When you are twenty, twenty years seems like a life time. I guess that is because it is. Even when you are old AF twenty years seems like a life time. Hence my surprise every time mine and Norman’s anniversary rolls around and I add up the duration of our years together. (Much like my age, I have to add it up every time, but at least I remember the YEAR I was born, unlike the year we got married which tends to be elusive to my memory.)

Twenty one years! We have certainly had a lot of fun (and a lot of fancy dress parties).

I have had past life regression and know that we have been married in past lives as well, and know that Norm is my soul partner. I have been very lucky to have even found him considering that I grew up in Georgia and he grew up in Scotland, but it was meant to be that we met. We met in Johannesburg South Africa after my first marriage ended. We were introduced by a common friend and when we met we recognised each other. Call it crazy but we were meant to be.

Saying that, we are both rubbish at remembering dates and the only reason I realised that the 5th of July was our anniversary was that the posts from our 20th anniversary safari trip last year came up as a memory on Facebook.

This year will be a bit less dramatic than our wonderful safari trip, we just booked to go for dinner at Foxcroft in Constantia this year. I love this restaurant, the food and service is always outstanding.

We booked for 7pm and arrived a bit early for a change.

We ordered a bottle of Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc from a nearby vineyard and settled in to peruse the menu.

Norm had promised to keep his beard until after our anniversary because I love it but it drives him mad as it is itchy.

The server brought some gorgeous olive ciabatta and some sort of fancy butter. It was so nice and was very charmingly presented.

We were given menus which offered a choice of 2 tapas, 1 main and 1 dessert course for R495 per person.

I chose the Tuna Tataki as one of my tapas dishes. It was described as ‘Seared Tuna Tataki: Chipotle, avocado, cucumber and rice puffs’. It comes with a wee vial of sauce / oil which you drizzle over. This was a gorgeous taste combination.

Norm started with the Sunchoke Mille Feuille which did not photograph well as it was flat, covered in a thick dusting of cocoa powder and was served on a black plate. However he really loved this dish and raved about it all night. It was described as ‘pickled mushroom, naartjie, hazelnut, burnt onion’. A naartjie is a local nectarine type fruit. The funny thing is there is no mention of artichoke in the description, yet apparently that was the main ingredient and we discovered that a sunchoke is a Jerusalem artichoke. Nevermind. Now we are educated on our artichoke varieties.

I have to confess to not being very adventurous overall in my choices as I had 2 pork dishes. I love their pork. Norm and I both had the ‘Free-range pork collar: Gochujang, white cabbage, sweet potato, kimchi’ for our second tapas choice. The lighting was a bit dark so apologies for the quality of the pic but you get the gist. This was a very tasty dish.

For my main I chose the Pork again, this time it was billed as ‘Oak Valley Pork: Butternut, sage, spiced apple and pecans’. The pork belly was very tender and the flavours were divine.

Norm had the linefish as he wanted to experience as many varieties of tastes as possible. The fish of the day was Angelfish. It was described as ‘Yakiniku Linefish: Aubergine, sweetcorn, chicory, puffed rice, nori’. He said this was a very nice dish, tasty and well cooked.

For dessert I chose the ‘Toasted Carrot Cake: Pecan ice cream, carrot ganache, cream cheese espuma’. It was very tasty and yummy. Of course I bit that crispy pastry tube without noticing it was chock full of the foamy espuma mixture which of course ejected out of the end of the pastry shell but luckily landed on my plate as opposed to my boobs where most things usually land.

Norm chose the ‘Mango, Chocolate, Madras: mango jelly, 55% itakuja, passionfruit and madras curry’. This did not appeal to me at all but Norm loved this dish.

After dessert they bring little treats of sweets to the table to have with your coffee but we avoided coffee as it was late. They specialise in macarons. The other little blocky was a coconutty yummy thing. Dunno. It was almond flavoured. Other than that I have no clue what it was but it was delicious.

We had a lovely night out together and counted the many blessings we have had and reminisced about the wonderful things we have experienced in our lives together. It has been an exciting adventure.

Josh has come back to stay with us for a few more weeks as his project in Simonstown has picked up pace again.

Norm has been great about cooking for us. On Monday he cooked a gorgeous pork fillet roast, spinach and roasted root vegetables. I ate it in front of the fire with Pixie drooling at my feet.

On Tuesday night he made chicken sausages, mashed sweet potatoes with chicken gravy and home made coleslaw. (He burns my sausages because I like them like that.)

Then on Wednesday night he made a rich, beefy, tomatoey sauce and served it with roast butternut and a delicious cheesy potato bake.

It is so lovely to have yummy leftovers for lunch at work each day, or else my options are to go out in the winter chill and rain to forage for food or settle for a crappy toasted cheese.

I mentioned the ongoing taxi wars in South Africa in my last blog. We keep receiving mixed messages in the media, that the battle has been resolved and then we hear of yet more shootings, injuries or deaths. Five more people were shot in Pretoria on Thursday.

We had another fire in Hout Bay on Monday. After the fire they discovered the body  of a 6 month old baby in one of the 15 shacks that burned. The news is not clear about whether the baby was at home alone or whether the mother & father were home during the fire or why the baby did not get rescued. It is such a tragedy, RIP to this beautiful baby girl. My only hope is that she died while sleeping and did not wake. Heartbreaking.

I left work early today as I went back to the doctor. My cold symptoms have just not gone away and I am coughing constantly and my throat is so sore. He has given me a list of things to do, salt water up my nostrils to cleanse my sinuses, nose drops and something to dry me up to stop the coughing so that I can sleep. He says there is no infection just inflammation.

We had a quiet night in last night, we ordered pizza and just chilled out with a big fire.

We woke up this morning and headed out. Before I went to my drumming session Norm and I popped over to Constantia to Mugg & Bean.

I had the M&B Classic with poached eggs, bacon, tomato, a hash brown, chips and toast.

Norman had the All American breakfast with scrambled egg, bacon, tomato, beans, sausage, chips and toast. I find it funny they call it the All American. I never had beans for brekkie in the USA but it is a constant item for a British fry up.

I was supposed to drum and sing at a Spirit Dance today but it was cancelled as we did not have enough dancers booked. I would say it is because of the dubious weather we have been having but today was stunning! As the dance was cancelled we had a rehearsal at Owl Lodge in Constantia. There were lots of us attending as it was a good bye party for Jesse and Neo who are off to Europe indefinitely. I will miss them both, they have such great energy in our drumming sessions and Jesse is the drum master.

Here is a pic of all of us after the last Spirit Dance.

We have tentatively rescheduled the dance for September when the weather might be more reliable.

Tonight Caitlin is popping round for dinner which will be lovely. The rest of the weekend will be spent relaxing. I hope you enjoy the rest of yours.

Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxo