Super busy week

Hi folks I trust this finds you all well and rested. We've had a super busy week as was expected, but what a joy to have all our family here - it does my soul good. We have been shell collecting, cooking and baking up a storm, lots of tea and coffee and downtime just chilling.

On Thursday Big Guy arrived and was fetched from the airport by his brother, BigBear and BabyBear, just to have everyone under the same roof was beyond special. The wind had steadily increased to the speed of about 50kph by the time we had an amazing Christmas meal which everyone contributed to. One of the best things was that along with the wind we had hours and hours of desperately needed rain which for anyone who knows this family, you will know how we all love the rain so big bonus. Friday morning (express Christmas) we opened presents, had mince pies and just lazed around. We braved the gale force winds and went out to a lovely restaurant on the Harbour in Kleinmond for a late brunch before BigBear and BabyBear left to go home as they are now up the West Coast spending a few days with her family. We battened down the hatches and spent the afternoon reading and watching television.

Our tradition is to open presents on Christmas morning and the first one up was ......... Big Guy, so we did it all over again haha. It was decided that seeing as we are living the 'beach life' we were going to do a non traditional lunch and my darling Hubby cooked quite the best braai he has ever made, it was delicious to the point that there was nothing left over at all. Pudding had to wait until much later as we literally veged in front of the television watching movies from the hard drive. I can't believe I have missed so many movies (even old ones) which were right here to be watched. Hmmmmm going to have to fix that in future. We also managed a super Skype session with Miss Muffet and her family in the UK and they got to meet the all the uncles and aunts and we got to see all their new Christmas presents, it's one way of getting everyone together for a little while.

Today after a number of choices and options being thrown into play we opted to go into Hermanus to see the three museums down by the Old Harbour. Well ........ The N1 highway in Johannesburg has nothing on the road leading into Hermanus on Boxing Day, we never got out of 2nd gear. Eventually on arrival the next hurdle was finding parking space yikes, a couple of times around the block and we were sorted. How things can morph when there is a crowd, the general consensus was lunch first at an amazing restaurant right on the beachfront and from there the Market Stalls won over the museums. So with a couple of small purchases tucked under our arms we called it a day and made our way back home through the traffic, it is always such a breath of peace when I walk into our home after being out in the hustle and bustle. Right now Grandpa has taken Princess down to the beach in the wind, the sea has white horses and she is body boarding, I seriously do not know how she can stand the cold water so long.

As I sit and type this my handsome son is busy cooking a family favourite for supper (Russians, Mac and cheese) before he heads back home tomorrow morning early, such a short visit I wish I could freeze time, but nevertheless it has been so special having him here with us. Friends in a nutshell that has been our busy week on our journey in life, we sill have another week with Poppet and another two weeks before Princess flies home so many more memories to be made.

I wish you a beautiful week and hope that the end of 2016 will end on a positive note for you all and that you can go into 2017 in peace with goals and dreams to stove for. Enjoy the precious people in your lives and store up as many memories as you can, until next week please stay safe.

Photo of the beautiful Old Harbour in Hermanus, the water is so clear you can see everything.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Wishing all my readers and friends a very Blessed Christmas and all the best over the holidays. Enjoy making memories with family and friends and please be safe.

'Twas the week before Christmas

Hi folks how is everyone doing in the final countdown to Christmas? We have been super busy interspersed with periods of sheer laziness. Last week was spent in a frenzy of 'getting things ready', we went into Somerset West which took the entire day between shopping, collecting things and then sitting for two hours at the hospital waiting for my X-rays to be done. I am happy to report no broken toe just ligament damage. The week also included me having a massive 'bake off' on Thursday. I put the oven on at 9 am and only turned it off about 12 hours later. Why so long you may be asking - well, me being me I dcided to do everything, rotating in batches. I started off making a double batch of crunchies (oat biscuits) then while they were baking I mixed up a huge batch of dough to make rusks, which went in when the crunchies came out, while the rusks were baking I made a ciabatta bread, put that in whilst the rusks were cooling. During this time I boiled the mix for a Christmas fruit cake, bread baked then rusks went back in to dry out. Once they were finished I put the Christmas cake in and Voila one exhausted woman and a whole lot of baked goodies ready for the family. Sadly the Ciabatta bread has been repeated about five times since then and the Crunchies tin is looking a tad bleak. So back to the kitchen tomorrow, but this time I will blackmail Poppet and Princess into helping hehe.

The girls arrived safely on Friday afternoon, it is SO good to have them here, now we are just waiting for Big Guy who arrives on Thursday. BigBear and BabyBear fetched them from the airport and then due to the very late sunsets we have here we were able to spend a lovely evening all together catching up and unwinding. This will be repeated in a somewhat greater measure on Thursday when they fetch Big Guy at the airport and then come through for what we call 'Express Christmas' which is where we do an early Christmas dinner and have present opening the following morning. This I s because BigBear and BabyBear will be up the West Coast with her Mom for Christmas. We have decided that actual Christmas Day is going to be extremely laid back, lazy and Hubby darling will be doing a Braai (barbecue). For some reason we have had super hot weather for the last few days although it is clouding up now and the wind has changed direction, hopefully bringing some VERY much needed rain we hope. We have seen the weather forecast for Friday which says we are in for gale force winds and lots of rain, Poppet is already looking forward to a fire going.

Today we went into Kleinmond for a few supplies and oh my goodness it was BUSY and HOT and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we walked into the house. Unfortunately we have to make one more foray into Somerset West on Friday as we are having a get together meal with the other side of our Cape Town family, the last time this particular group were together was at our wedding. Just wish that Miss Muffet and her family were here to be with us. One day soon I pray. I will use that trip to stock up on whatever groceries etc that are needed and then scuttle back home as fast as is possible.

Is everyone this busy of is it just us? The one thing I am completely and utterly delighted about is that Christmas gift shopping is all finished, wrapped and waiting under the tree. Gemma has shown absolutely NO interest in the tree thankfully although I know without a doubt that had Kiko been here she would have caused major damage. I overheard Jelly Bean talking to Hubby dearest the other day where she was saying that apparently I will be solely responsible for her having grey hair (she doesn't have one grey hair yet) - this after I walked outside and somehow my foot slipped down the step, my shoe broke and I ended up in a fairly graceful heap, on my back looking up at the sky #faceinHands apart from my dignity and a rather sore behind I was fine.

Friends we have had a few drops of rain which necessitated Poppet and I both running (running I tell you) out of the house to rescue the dry washing, so on that note I do believe I have rambled on long enough and am going to bid you goodbye until next week. We wish you ALL a very blessed Christmas and I pray that your day will be filled with love and good memories. For those who will be traveling please go safely and for the rest of us be safe and have fun.

The Christmas tree awaiting the balance of parcels.

The countdown has started

Hi friends, I hope today finds you well and almost ready for Christmas. Thank you so much to those of you who called and messaged me last week it meant so much, it was a difficult week that I hope not to repeat if I can help it. For us the week was very quiet in terms of exploring and going out, we busied ourselves with preparations for the family that are coming down for the holidays - in just 4 sleeps the girls will be here and 10 sleeps until Big Guy arrives so you can imagine, lots to do. Both Hubby dearest and I are both feeling a bit lost at the moment as we have both finished all the projects we had including our tea station, which was a surprise for me as I was convinced that I would not get them all done, we keep looking around saying what else is there that's needs doing. At the end of the day we chose not to build a brand new piece of furniture for the Tea Station but utilise a table we had and without compromising the table in any way my super clever husband made a stunning Tea Station. We are also all battling with the loss Kiko, she was such a vibrant, persistent little being that the house is super quiet, we find ourselves saying Kiko would be doing this, of Kiko would be doing that. Gemma has lost weight as she didn't eat very much last week, Max and Sasha still look for her and have made a couple of successful escapes which still causes a ruckus and great frustration Ho hum.

We were planning on going into Somerset West today to finish off last bits of shopping, doing a big grocery shop, and collecting a few things but our trip ended up being deferred to tomorrow. I also have to go for an X-ray on my foot as I kept stubbing my toe badly from the time we moved in and the pain has steadily become worse, so off for an X-ray to see if I actually broke it (which I doubt) but even if I did there is nothing that can be done until the new year. Seeing as tomorrow is going to be a crazy day I have decided to do some baking and then get busy wrapping presents.

We have definitely seen an increase in the local 'population' but as yet not to the degree that we have heard about, I am guessing by this weekend things will start getting very busy in our quiet little village. Having said that, on Saturday morning I was woken at 4.30 AM by the sound of a big truck and some kind of machinery running, peeping through the curtains proved that it was indeed a very large truck and then I realised that it was the 'honey sucker' the local name for the sewage collection. SERIOUSLY 4.30 AM ????? Either our neighbour's plumbing had a crises or the municipality were being diligent and getting an early start.

After a very hot weekend happily the temperature has dropped and it is one of those glorious quiet days where the sea is flat, there is not much wind and lovely clouds are just hanging around, in other words after the last few weeks a super lazy day. I am going to make the most of it as the rest of the week promises to be non stop busy leading up to seeing our precious family on Friday .......... I can't wait.

Friends, as I said a quite week last week with a lot of activity coming up. I pray you all have a wonderful week, for those of you who are going to be travelling go safely and to the rest of you please be safe wherever you are. As a parting question it would be very interesting to hear what your plans are over the holidays and what special meals you are planning?

I never get tired of looking at the ocean.

I don't like speed bumps

Hi friends I hope you are all well and would like to thank you for the phone calls and messages as the result of my precious little Kiko passing away yesterday. Your messages have touched me in a way that words can't describe and the common thread among those messages is that so many of you felt like she was your friend as you followed her antics. I cannot describe how much of a hole she has left behind, I had her for 8 months and 1 day and got her when she was just five weeks old, from day one she captured our hearts and got up to mischief constantly, she has left so many beautiful memories in our lives. Yesterday around 12.30ish I saw her sitting quietly on the floor and picked her up for a cuddle and put her on the table where she often sleeps, during lunch when she didn't show any interest at all in what we were eating I started to realise that something was wrong. When we picked her up she walked as if she was drugged and kept falling over, then began to vomit. I called the Vet who said to bring her in, in 45 mins which we did and initially he thought she had eaten something ie. Medication that may have fallen on the floor, because she was deteriorating so quickly. We are very carefull with that kind of thing and could not come up with anything, then Hubby asked if she could have been bitten by something and that got the ball rolling. I remembered thinking earlier that her paw looked dirty and when we looked at it we instantly saw that it was double the size of the her right paw (she was a lefty). The Vet sprung into action and after explaining the possibilities put her on a drip and administered half a vial of anti venom as he believed she had been bitten by a snake possibly a Berg Adder. She only weighed 2 kg so his prognosis was not encouraging. By this time she could not lift her head or even blink. I sat with her through the whole process and when they were finished kissed her and we left. He phoned an hour later to say she was slipping into a coma and then just after 5pm called to say she had passed away, after running her blood tests and finding nothing he believes it was either a Berg Adder or a Cobra. It still a feels very unreal and I find myself listening for her bell or wanting to call her, needless to say putting make up was a waste of time today. As Jelly Bean said last night she is probably running around in heaven chasing metal tape measures.

Apart from our major speed bump life has been quiet but very productive and busy since last weeks Blog. We had to make a trip through to Stellenbosch and Strand which turned into a super busy day. I got a bee in my bonnet and made myself a long kaftan (70's style) over the weekend which turned out exactly how I wanted it, long, cool, light and comfortable, so was very chuffed about that. We started preparing for the family's arrival which meant climbing into bags in the garage roof for linen etc, so I can now tick that off the list. On Sunday My darling Hubby and I went for a long walk on the beach and realised its actually the first long walk we've taken on the beach, the weather has been really good with hot days and cold evenings, thank the Lord for the wind which is generally cool and is the only thing that makes the heat bearable. On Sunday I also put up our Christmas tree which Kiko got very involved in (her last photo below) and Hubby hung up Christmas stockings on our beautiful fireplace, when finished he stepped back and said "wow there are a lot of us" which there are and that is without adding Miss Muffet and her family and our other family members. We have 10 sleeps until the girls arrive and 17 sleeps until Big Guy arrives which will also be the day we have our Express Christmas, and also we will ALL be together in the same place for the first time this year. So much still to do .......

Friends I am going to wish you a wonderful week, thank you again from the bottom of my heart for your messages and calls and prayers. I would like to urge you to take time to smell the roses and breathe and as always please be safe.


Kiko wondering if the Christmas tree was going to be her new play zone - So sad she didn't have time to destroy it.

A big speed bump.

Hi friends, I trust you are all well and enjoying the heat of summer. This is an extremely quick message to apologise for not putting up today's Blog as we have had a 'family crisis', we have just arrived home after rushing my precious little Kiko to the vet. She was fine this morning and then over the lunch period became extremely ill in a very short space of time, initially the Vet as well as ourselves was absolutely nonplussed at what could cause her to deteriorate so quickly until I noticed that her left front paw was swollen - diagnosis at this point is that she was bitten by a snake, possibly a Berg Adder. He is treating her and monitoring her constantly, has administered a half a vial of Anti-venom and now we are praying and waiting, in his words right now it is touch and go. Please if you would, could I ask you to pray for her complete healing? As I typed that last sentence the Vet phoned to say she is not doing well and is drifting into a coma. Friends I will put up this weeks Blog tomorrow as right now I am just too upset and it certainly won't be a interesting Blog.

Have a super evening and always stay safe.