The May Long Weekend

Varen and I were woken early on Thursday morning by my mom knocking on our bedroom door. Daddio had smsed, he was arriving on a flight half an hour earlier than expected, which meant we needed to get up, shower and pack clothes, food for the weekend and the bunnies and head to the airport for an 8:30am arrival.

We made it. We were even early :) It was fab having both the folks visiting. And then we headed off on the 3 hour drive to the farm in the Free State. The drive was pretty uneventful and the bunnies didn't seem too hassled. Although they definitely enjoyed being out and about in the fairly large portable-space (only under our watchful eyes!) that Varen made them last week (damn, didn't take any pics!).

The farm was fabulous, we lazed about and enjoyed the weather on Thursday. Varen drove us across both their farms showing the folks the lay of the land and all the animals. We had a fabulous braai that evening, which yielded surprisingly little (considering how much we started out with!) in the way of left-overs. That evening we had a fire in the lounge and watched Bad Company on dvd on the wall projection.

When a mission to retrieve a stolen suitcase bomb goes bad, CIA agent Kevin Pope is killed. Pope was working undercover as an art dealer under the name Michael Turner. The CIA, who is desperate to complete the mission discovers that Agent Pope had a twin brother, Jake Hayes (Rock), from whom he was separated at birth. Hayes hustles chess games, scalps tickets and works at small clubs to make ends meet. Meanwhile Hayes’s girlfriend, Juile (Washington) grows tired of waiting for him to grow up and decides to move to Seattle, Washington.

This was about all worth watching of the 7 or so dvds that live on the farm (and one I hadn't actually already seen!) and it turned out to be quite fun. Anthony Hopkins is always worth watching and Chris Rock was his usual entertaining self. A nice all round movie that everyone enjoyed.

On Friday it was overcast, but we'd planned to head to the Golden Gate National Park via Clarens anyway so it was ideal. We were hoping to get a lunch time cheese fondue at Caledon Gardens (recommended by a girl I was on that Leadership Training course with) but sadly they were fully booked (wtf?). So we headed straight thru to the Park with the intention of grabbing some lunch in Clarens on the way home.

The Golden Gate Park is an interesting place. It's basically more of a drive than a park (unless you're staying over in their chalets or camping ground). So we drove. we drove until we were bored of looking at rocks outside our window. And then we turned around and drove back (past all the same rocks!). Nah, it was a nice drive and the rocks make for some pretty fascinating viewing!

On the way back to Clarens, we stopped at another little food stop (in the hopes of a marginally earlier lunch, by now it was at least 2pm) and I just had to take a photo of my man's bizarre parking skills, yes that's him parked *behind* the tree. He got in next to the red 4*4 on the right and angled around (landing up directly behind the tree) so that the 4*4 could get out before us if they had to. It was quite an impressive feat with very little effort. Un-be-leivable.

We lunched in Clarens at the Artist's Cafe in the Windmill Centre. It's by far the best meal I've had in Clarens (of 3) ... generally I haven't found the food there to be particularly impressive. We all had pancakes (I had Spinach & Feta) and they were delish!

We decided not to wander around Clarens since it was already getting quite late and we had an hour & half drive ahead of us back to the farm and our cooped up bunnies. And the clouds were getting worse!

Luckily I'd planned my Ostrich Chili soup for dinner and we kept warm inside by the fire watching random DSTV (sheesh, why does anyone pay for this service, there's never anything worth watching!).

Sunday's weather did not improve and after some Spinach, Feta and Red Pepper scrambled eggs for breakfast we headed back to Joburg earlier than expected. It rained almost our entire drive back. In fact probably from then till Sunday morning.

Sadly the rain was not such a treat for Meggles who was up with her Dragon Boating team for the South Africa Chinese Dragon Boat Festival at Florida Lake. They even canceled the finals on Sunday because of the weather. But it meant that she came over on Saturday afternoon to visit us (well we collected her) and see the bunnies :) It was fabulous to show her our home and have her up in Joburg for a change!

On Saturday evening The Mom, Daddio, Varen & I headed out for our last (and first, actually) dinner out at F!sh in Rosebank. The food was amazing and I can highly recommend it. Sadly I wouldn't recommend eating a 2 course meal there after you've been snacking on rubbish all afternoon ... but we did anyway ;) I started with their Citrus Prawns, but would rather recommend their squid heads - Mom had it and it was divine! Daddio got all kitted out with a knee length bib and 5 different implements for his seafood soup (it's the crab shell that gets in the way!). For mains I had the Teriyaki Salmon with Wasabi Mash. So delish but sadly by this point I was full to the brim and only managed to finish half of it.

And then sadly it was Sunday and the folks were off home in the afternoon. We had a lazy morning just sort of finishing up things. I went thru a lot of old photos with Dad that I'd got from his Dad when we saw him after our Midlands Weekend.

We also discovered a very temporary new pet. Kevin the Bat. There was a huge storm in the early hours of Sunday morning and Kevin's radar obviously could not get him home, instead he spent the day sleeping under our stoep roof. But he was gone this morning :( Varen named him Kevin and said he just *had* to be a boy (I think he's feeling a little outnumbered with me & the two girl bunnies!) but I tend to agree ... he did get lost and all ;)

I spent the rest of Sunday vegging in front of Season 4 of The 4400. It was a fabulous week but flew by way too quickly!