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.

[photo]

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!

The BIG weekend starts here!

Holiday!
It is a public holiday in South Africa on Monday and I have taken Friday off!

We are going to the Worcester and are meeting up with the "South African London crowd": Sean and Lauren, Peter and Janet and Briget and Dewald plus all the children! (The children has arrived after the return to SA from London.) We will also miss all the guys who are still in the UK and who cant make it. FYI: We will concentrate our schedule on golf, braai, wine tasting/drinking and just being lazy together with our friends! Fantastic!

My cousin, Tom, is also arriving to Cape Town this weekend. He and his school friend Alexander is coming down to do their 3 week international work practice here. It will be an adventure for them but also for Rene and I since they are staying with us in our new house. Hope they will like it!

We also hope that the water will be back on soon! There was/is a water leak on our street so they have turned off the water for the whole block. You kind of start noticing the importance of water when you don't have any. Hope they will fix it today.

The big 30!

Went to Martin's 30th party last weekend! (Happy birthday Martin!!!)
We had a great time and my hangover was non existent the next day! Brilliant!

Martin's Birthday Party

Poor Rene had to be up early, early (like 5ish in the morning) the next day to help at the Cape Town marathon. NO running involved!

Very moving!

It is done!
We have now moved in to our new house. The move went well with help from some farm-workers from Joggies farm that we hired for a couple of hours. Having access to a big truck (also from the farm) also helped. We started early and by 10.30 everything was in our new house! There are still things to do and unpack and it is more obvious now in the house, than in the flat, that we almost don't have any furniture. We do need to get some sofas and also a TV. Perhaps a TV like this one? With no IKEA around the corner we have to wait about 6 weeks for a sofa.
We have also done some DIY (do-it-yourself) and mostly painting. I started by pouring paint all over my self, before I even had painted anything! [photo]
However, things are looking better now and the nice thing with painting is that it is very rewarding. It is only two bead rooms that needs to be done now, the rest can wait. Having a house also makes it allowed to by power tools! ;-)

I also want to say "Happy Birthday" to my lovely wife Rene!
We went out for dinner on Saturday (her birthday) and I managed to surprise her by inviting Rene's family too. Instead of just being the two of us we were 8. We went to the restaurant SALT in Cape Town. Nice venue with good food. The only "blip" on the menu was probably the pickled herring starter. It was far to strong (acidic) and overpowering. Everything else was good or very good. I can recommend a visit.

We are now looking forward to a 30th party on Saturday! More about that later...

Relaxing Zanzibar

Relaxing, reading and just being lazy was what we were doing in Zanzibar. We had a great time with warm sunshine, white sandy beaches, blue skies and turquoise water. I can't believe that we have soon been back for 2 weeks!
I took lots of photos and you can check a few of them out here:

Zanzibar

We also went swimming with Dolphins and it was a great experience. We went out with a boat early one morning so we managed to beat the crowds. We snorkeled and came with in touching distance from them. You just swim around and they come and check you out!


We are otherwise busy with our move* and have started to pack our things in to boxes (again). We will hopefully not have to do that again for a while after this move. We have also started to get back in to our running again...

My cousin Tom and one of his friends is coming down to Cape Town for a month in September-October to gain some international work experience. It is part of their training program at secondary school/collage/high school. I hope they will enjoy it and that we are able to take care of them ;-) I guess we will be speaking more Swedish at home that usual.

*We have also been busy watching too many episodes of 24! "Jack", we want our lives back! ;-)

On holiday

Zanzibar weather
;-)

Sneak peak!

We went to take some photos of our new house last weekend... It still gives us a great feel and we can't wait to move in now. Check out the photos below. The TV and furniture is not ours; do I have to point that out?! :-)

New house - Madison

It has been a hectic but good week: Had my yellow fever vaccination done on Monday so that I will be let back in to the country after our holiday to Zanzibar.
I played squash for the first time in 2-3 years (sore? oh, yes!) and we had our new neighbours over for dinner on Tuesday. Very nice and too much wine.
Wednesday night is now wine tasting night - it use to be hill running night - guess which is more fun? ;-)
Thursday we went running with Pinelands AC as usual.
Friday we relaxed with a movie, A Very Long Engagement.
Up 5:30 Saturday morning to do a 15km run in Ravensmead. Last night our friends Martin and Kelly had a great engagement party! I have a hangover but it is better now! Great party! I had some sushi and and vodka, so it is not only at Swedish parties you mix raw fish and vodka, but there was no singing when drinking! ;-)
We have also started to watch season 4 of 24 on DVD. This is not good since it is very addictive and you can't just watch one episode at the time and nothing else gets done!
Rene have also been working this weekend, with typing reports, to clear her desk before our holiday.

One more week, then Zanzibar!

Oh, I almost forgot: Congratulations to Monette and Tom who got engaged this weekend!