects thanks to all the wine, it was off to Bellville in order to pick up the kids and then finally back home.
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Without a doubt, a birthday weekend to remember! :)
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Beans, Stodels, Blaauwklippen and McDonalds (2015-03-29) Photo Gallery 21 JUN 2015
Found another folder of weekend photos that I forgot to post, dating back to the end of March this year. Another dad alone weekend, but man, looks like I once again found myself with the pony at Blaauwklippen Family Market on the Sunday.
I’m beginning to wonder just how many times Jess has ridden that little pony this year… (I suspect more than what I can count might be the answer!)
From the look of it, this was a pretty good weekend. Planted beans and swung in the crate swing with Oupa Monty, spent some time with the friends at Stodels (Logan, Evalynne and Jessica had a ball), pony rides, ice cream and pancakes at Blaauwklippen, and some burgers and play time at Waterstone McDonalds.
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Seeing these kind of makes me eager for Spring and then Summer to roll back into our lives! (After all, looks like possible snow hitting the Cape this week…)
A Sunday of Ponies, Bossa and Strand Beach (2015-04-12) Photo Gallery 20 JUN 2015
Back in April, only two months ago, the weather here in the Western Cape was still pretty good (as expected). Having already enjoyed a fabulous first half of a weekend thanks to the fantastic Fashkosh 2015 airshow at the Stellenbosch Flying Club, followed by a birthday braai with friends in celebration of Damen’s birthday, Sunday morning saw me flying solo with Chantelle out and about on some or other mission which quite frankly I simply don’t remember any more.
Not that this stopped me from enjoying the beautiful Autumn weather mind you – the morning routine was done and dusted before you could blink, and pretty soon Emily, Jessica and I were chilling on the lawns at the Blaauwklippen Family Market, eating our way through a pile of pancakes while taking in the vibe and good music.
Of course, this has been the year of Jessica becoming rather fond of pony rides, meaning that you can’t exactly leave the market without her having ridden their faithful old pony at least once or twice!
See? ;)
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The next morning/afternoon stop for the kids and I was to Bossa Social Cafe in Somerset West, not the first place that comes to mind if you think kid friendly venues, but one that does surprisingly work quite well, thanks to its outdoor tables and decent lawn / sand pit / jungle gym setup.
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(Seeing as the kids were playing and Chantelle wasn’t present, I resorted to striking up a conversation with Cuddle Cub over a refreshing glass of strawberry milkshake)
And as if all of this still wasn’t enough of a weekend out and about to my satisfaction, we capped Sunday off with an impromptu trip through to Strand Beach once Chantelle had finally returned home – the perfect way to end off an Autumn Sunday afternoon! :)
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In other words, definitely not a horrible way to spend an Autumn weekend out here in Cape Town!
Of course,
A Weekend of Tygervalley, Newlands, Blaauwklippen and Mondeor! My Life 22 MAR 2015
As always, last weekend was plenty entertaining for Craig and his little girls. With Chantelle working, it was up to us to go exploring, and as such, Emily, Jessica and I found ourselves making the trip through to Bellville to spend a large chunk of Saturday morning browsing around the Tygervalley Shopping Centre, darting in and out of toy, book and clothing stores – much to the delight of young Jessica it must be said.
After a refueling stop at the Tygervalley McDonalds (Jessica had pleaded for a hamburger), we travelled through to Mom and Dad’s pad where Jessica and Emily were to spend the next couple of hours alone with mom, seeing as I was joining Ryan and Dad for the big Super Rugby game at Newlands between home team Stormers and the visiting Chiefs. Traffic was heavier than usual (or as Ryan would put it, we left later than what Dad wanted to because I made myself a cup of coffee first), the result of which was that the stadium was already making a lot of noise by the time we finally parked our car!
That said, I don’t think arriving a little earlier would have made any difference anyway – lines to get in through the various stadium gates were crazy – it would look like the new ticket scan system is slowing down access into the stadium badly, resulting in a lot of angry people in the process!
Anyway, it took a little longer than expected to find our seats, but once we were sitting and settled in, we were treated to an awesome first half spectacle of the Stormers dominating the Chiefs in the scrums and just a tight, exciting game in general. Newlands had a little earlier paid tribute to the heroic firefighters who had been involved in those massive fires just a few weeks earlier, and so there were quite a lot of men in uniform dotted around the stadium. In addition, high school Stellenberg had a contingent of students doing high school track meeting flashes/cheers, which was a bit weird to see at a rugby game, but good for the atmosphere anyway!
Sadly, come second half and things changed badly for the Stormers – despite the lovely cheerleader girls doing their best to motivate the boys on, the Chiefs turned up the gears and with their superior handling and running down the wings, gave us a proper hiding and lesson in how good rugby should be played.
So that was saddening and disappointing to say the least. After all, I only go to the rugby stadium like once every 1.5 years or so, and so to finally go and then lose is quite depressing as you can imagine.
Anyway, the ride home was a lot smoother and quicker than the ride to the stadium, and after some visit time back at Spolander street with Mom, Dad and my little girls, it was in the car and back to Gordon’s Bay to close off what had been a pleasant Saturday after all.
Sunday was another glorious day in terms of weather, and so I took Emily and Jessica through to Lourensford Market for some pancake time. However, the closer I got, the more and more signboards signboards appeared that pointed out that today was the day of the big Getaway Expo held at the Lourensford grounds, meaning a snap decision was made to avoid the massive crowds, parking headaches, and bumper to bumper traffic, and instead make a sharp turn, amble leisurely through the leafy glades of Somerset West, before hitting the R44 and driving down to the always enjoyable Blaauwklippen market instead.
Interestingly enough though, it turned out that Blaauwklippen had decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s day a little earlier than the official date (Tuesday 17 March), and as such everything was decked out in green and a lot of Irish music and culture was on display – which doesn’t really make much sense considering the fact that I don’t think Ireland has that much representation down here in South Africa?
Not that it matters though, the girls and I enjoyed the vibe, and Jessica was particularly enthralled with the duo of Irish dancing girls that entertained the crowd with all their kicking and flailing about.
The pancakes were good, the girls had fun, and Jessica has already booked a horse ride for the next time that we return – which in itself is something rather amazing given her general fearful nature!
From there we were summoned to come through to the Mondeor Garden Restaurant to meet up with Monty and Cheryl who were driving through from Bellville in order to meet us for a cup of coffee (Chantelle was busy finishing up her shift for the day – i.e. this was all her sneaky plan for some coffee and cake time), which is then exactly how the rest of Sunday afternoon was spent.
The carrot cake was particularly delicious.
In other words, yet another activity packed weekend for Craig and his girls done and dusted! :)
Spur, Root 44, and Boerewors Rolls My Life 25 FEB 2015
As per usual, we had a nice and busy weekend, with things kicking off on Friday when Chantelle abandoned us for Bellville in order to go and watch the much hyped 50 Shades of Grey movie with Natasha and Michelle Garrett. She opted to take Emily with in order to leave her with Ouma and free up some Daddy/Daughter time for me with Jessica, and taking full advantage of this generous offer, I picked up Jessica from Vergeet-My-Nie at the end of the work day and headed off to the Gordon’s Bay Spur!
Needless to say, Jessica was particularly excited, even more so when we were handed a table literally next to the play area! For the next hour and a half she was bobbing between playing in the kids area (our Spur has really jacked this part of their operation up!), eating food and drinking pink milkshake with her dad, and running around with two other random little girls who seemed to be having just as much fun over at the Spur as what she was!
(Footnote: I didn’t stay up to find out how much Chantelle enjoyed the BDSM-tinged 50 Shades of Grey movie – which as it turns out was quite a lot – but I am rather pleased to report that I didn’t wake up chained to the bed or something like that the next morning).
With Chantelle working and an Eskom loadshed looming, Saturday morning saw me escape to Somerset West with the girls for some retail therapy (no, actually just household and DIY shopping – lightbulbs seem to be really, really expensive these days, not to mention the price of garden tools!), followed by a visit to the always busy, always pleasant Root 44 market at Audacia.
There it was to be pancakes, playing in the sand pit and of course going down the slides (yes, even Emily joined in) that was the order of the day!
The rest of the afternoon/evening was pretty uneventful now that I think about it – Chantelle and I attempted to watch Liam Neeson getting rather confused in the movie Unknown, but sadly as we got just over half way, Chantelle’s gentle snoring and permanently shut eyes became a subtle enough hint, and so we abandoned the film for some much enjoyed bed time.
Sunday was work day for Chantelle once more, but I had more than enough on my own plate to keep me busy. I had invited all the friends around for a Boerewors braai at our place – the first informal get together at Country Mews of the friends in I don’t know how long!
Anyway, all the rushing around paid off, because by the time our guests in Michelle, Damen and Logan, and Evan, Natasha and Evalynne arrived, everything was set up and ready, meaning that chilling in the driveway around our newly bought outside table could commence in ernest!
What followed was an enjoyable afternoon of chatter, boerewors and spanspek, and even a short trip to the park here in Country Mews. Of course, boys will be boys and FIFA did at one point get hauled out and played – and to make things even better, Ryan eventually showed up in Gordon’s Bay, coming through for a visit and some FIFA following his outing to the Art of Brick exhibition in Waterfront earlier in the day.
Eventually though, the day and early evening were done, and with the kids in bed and the last of our guests gone back across the Boerewors curtain, Chantelle and I settled down to finish off the enjoyable Unknown (for the record, Chantelle didn’t quite make it – she’d have to catch the ending again the next morning), rounding off what was a great little weekend.
Weekend Updates My Life 12 AUG 2013
I’ve been a bit slack on the weekend updates again I see, so just in case you were wondering what the Lotter Clan has been up to over the past two weekends, never fear, for the info is here!
Two weeks ago I capped off a busy work week with my bi-monthly release notes send out and then headed off back home only to find Chantelle and Cheryl still furiously busy in the kitchen, pumping out baked produce in readiness for the Saturday market stall at Willowbridge. Monty was happily entertaining Jessica, and after a delicious curry for supper, we let the ladies get back to their work while we continued to entertain and eventually tire out Miss Jessica.
Eventually the market work was done and Cheryl and Monty returned home to Bellville, leaving a pretty tired Chantelle ready to tackle the next project, a beautiful pink baby shower cake while I set about teaming up with Ryan over XBOX Live to take another stab at the explosive and enjoyable Crackdown co-op campaign.
Saturday saw Chantelle out early as she headed over to Willowbridge to run (with Cheryl) our very first stall at Willowbridge (we’re now back permanently, meaning you can catch us each and every Saturday at the Willowbridge Slow Market from 09:30 to 14:00), leaving Jessica and me to mind the house, get up to all sorts of mischief and await the arrival of the lady to pick up her Baby Shower Cake.
After the pickup Jess and I headed out to the Somerset Mall to take care of a few shopping errands, ending off with a stroll around Stodels, making sure that after the business end of our visit had concluded, we still had enough time to stay and play a bit on their slides and wooden climbing frame. For lunch I treated little Jess to some McDonalds (the Happy Meal Purple Minion toy was the target), and after a quick detour to Benbel on Monty’s behalf, she and I packed our bags and headed off to Bellville, first meeting up with Chantelle at Dean’s place for a visit with Zania, little Zandea, Damen, Michelle and little Logan, followed by some time with the Montgomery Clan (we were sleeping over for the night), from which Chantelle and I eventually snuck away to Tygervalley for a date night, first taking in the very amusing Despicable Me 2 at Ster-Kinekor, followed by a mouthwatering delicious supper of pizza at Panarottis.
We didn’t stick around in Bellville on Sunday morning, instead returning to Gordon’s Bay fairly early on, allowing me to get cracking with some DIY (taking down the punching bag, filling holes in the lawn and painting the exterior wall) while Chantelle got her hands dirty in the kitchen for the Monday Sacred Ground Deli order.
Not that it was all work mind you – I did make some time for Assassin’s Creed and Crackdown in terms of gaming, as well as taking in a couple of episodes of the thoroughly enjoyable Community (I’m currently on Season 1), as well as an impromptu trip to the beach with Jess, where we enjoyed an hour of so of filling up buckets and tossing sand on one another!
So yeah, a pretty enjoyable weekend with pretty decent weather in other words!
Last weekend obviously had the extra bonus of Friday being a public holiday (Women’s Day), meaning that once again Jessica and I found ourselves making the most of our day off together. While Chantelle and Olga happily baked cupcakes and what not in the kitchen, Jess and I undertook the mission of Theo’s Mall Coffee Shop cupcake delivery, after which we took the time to waddle around the mall, the end result being a brand new book for Jess and a nice bag of salted peanuts and raisins for me. (I suspect Jess loved her book more than I loved my peanuts!)
Unfortunately Chantelle had to leave for her delivery in Franschhoek, meaning that after Jess and I had dropped off Olga after her half day of work, we were free to play, part of which included a fun visit to the duck pond in Strand, where Jessica very happily started the session off by giving strict eating instructions to the first group of ducks that she encountered, before eventually running for her life as some of the bigger geese started to get a little too friendly with the chunks of bread in her hand!
The evening was made up of fingerpainting for Jess, blogging and Crackdown with Ryan for me, and after our impromptu KFC supper, poor Chantelle was back in the kitchen, this time finishing up all the cupcakes and cake required for Saturday’s market stall.
Saturday was an early start for us, as Chantelle, Jess and I departed for Bellville, first stopping off at the Montgomery Clan stronghold to drop off Jess and pick up the packaging and stall display materials, before heading over to Willowbridge in order to set up our stall and start trading! Pleasingly, despite the reduced foot traffic thanks to the long weekend and various other distractions that the weekend was offering, we still made well over a R1,000 worth of sales over the course of the day, meaning that I’m pretty pleased how my first day back at the markets had gone. (Plus, it was pretty nice to catch up with all the old trader faces which I haven’t seen for about year or so!)
Chantelle had Jess for the afternoon following the market, and so she and the little one headed off to Kid Station, the kid’s hair salon situated in Tyger Manor, for Jessica’s very first ever hair cut, the end result being a very cute little blonde bob, without any of those eina curls to bother her any more! (Apparently Jessica was really well behaved and sat perfectly still for the haircut, making her even more so super deserving of the fun little “Certificate of Bravery” she received at the end of the ordeal!).
I on the other hand had organised a proper FIFA Foursome guy’s evening for the remainder of Saturday and as such, found myself playing FIFA 13 on the XBOX with Damen, Evan and Ryan for just short of nine straight hours, only taking a few short breaks here and there, including a quick stop for some St. Elmo’s Pizza. Seriously, nine hours of intense and VERY competitive virtual soccer (it probably was a little overboard, but hey, we haven’t done it in such a long time that it was worth it!). Anyway, I eventually called it a night just before 01:00, making the long drive back home to Gordon’s Bay where I very quickly slumped into bed for some well deserved rest time!
Up until now, despite the heavy snow on the mountain tops around us, weather had been pretty good for our weekend escapades, but that had to eventually give way, and it did for Sunday, meaning that the day was pretty much spent indoors, Chantelle sleeping most of it away on the couch while Jessica assisted me in some sorting and tossing out of stuff around the house. The day at home was only punctuated by a quick trip out to Pick ‘n Pay for Jess and me to pick up some braai stuff, which of course translates directly into the fact that I spent the afternoon behind the coals preparing a rather delicious braai of chicken, pork and venison sausage!
Lots of television, lots of play time, and then a little icky clean up, some blogging and a little Community Season 1, was pretty much my Sunday in a nutshell.
Still, it was a long weekend so I can’t exactly complain! :)
Weekend of Shelving My Life 03 AUG 2013
Last weekend was a good mixture of DIY and family time, with the week having ended off on a particularly good note, what with a successful SPI audit demonstration of my Kinetica project at Touchwork, followed by the fixing of my car’s central locking (finally) by Hyundai Helderberg. As it was, Friday had I worked from home, meaning that I got to spend the early evening with Jessica, and after she was in bed, spend a little time with Chantelle as we gobbled down some KFC so that she could get back to work on an emergency birthday cake for a client, meaning I was free to tinker away the rest of the evening on the PC.
Saturday morning we did a bit of tidying up around the house, before I got out my notepad, measuring tape and pen, and started making calculations for the shelving job that I was about to tackle. All of these plans culminated in a 3 hour long trip to Builder’s Warehouse where I secured all the boards, railings, brackets, fasteners, etc., which obviously then meant then that the rest of my Saturday was spent putting up shelves all over the braai room!
With Jessica finally in bed, Chantelle and I snuggled up on the couch to watch He’s Just Not That Into You, before heading for a rather well deserved evening’s rest.
Sunday morning saw me pick up my tools and complete the final bit of the shelving project left over from Saturday, before shifting focus to put up a bracket on the wall of my office in order to wall-mount my second monitor. By this stage Monty, Cheryl and Rob had arrived, and so we all hopped into our cars and drove off for a afternoon of markets, first popping in at the vibey (well, they were doing a Christmas in July theme after all) Blaauwklippen market to observe their new giant marquee tent that provides shelter for the traders (and visitors!), before popping down the road to introduce (meaning of course browsing followed by beer and food!) the Montgomery Clan to the big Root 44 market at Audacia.
Rushing back home, we made it just in time for the arrival of Mom, Dad and Ryan, who joined us for a big combined family braai, which was capped off with a hilarious round of 30 Seconds for good measure! After bidding everyone farewell (fitting because in a couple of days Mom and Dad were to embark on their a couple of weeks’ long safari trip to the Serengeti!), Chantelle and I set about tidying up, before I unfortunately had to hole myself up in my office and tackle some outstanding Touchwork work.
Still, a pretty enjoyable – and productive – weekend after all! :)
Weekend Butterflies My Life 27 JUL 2013
What, it’s seriously weekend already? This post was meant to go out on last Monday or Tuesday already!! Anyway, let’s move it out the drafts folder for this morning then, shall we? Better late than never, even if it is by a week I always say! :P
Despite last Thursday threatening to spoil the imminent weekend vibe by capping off a day of work with a hastily convened Country Mews trustee meeting (in case I didn’t mention it, earlier this year at our annual AGM I was voted on to the trustee committee – of which I’m the youngest member by far just by the way) where we discussed the usual silly issues like dogs and people selling stuff out of their yards, the vibe was rescued by an awesome start to Friday morning in the office, thanks to a decadent spread of muffins, croissants and the like, organized by Ignatius and Amanda. Leaving work exactly on time (which in itself is always a bonus), it got even better with homemade pizza and movie night with wifey, the pleasant “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” being the movie choice for the evening.
Although Saturday got off to a wet start, we were up and at it pretty early on, heading out to do an emergency cupcake delivery for Theo’s coffee shop in the Somerset Mall, combined with a few pickup errands in and around the area, before finally heading into Somerset West so that Chantelle could take in the Tamashii Daiko taiko drumming exhibition held outside of the Paul Bothner Music store at the Checker’s Centre – while Jessica and I amused ourselves by doing some wine shopping at Checkers as well as sneaking in a quick game purchase (Asura’s Wrath) at the conveniently close by Cash Crusaders second hand shop.
Shame, it did end in tears though. Jessica was so happy with the milk that I bought her that she didn’t even look where she was walking and marched right into a low table, knocking her right on the nose!
Back home the three of us chilled a little (I even managed to get in some gaming with Jessica sitting alongside me), before packing everything up and hitting the road to Bellville in the late afternoon, joining up with the Montgomery Clan for their big fillet braai dinner party in celebration of the return of Peter and Gail to Cape Town. It was great to catch up with Pete, Gail, Nick and Angie after what has really been a long break, and I have to admit – I polished off a lot more wine than perhaps I should have! :)
We opted to sleep over at the Montgomery Stronghold for the night, and after a good night’s rest, we awoke (and when I say we I mean Jessie and me – Chantelle was happily snoring away) nice and bright and early in order to catch the thrilling Free State Cheetah’s Super Rugby game against Jake White’s Australian Brumbies, which of course unfortunately ended in a skin of the teeth defeat for our men in orange.
Oh well, it happens.
Surprisingly enough though, during the course of the game I received an unexpected call from Dean (whom I’ve also not seen in ages), inviting us out to join them for an excursion to Butterfly World, which of course I immediately agreed to right on the spot! After a brief diversion that saw me pop out to Chaos Computers in Willowbridge in order to pick up our new home printer, we packed up and said goodbye to Bellville, hitting the road and heading straight for Butterfly World.
What followed was a lovely catch up visit with Dean, Zania, little Zandea and Cecilia, and I have to say, I was completely blown away at just how English little Zandea has become after only a month or two in her new English playschool! Jessica of course loved the visit, and after we bid farewell to the Stapelbergs and then drank our cup of coffee and tucked into a freshly baked scone at the on-site restaurant, we were grabbed by the hand and dragged straight back into the butterflies by an excitable little Jess! :)
Eventually she kind of tuckered out and so we headed back to Gordon’s Bay via the scenic Stellenbosch route, where we kind of eased into Sunday evening by making homemade burgers and chips and catching the first half of the father enjoyable Amazing Spider-man film. (Chantelle started falling asleep, hence the interrupted viewing!)
The enjoyable X-Men: FF trade paperback then accompanied me to bed, rounding off what in the end turned out to be a really pleasant weekend of family and friends – and by the sounds of it, we’re doing it again this weekend coming! :)
(Which of course thanks to the delayed nature of this post, is already on the go!)