Glad Midsommar!

Happy midsummer!
Midsummer is a big thing to celebrate in Sweden. We are meeting some fellow swedes today to drink "glögg" (mulled wine) since it is more like midwinter here in South Africa.
We have had two beautiful days yesterday and the day before - sunny and warm (25C) - but the weather is now changing back to winter mode.
Brrrr!

A new boy in town!

Our old friends in the UK, Kelly and Wayne had a baby boy yesterday!
Congratulations!!!

Time to run!

Thursday again and it is time for the weekly time trail with the running club in Pinelands.
I managed to finish in to the top 10 for the first time last week! It must be the result of all my training that is showing... or it could be that it was heavy rainfall and cold; we were only 15 runners in total. I think it was a combination.
Strengthen by this, Rene and I decided together with Rene's sister Julie to participate in a trail run last Saturday, between Hout bay and Fishhook. It was organised by Pinelands running club and it is "only" 20km and a beautiful run we were told. It is true; it is beautiful...

Hout bay to Fishhook trail run

My aches and pains are almost gone now. Going over the mountain was hard but fun. (I didn't think it was fun at the time ;-)
I am also wishing Craig and Lil good luck in the official race, on the same trail, this weekend!
Today will be a slow jog!

Under Siege!

Perhaps "Under Siege" is an exaggeration but there was a hostage drama taking place in central Cape Town during the weekend and the police sealed off a street or two. We are almost never in central Cape Town during weekends so we only read about this in the paper. The best part of the story is that the people who happened to have parked on the street (that was sealed off) got parking tickets! Someone must have seen a good opportunity to fill their monthly quota of issued parking tickets! :-)
On a more serious note: The police ended up shooting the man who had taken the hostage. Thankfully no one else died.

We have seen the "White Zulu", Johnny Clegg in concert this weekend. It was great and much better than I thought it would be. The atmosphere and music was fantastic! A great live performance with interesting talk between the songs!

15km. That was how far I ran on Saturday. This is all in preparation for the Knysna half marathon Rene and I are going to run on 14th July. I have not been training regularly lately since I have had a bit of a cold and a sore throat... So we decided to get a "long" run in. I have to thank Rene for dragging me around all the way through this practice run. I think I had had it after 12-13km. My blood sugar levels were very low and I was longing for Winegums and a Coke. I survived and today I ran another 10km! Crazy!

Sveriges Nationaldag (Sweden's National Day)

June 6 is Sweden's National Day and we have been calibrating with SWEA in Cape Town. We were about 10-15 people in total and perhaps the same amount of children. It was nothing to serious just a glass of champaign and a chance to speak some Swedish... We actually arrived a bit late just after they had sung the national anthem. Oops! ;-)
We ended up having dinner with another couple, their new born baby and the Vice Chairwoman of SWEA.
It is always nice to meet new people!

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...