It has been rather exceptionally lucky to end up with 2 4 day weekends in one month. Even the work week flew by this week. 

Last Saturday we decided to nip out for dinner to Papino’s in Hout Bay. The Rugby World Cup has kicked off and SA were playing, so we tried to time it before the rugby viewers left the pubs and hit the restaurants. We were lucky that Caitlin was free and joined us. Especially as Norm heard a fellow scots on the other side of the restaurant and wandered off to join them.

Charming.

  
Norm and I ordered our usual, Hollandse Biefsteak.

  
That ^^ is from their website. Just for laughs, here is mine of my actual plate.

  

We ordered mushrooms to go with it and for a change I had Portuguese chips and loved them.

Pescatarian Cait had the calamari with salad and steamed veggies.

  

By the way, the SA Springboks got their arse kicked by Japan. The less said about that the better. We won’t even draw attention to the fact that later in the week my beloved Scotland caused some cherry blossom damage. 

We won’t mention it. 

   
 
Not a word.

Norm and I got up and out of the house early last Sunday. We headed off to The Riverway Cafe.

  
We grabbed a quick Retro Roll before we did our shopping.
   
Such attention to detail, I do love it here.

Then once our hunger was sated we did a quick run round Pic N Pay and that night for dinner I cooked a yummy pot roast with carrots and potatoes. For Caitlin I made giant black mushrooms baked with Camembert cheese and walnuts. She threw together some salad. 

  
It was all rather delicious. 

The next night I shredded the rest of the beef roast and added lots of spices, made refried beans and corn and Cait made up all the toppings. Mmmmm.

 Pulled pork or beef tacos are my fave thing. 

 
Trust me they were better than they look.

I had another letter left on my car by my crazed religious stalker. This interaction on Twitter when I had a whine about it all made me laugh.

  

I hope my crazy church stalker doesn’t have Dexter tendencies. 

Tuesday night was my book club evening. It was hosted by Chris and as it was my birthday month I was given chocolate cake and a lovely voucher to a local spa. I felt very spoiled and Chris made a delicious dinner for us all. 

I went to sleep quite late so I struggled a bit on Wednesday. But it was worth it.

As Thursday was a public holiday we treated Wednesday as a holiday and had takeout pizzas. As a family we are divided in our tastes so Norm did a visit to Cassarechio as well as Mimmi To Go. Lily and Norm love the ravioli at the former and I love the unique toppings from Massimo’s via the new take out spot. 

Thursday was National Heritage Day in South Africa.  

 We had a laid back relaxing day doing not much of anything.

We had our morning coffee on the bedroom balcony.

  
I did make dinner that night but we didn’t do the traditional braai I just threw together some bits and pieces as Norm hates to braai. 

Friday we had plans to meet up with some friends of Norman’s sister who are over on a holiday. We collected them at their hotel in the foreshore and drove round the city to Constantia. Norm wanted to get me fed as my blood sugar was low and I was being a pain in the arse. He suggested Green’s as the food is always good there, but I thought regardless of the food, we couldn’t take overseas visitors for lunch in a strip mall and instead suggested Groot Constantia Vineyards. There are a few different restaurants there and we stopped at Jonkershuis to see if we could get a table in the sunny outside area. We were in luck and settled in and ordered a bottle of wine and perused the menu. As I knew we were going to the market later I didn’t want a big meal so both Linda and I ordered the Caesar salad.

  
It tasted as dismal as it looks. There was no anchovy present (nor boiled egg which usually accompanies a SA version of a Caesar) it even had ranch dressing. The lettuce was past its best and was chopped so tiny it was more like slaw in texture. The bacon was overdone, the chicken underdone. It really was dreadful.

I was so embarrassed that I had taken the mickey out of Norm for wanting to take our visitors to a strip mall and they ended up eating that?!

The only saving grace was that the men had decent food, Norm had a burger and John had the dorado.

  
Luckily the wine kept us smiling.

 

After lunch we strolled around the beautiful vineyard. 

   
 

We even saw a guy propose to his girl.

  

So cute. I hope she said yes.

As it was Heritage Day we were allowed to tour the winery museum for free! That was cool, we have done it before but every time I notice new things. 

After we finished our walk about we went off to Hout Bay. We drove down along the beach while we waited til the market opened at 5pm. We then parked up and wandered round to The Workspace and saw the amazing sculpture there then headed to the Bay Harbour Market and had a wander round all the lovely little stalls then grabbed a cocktail and went outside. 

   
 

I love how they have made art from nothing all all. 

  
The painting of Mandela is surrounded by an old drain cover. 

We hung out here for a few hours then we headed off for dinner. Linda wanted seafood, but as John had dorado for lunch he fancied a steak so we decided Pescarne would be perfect.

There was no musical accompaniment thank god, our last visit was a nightmare. We settled in and ordered more wine (poor designated driver Norm). 

The men decided to go for the special on the Ribeye, R129 for 2 350gram steaks. What a bargain!

I had the 12 queen prawns on special for R109. 
  
My regular readers will know that Pescarne have had an identity crisis about serving their prawns. This time there was no lemon butter on the prawns, they were a bit dry. I wish they would settle on their preferred method so I know whether to ask for butter or not. But they were nicely cooked.  Just dry.

Linda had the baby platter which she loved. Hake, mussels, calamari and prawns.

  

I’ve had it before it is divine, just too much for me. 

Norman had malva pudding for dessert which the others fancied so much once they tried his they had then ordered another portion.  It was beautifully and ornately presented but my phone was uncooperative and I didn’t get a pic. But they all loved it.

We had ordered takeaways for the girls and Lily came to collect them so they also had a queen prawn treat, we had home heroes come to take our friends back to the CBD and we ended up home rather exhausted from a long, fun filled day.

Saturday morning Caitlin went climbing and Lily and I hit the Pic n Pay sale, I got a shirt, some cute men’s PJs with a warm fuzzy top and 3 new pairs of pumps for work. I had a huge bag full of goodies all for R350!

We hadn’t stopped home to have breakfast so we popped into Brot the newish bakery in Mainstream mall in Hout Bay. How cute is the presentation of their product when you buy it? 

   
 

We chose the peach cake and 2 donuts. We thought the donuts would be best so ate the cake 1st. We were so mistaken, that peach cake was so moist and soft and rich. Really divine! The donuts were ok, but oh that cake! Taught us both you can’t trust appearances, we should know that,  look at my own food! 😉

We chomped away on our way off to Sable Square where we went from one end of china town to the other. I was exhausted! I did manage to find all of my bits and pieces for my Halloween outfit. We then went to Sake Sushi for the R139 all you can eat sushi deal, however every timeI go I forget that I cannot eat that much sushi and I bloody hate seaweed. I couldn’t get the attention of the chefs and the waitress didn’t come near once we were seated. Otherwise I would have ordered what I like. I didn’t fancy a lot of the stuff on the conveyer. 

Meh. I didn’t enjoy it. But it was a lovely day spent with Lily. 

Last night we stayed in and rented Unfriended which was just dreadful. A really horrendous pointless movie. Don’t bother watching it.

We ordered pizzas again (don’t look at me like that I like pizza) and of course I had Mimmi. I had the salame with jalapeños instead of the mushrooms. 

  
We just had a relaxing evening at home, I was too exhausted for much more!

Today Norm was sweet enough to do a run round the shops for me. I am off now to roast a gammon for dinner and then put a curry into the slow cooker for tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your weekend all I’ve had a brilliant one!