ENGLAND 2011

So finally after who knows how long, it's time to update my blog. No dogs. Cats, pool, house or other worries, time to just sit and relax. A glass of beer, the fire is on, dinner on the go and time all to myself.

After a long flight, we landed at Heathrow and had our usual wait for the taxi to shuttle us to the car hire company. When we got there, they had upgraded our car (thank goodness) because we have quite a lot of luggage, and plan to fill it with loads more once we hit the shops. We arrived at Martin and Anne-Marie's place in Blackheath and met gorgeous little Harry, their latest addition to the family – what a cute baby and so good! Don't envy them though, we were chatting about 'nursery' costs for them when they send Harry, and it's going to cost around GBP1100 per month, that's roughly R12 200 per month, HECTIC!!!!!

Had a lovely time walking around the village, had lunch at the local pub and spending the evening chatting and catching up. This morning we hit the road and drove down to Newquay in Cornwell. We stopped along the way to see "Stonehenge" which Rob had always told us was just a bunch of rocks, well it pretty much is, but now we can say we have done that. Cannot believe how busy it was there with all the tour buses.

We also bought ourselves an annual 'heritage pass' which allows us unlimited visits to all the heritage sites around England, and just 3 visits already pays for the card, so money well spent.

We arrived at our timeshare which is very nice and then hit the shops for some groceries. We cannot believe how cheap things are here, we bought a trolley load of stuff including a braai, big thermos flask, cooler bags, beer, cheese and biscuits, food, simple groceries from salt and pepper etc etc and the total bill was GBP149, I can tell you now that it would have been well over R2500 for the same trolley load in Cape Town. An example is Boursin Cheese which in Woolworths costs R55+ here costs GBP1 – GO FIGURE!!! A bottle of spray on olive oil – GBP1.99,We took a stroll around the town and cannot believe the number of 'stag' and 'hen' parties going on, appears to be quite the party town.

The braai is on, veg in the oven and boys playing cards after having played ball games for around an hour. Tomorrow we are off to either Lands End or Tintagel, we'll see how we feel in the morning.

Lands End

Can you believe today we got SUNBURNT!! It's only 22 degrees here today and we managed to get sunburnt, so we will need to make stop tomorrow and buy some sunscreen. At least we fit in with all the Brits now, they are all walking around like bright red tomato's.

This morning after a late sleep in, we worked our way down to St Ives where we wondered around the town and the boys got ice-creams. St Ives is a lovely little village on the coast and FULL of people wondering around. We then continued on to Lands End where we had our customary photograph taken and will have them posted back to Cape Town. I loved this sign on the building . . . Next stop was Marazion – St Michaels Mount where we again scratched around the fishing village after a walk on the beach. Found some lovely ring stands here and had our scones and jam and clotted cream. It was quite amazing driving around the countryside here, it is so similar to the Western Cape when you go up the garden route. We are home now and about to start another BBQ, the sun is still shining brightly, feels like it's about 3.30, when it's actually 7pm. After dinner we are going to wonder down to the beach here at the resort and take some photo's of the stunning sunset.

Boys Waterpolo

Podering

Some days as I sit in the school traffic I wish we had a system like they do in America where there are school buses that the kids can catch to school.

I just look at my road and the roads surrounding it and know of so many kids all heading off to the same schools, yet we don't have lift clubs like I did when I was at school, because we are all just to busy and self absorbed to be bothered to try and co-ordinate it.

I must also say this is the one time I do have my 2 teenage boys as a captive audience and find out interesting things from them in the car - if the music isn't at top volume and we aren't all bopping along in the traffic to it.

I was talking to one of my clients yesterday and we got onto the topic of the kids calling out 'shotgun the front' when they want to sit in front instead of their sibling - who would have guessed that it stems from the good old fashioned days of horse and carriage and when there used to be 'armed guards' with their shotgun that sat up front next to the driver. Sometime we just forget to stop and smell the roses, as a friend said our lives are like a treadmill that keep running, hopping off every now and then to fetch kids, cook dinner, go to work - we need to climb off and take a break.

Sick Kitty

Whilst we were away for the weekend the kids called us to say that Titch our one cat was not well. When we got home he was soooooo thin and weak, we phoned the vet who said it sounded like cystitis and that we should bring him in the following morning.

Fortunately it's treatable, so after a job and some antibiotics to give him for the week, we went home.

Giving the tables was easier said than done as he fought us tooth and nail. He also wasn't drinking so I had to use a syringe and squirt the water down his throat. It's a week now since he was so sick and he is only now getting better, still very very thin though.

Needless to say Rob has used this as an excuse to feed Titch tuna meat - shame he needs to pick up his weight.

Weekend Away in Tulbach

[click on the image to get a larger picture]

What an incredible weekend away. Friends of ours, Tony and Hilary suggested we go away for a weekend. Rob and I jumped at this and arranged for a 'baby' sitter for the boys and off we went.

The 'baby' sitter was one of the coaches from Chris's school and the boys had a ball with him, going out to eat at Spur etc.

The plan was to go to a house in Riebeek Kasteel that we had hired for the weekend. Tony and Hilary left before us as we went to watch James play a waterpolo match. Before we even left, we got a message from Tony to say that they are no longer going to Riebeek Kasteel but rather going to spend the weekend in Tulbagh. Rob and I were now totally confused and thought they were joking. Only when we actually got to Riebeek did we realize they were being serious and they directed us to our new accommodation in Church Street, Tulbagh.

It turns out the house we had booked was double booked and there was no accommodation in Riebeek due to some festival, but they managed to find the place in Tulbagh. The cottage we stayed in was beautiful and in Church Street, which is the oldest street. All the houses have a history of who built/stayed in them. http://www.capedutchquarter.co.za/

We took no food with us, other than a few snacks and bottles of wine and we ate out for all our meals. We cruised around the wine farms tasting all the delicious wines and campaigns.

One of our meals was at a restaurant called 'Readers'. The owner was a large lady and mad about cats, which made Rob's day, but she was also mad about her homemade ice-creams which she kept raving about and insisting we had to try. So for desert Hilary and I order a trio of ice-creams, well there was curry ice-cream, ginger and lime, and GARLIC. The garlic ice-cream was revolting and actually spoilt a nice meal, the others were just well .... interesting . .

We went to watch the SA vs New Zealand rugby match at the local pub, with some of the locals, that was quite an interesting experience, but half way through I snuk out and went and scratched around the local shops (not that there were many), managed to find a few interesting things.

We did a lot of eating, drinking and sleeping over the weekend, both nights we managed to get over 10 hours of sleep, pure bliss the only thing to worry about was the damn peacocks that made so much noise.

We had a poker set with us, but did not even get to open it we were all so 'chilled'. In fact so chilled that this past week I have really battled at work, it feels like it was months ago that we went away, not a week.

We stopped in at a chocolate factory on the way home, and at the house in Riebeek Kasteel where we were supposed to stay - the house is beautiful and we are very excited as the owner has offered us 1 free weekend away to each couple, so needless to say we will be each be inviting each other to our weekends, so in essence we get 2 weekends away YAY!

All of us eating and drinking and eating some more and drinking some more - happy days!!

Kids having fun

It was such a beautiful day here today in Cape Town that we decided to go and visit Oupa and Nana and the boys could have a swim in their cold pool, our heated pool is just not as nice and there is no place for them to throw the ball around without probably breaking a glass door.

so we get to Nana and it says to please be quite at the pool area between 2 - 4pm, clearly when the elderly people like to have their naps. But put 2 boys and ball into water and that isn't going to happen!!

Click here to see the video of Chris flopping into the pool and here to see how 'nicely' they played together and here to see James doing a forward passy thingie???

Lazy Sunday

After rushing around getting gas, lunchbox fillers, ice-cream and waterpolo, we came home to 'chill'. The boys both start exams in about 3 weeks, so Chris had to hit the books, although this looks very studious, he only did it for 15 minutes, about to go harass him to do some more.

James on the other hand was trying to put back a toy that he took apart - hmmmmm

Polo Training

This morning (Sunday) we went off to one of the local schools that offer an academy that specialises in technical training for kids ito waterpolo. so we were up and at the pool by 9am and what a beautiful day.

Its not a cheap option at R125 for an hours session, but was pretty useful. Good money making racket though if you consider there were 10 boys at the session and another 12 at the session thereafter, so that's R2500 for 2 hours work (pretty good in my books)

Halloween

Well we all had a nice quiet night at home, but James being his usual busy self [the child cannot just sit and watch TV, he has to be doing something else at the same time]

So off he went and created his own halloween apple, yes, he carved it out of an apple (still not quite sure how?)