Sun 4th April - sobering up...

Sobering up, drinking again....

Got Vis and chips and burgers for dinner!  I think we watched 6 movies!

Bed...

Sat 3rd April - I did it: 21km!!! :)

4.45am, woke up, showered, picked up Jolene and Marco and headed off to Newlands to join the other thousands determined to run the Two Oceans Half Marathon.

6am - we were off!

7km, rounding into constantia, I met up with Gail and Iain, and felt like giving up!  But powered on....

15km, got into my wind and raced up the biggest hill I have ever seen!  

21km, and finished at approximately 2h15 minutes.  Ryan managed to get some great shots too and I saw Ryan, Jo and Marco in the stands leading up to the finish posts.

YAY!!!!

Picked up some devine breakies in Cape Town and then headed home to start the 2 day drinking episode....

2 April - Friday

Ryan and I found a secret beach, within working distance from our beautiful apartment and spent the afternoon sunning and swimming with the penguins and star fish.   It was great.
As a small warm up and to the big race tomorrow and the fact that we were ditching the 5km international friendship race, we went for a small run in Simon’s town.   I think tomorrow’s going to be hard!

No booze and off to bed early, how good are we?

Thursday - 1 April - Moving in

Lots to do.....packed up and headed towards Cape Town.  Stopped into the Two Ocean Marathon expo to register and picked up my number (and have suffered from stomach flutters since!).  Went onto the Waterfront to get Ryan some shoes and had Vis and Chips and lunch.  So, I have to say that this was the first signs of preferring Australia, I remember when we visited Cape Town from the UK and I was always amazed by the food selection and taste, but I think I would prefer my Sydney grilled barramundi, grilled Sword fish or grilled Tasmanian Salmon to the deep fried choices here.  The hakes okay, but not the tastiest of fishes - and the fillet did come with bones, but of course South Africa is a saucy country, so there is peri-peri mayonnaise, garlic mayonnaise, tartar sauce, tomato sauce, vinegar and thousand island sauce, all available on the table, and for FREE, which you don’t get in Sydney.  So it is yummy, but also very fattening.

We then drove through Camps bay and over Chapmans peak to get back to Fish Hoek.  It must be one of the greatest scenic routes in the world and still lives up to every ever lastening memory I have of Cape Town.  Its times like this when I wish we could teleport some of our friends over to show them around.

I was amazed by the growth of the Nelson Mandela informal (well now pretty formal i would imagine) settlement in Hout Bay.  Not only does it extend down to the main road, but also way higher than the house line.  Some of those shacks must have awesome views!

Okay, so now we’re on about 2.30pm and we specifically told the agent that we would meet-and-greet at 4pm.  This women (the agent) is such a pain, a typical estate agent, full of attitude and just a real Bag (I’m trying not to say bitch on my blog!).  So after refusing to phone her 30 minutes before we get there (as we knew we were going to be there at 4pm), we could not be late.   We managed to pick up the bags, get the shopping and get there by 3.45pm, and as we get out a few very harrowing things happen....of course she’s not there, but once phoning her we realize she’s very late, but thats not it....there is a baby SCREAMING its head off in the place next door.  And I’m not talking ‘I want my bottle’ scream, I’m talking ‘I have tonsillitis’ scream, or ‘my teeth are coming out’ scream.  Shit balls!  My ideal serene month away, is ruined by a baby! :(

Okay, really there isn’t much suspense here, we went for a drink, the agent finally pitched up and by the time we got back the baby was quiet (or gone)?  But after not really seeing Ryan for more than 2 days at a time since January and not having a private moment with him at all since 3 weeks ago, being severely jet lagged and having to deal is middle aged bag agent, I was about ready to forgo the trip and fly back home!

As it turns out the place is stunning, the views are endless, the fridge is cold, the weather is hot and there is no one else in the house but Ryan and me:)  YAY.....i have attached a whole bunch of photos to make everyone jealous!

1 bottle of wine, 3 loads of washing, lots of unpacking, a chicken salad and we’re off to bed.

Lekke bly!

Damn jet lag, 3.45am!  Good morning

Wednesday - 31 March - Tractor rides and wine galore

4am - damn jet lag!

Ryan and I waiting in bed for the family wake up call of the kettle boiling, dreaming of samosas and rooibos tea.   Well perhaps we didn’t get exactly that, but who can turn their nose up to ceylon tea, hot cross buns and toast :)

We headed out early for the tractor.  We pulled into a local winkle (shop) in the Koo Valley, where they still practice the old style shopping etiquette of not allowing the patrons to peruse the shelves, but have a counter when the shop-hand will come and collect the items you request.   Stocked with Wonder bars, water and clearly a lack of sufficient clothing, as the temperature had dropped about 5 degrees, we pulled up to the tractor farm.

The tractor held 50 adults and children, a contraption that would make a health and safety inspector in Australia have heart palpitations, with an extended seat off the front and back to hold enthusiastic kids.  No safety belt and really quite slidy benches for the 1500m we climbed to the top of the mountain.  Don’t get me wrong, it was really fun, but there were points where I was thinking that this could tip over and we ‘could actually die!’.  But we didn’t die, and we did get to the top.  With basket of fruit, Maskadal (similar to sherry) and dried fruit on offer, we took refuge in a little mountain hut, situated at the top of the Langeberg Mountain, that looked over the Koo valley.  Absolutely stunning, and much less effort than climbing a mountain by yourself!
Coming down was far more harrowing that going up, but we did have the little tractor that could!, and we made it down in no time at all.

Gail, Iain, Ryan and I travelled on to Viljoensdrift, a nearby wine estate, for a picnic lunch and wine tasting and buys.  The picnic concept (and our picnic) was great; you choose from a menu what you want, the options include a range of packaged foods from blue cheese, camembert, tapenades, pestos, biscuits, breads, meats, etc.  We also landed buying 12 bottles of really great Cab savs, sav blanc, and something else (but it’s currently 5am and i will wake ryan up if i open the box of wine to check).  All for $98!  Awesome, of course this luxury might also explain the mild hangover I am currently experiencing ;)  The only down side of Viljoensdrift, was when the waiter (now remember it was self service) made off with our change.

We also stopped in at Arabella (another stud farm, come wine estate) along route on the way home, and got 4 bottles of more great wine for R95 = $15.  Ryan also took this stunning photo.

Okay, just to recap, so far we’re sat on our lazy asses up a mountain, ate a whole bunch of food, drank a whole bunch of wine, and now we went shopping for dinner ;) Picked up some beorewors (with coriander seed, my favourite, and min of 90% beef, yummo), spatchcock chicken, steak, salad, potatoes, butternut, onion, the biggest bunch of parsley I have ever seen, garlic, and of course some fresh butter (hmmmm).    One braai later and our tummies were full and I was ready for bed, this is a bad side effect of waking up at 4am!

Dinner for the Rich and Famous

In the evening Ryan, Iain and I left to meet Gail (no.1) along route to Montagu, after again taking the lesser driven, more scenic route (this time in the dark), we finally pulled in quite late, but managed to get a seat at The Victoria, a glamorously Moulin Rouge velvet and crystal chandelier decorated restaurant, where we enjoyed wine, soul (the fish, not the blues) filets, rumps and chicken pies!  It was great, perhaps we were missing our dinner jackets and dazzle open toe shoes, but sitting straight backed swirling our wine in the large bulbed glasses was reminiscent of the 1930s enough.  Although I was met with a bit of guilt when the kitchen staff were leaving at the same time as us, and clearly were not impressed by our late arrival.

We’re staying in a stunning little cottage, decorated with bright blue and green kitchen cupboards, quient wooden kitchen table, a stunning little garden and a scary ass picture of a women in the bedroom, off to bed, see you all soon.

30 March - Out and about

Woke up at Jolene and Marco’s, but they are still fast asleep, clearly not suffering from the 5am wake up call, so after amusing ourselves with the internet, the cat and lots of rooibos tea, we walked down to the local winkle (shop), where father-pappa-smurf (as affectionately called by the next patron) served us cheese, bread and eggs.  After getting hopelessly lost on the walk home and trying not to get run over by the combination of a lack of pavement and the speeding cars, my Le Cordon Bleu training cooked up the gourmet breakfast dish of eggs & cheese on Bread.  Amazing!  ;)

Going back to the night before last, much fueled by alcohol, Jo and Marco have a really cool fire pit in their garden, and not that we had a fire, but we did sit outside for part of the evening.  While chatting and drinking etc, I somehow managed to loose the catch on my necklace that attaches the crystal to the chain deep into bull grass.  Anyway, cutting the long story short, in the morning, we had Marco, Jolene, Ryan and the Lazy (the cat) all looking and amazingly Marco was victorious!  Of course, he is the kind of person who end a golf game with way more balls in his bag than he started with :)

Being unable to pick up our rental car yesterday due to mega-hangover, we had arranged for Europcar to drop our car off at 10am, and to their credit they were there on the dot.   And now, with new found freedom (from both hangover and car), we said our farewells to Jo and Marco and headed back to the parent-in-laws place for all the fun stuff, like internet banking, washing and showering, shopping for sim cards, etc!

It was about this time that jet lag set in for Ryan and he was off for ‘the afternoon nap’.   I popped into Aunty Odile and had a great catch up, then swang round to Gail’s (another one), but instead of being welcomed by prospects of tea, socializing with friends and entertainment by cute children, I was met with a new rather large unfriendly dog, who did not look impressed with the idea with me entering the property!  Nothing else to report here.