The weekend they arrived

Last weekend was great!
Nothing beats old friends company, good food and a glass of wine or two. I and a couple of others (no names mentioned ;-) probably also had too many glasses of wine, if there is such a thing. Things never got out of hand, and I felt fine on Saturday morning, until I moved!
Ouch!
But things slowly improved even if it was a very "quiet" group that did the wine tasting tour in and around Slanghoek outside Worcester.

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The golf, on Worcester GC, on Sunday was won by the Knysna boys (Dewald and Pete) who had practiced a lot before this event.

I think we should also keep the golf as well as the general get together as yearly tradition! I am already looking forward to next year, but without the headache.

My cousin Tom and his school-friend Alexander, arrived on Sunday. We picked them up on Monday after they had stayed a night at the Big Blue Backpackers in Cape Town. (Monday was a Public Holiday in SA)

Tom and Alex started their work practice at Scentpac (http://www.scentpac.co.za) on Tuesday. It will be interesting for them to work in a South African factory. The staff is almost 100%
female with only 2 guys working there. It is now 50% more men at the factory. I think Tom and Alex have already received a few proposals of marriage from women who wants to escape to Sweden! :-)

This weekend we are going to visit Table Mountain if the weather is
nice and also go to Onrus (http://www.fallingrain.com/world/SF/1/Onrus.html (it is outside Hermanus)) and I hope we will be able to spot some whales. It is whale season at the moment here in SA so the chance is big. http://cybercapetown.com/WhaleWatching/

Tom and Alex want to go shark diving but I don't know if there will be time for that this weekend... I will stay on land and have no desire to get up close with the sharks.

We will also try to squeeze in another braai or two!

Running shoes and golf clubs

Running shoes and golf clubs needs to be packed in.
We are going to Knysna this weekend to run the Knysna half marathon and I am going to squeeze in some golf at Simola too!
This is my first half marathon so it is a bit exiting. I hope I will make it. No time pressure, just make it! That is my goal.
We are taking the BIG car to fit everything in (i.e. golf clubs and wine bottles... BIG car = the Silver WV Polo classic got a boot :-)
What I am really looking forward to is seeing our friends from London who also have "moved back" to South Africa; Jan & Pete and Bee & Dee + all the new babies! (I am sying "moved back" even if I have moved here for the first time being from Sweden!)
The biggest challenge will be to not pop any of the wine bottles on Friday night when we arrive, since that might have an effect on my ability to finish my run.
So I hope to stay off the wine to Saturday. Sleep is not on the schedule but golf is so I will have to get up early (again) on Sunday. It is not every day you get to play a course like Simola so it should not be a problem.

And there is an Oyster festival on in Knysna too so I might try an Oyster or two too.

Where time stood still

McGregor is a quiet, quiet place. The town's website even has a subtitle that says: "where time stood still".

However it is perfect if you just want to go away and relax, which suited us fine. You can go for walks and do wine tasting in the area and visit one of the local cafés or the gallery. That is about it. We decided on the wine tasting and just made it to McGregor Winery before they closed. I think the Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve and the new (2005) Shiraz was the top picks. Luckily they were also having a sale on some of their other wines, to make room for the new harvest. R14.50 per bottle for a 2003 Pinotage! That's about a £1. So we splashed out on a box of 6! The Pinotage might not be a 5 or 4 star in the Platter Wine guide but it is OK!

We stayed and had dinner at the Old Mill Lodge, which is now run by John from Liverpool.
We had a very good stay!

I also decided to get the camera out and take some photos in and around McGregor

McGregor - Weekend away

Approved

We submitted an application for a mortgage/bond last weekend so that we can buy the house we have found. So we have been waiting for the broker to come back to us this week. Late on Friday they phoned and said that we have been approved by one bank. I guess I was not as excited by the news as the person on the other end of the phone would have hoped, because I asked if they had heard anything from any other bank; I wanted to compare interest rates! Anyway, we got one approval and the interest rate is -1.8% below "prime" here in SA. This is not a fantastic rate but it's not a bad one either.
And I am glad that we have a broker dealing with the banks for us. I don't like dealing with banks in general and especially here in SA. My problems normally starts at the door since I am not (yet) a permanent resident and I don't have a green ID book. You need your ID book for everything in SA and you only realize this when you don't have one. They are more fond of their IDs than we are in Sweden! I didn't think that was possible! I have however managed to get a bank account, thanks to some friendly bank staff. Someone must have realized that they can make money out of me too since they charge you for everything and anything. I really like one change that our bank has introduced for our overdraft facility. They charged you if you used it (the overdraft), but they have now decided to charge you even if you don't use it, but the charge is lower! Hey presto! This is good for me! They lowered the charge! But wait a minute... I didn't use this overdraft facility! Hmmm... I guess it sounded to good to be true. But you can get rid of the charge if you sign up for a special account that they charge you even more for. Brilliant!

I played golf at De Zalze in Stellenbosch on Saturday. I was supposed to play 2 weeks ago but it rained away (so we went looking for houses instead ;-) Beautiful course with fast and difficult greens. I really need to play and practice more; it is no fun to be cr@p at golf. The highlight was to birdie the number 13 par 4 (268m/295y) with a tee shot over water. You can be brave and try to drive the green but it is all over water! My final score? I rather forget about it! ;-)

Rene ran another race and broke her personal best for 10km! I better start running too!

We finished the weekend with a nice and relaxing lunch at Seidelberg wine estate. Absolutely beautiful, stunning views from there. We also tried some cheese at Fairview next door...