We had a bit of a break from rain over this past weekend but it has started again on and off as we roll into the work week. As much as we need the rain to top up our thirsty drought ridden dams, it was nice to see a bit of blue sky when I was off of work and could enjoy it. It rained on and off through Friday but Saturday and Sunday were both stunners. The rain is coming down pretty hard today.

I had very little planned for last weekend and had anticipated a bit of relaxation but then my plans started to ramp up.

Friday Josh and his friend Shane arrived down from Mossel Bay to stay with us for the weekend as Josh was racing.

As Lily was at Comic Con in Johannesburg for the weekend Josh brought Shane with him for support. We ordered pizzas from Posticino as Josh likes to carbo load on the day before a race.

Saturday the boys were off to the race course very early and I had an appointment to get my eyes tested at Tanya Seeber optometrist in Hout Bay at 11. Norm and I decided to pop down for breakfast prior to my appointment and we chose The Hummingbird Eatery and Patisserie as it was right next door.

There were only a few people seated when we went in and we hoped this meant we would be served quickly.

I was not terribly hungry and their menu says that they offer a ‘Daily Muffin’ so I just ordered a chocolate chip muffin, luckily the flavour they had that day was my favourite. As the cafe calls itself a patisserie I had high hopes for this choice.

Norm ordered the full English breakfast with banting toast.

Our coffees came quite quickly but the food seemed to take a very long time. In fact, 10 minutes before my eye appointment was scheduled Norm went to find the waitress and met her coming through with our food. I quickly wolfed down the muffin but was very disappointed with the quality of it. The muffin had a hard lump in it which I think must have been a bit of the batter which was not fully mixed through properly. It was very dense and heavy. The muffin was very dry which makes me think it was not made daily as the menu suggested. Norm said his meal was fine but the banting toast did not taste like bread at all but then I have yet to meet a banting toast I enjoyed.

We have given this venue a few chances, you can read my most recent blog about our visits to this venue here. I see that on that older blog I had a whinge about the hollandaise, but I noticed on this recent visit that they actually have Bearnaise sauce on their Eggs Benedict, but the complaints still stand on the fact it was overcooked. Each time I am disappointed in the food and this was the 3rd strike of kitten discontent and we will not bother to go back. I give them 1 Kitten Star. ⭐️

I dashed over to the optometrist while Norm finished his food. I had my eyes examined and ordered some new daily use contacts. I have always had monthly use lenses but I wear them so seldom it is a waste. With the dailies I can just wear when I get dressed up and want to look nice and then chuck them away. I am allergic to many of the soaking solutions and this cuts out an irritant from the process. I am waiting on the salesman from the frames supplier to bring a pair of frames for me to try on so I did not order my spectacles yet.

After my eye appointment Norm and I headed over to Caitlin’s flat as she wanted to go  and purchase a dishwasher and we offered to help her collect it to save delivery costs. We went to Tafelberg Furnishers in Diep River as she had already been speaking to a salesman there who had put aside the dishwasher she wanted that was on special. We also bought a fold up clothes dryer as Cordelia had broken ours the day before. The salesman was a sweety and insisted on following us to Caitlin’s flat and helping Norman carry the dishwasher upstairs. We tried to tip him for his efforts but he refused. He was such a lovely young man. We managed to get it to fit under her new counters and it also fits perfectly in between her existing appliances. All of them are silver finished and it really looks lovely.

Caitlin also asked Norm to bring his tools to help her hang some of the items she wanted to put on the walls of the flat. The 1st items were to hang over her sofa, so we pulled out the sofa to avoid getting drilling dust all over the furniture. We found a wealth of cat toys lost by Scout and Mittens hiding back there. There were so many wine corks that it looked like a family of miniature alcoholics had been living under the settee.

Caitlin had 2 paintings which Susan, Wes’ mom, had painted for her, they are so stunning and the colours match her flat perfectly. The colour does not show that well but the wall is a soft minty-turquoisey-green and the sofas are a soft grey.

After all of the chores were done we were in need of some food and we walked over to Martins Bakery to get a quick bite to eat.

The kitchen at Martins had already closed but the waiter offered to have the kitchen do a sandwich croissant for us if we wished. We ordered a ham and cheese croissant and a coffee. The croissants at Martins are baked fresh daily and are hands down the best croissants I have ever eaten, including those which were eaten when we were on holiday in France. They are so light and buttery at Martins and so fresh.

We picked up some banting chicken pies to take home for dinner and we just served them with potato salad and coleslaw for a quick and easy meal that evening.

I also bought some sinful treats for later that night. I got a lemon meringue tart for myself.

I picked up a gorgeous, rich chocolate tart for Norm and a couple of pasteis de nata for us both as well.

We were definitely not disappointed in any of these sinful indulgences. In fact as you may notice I had to use pics from Martins as I wolfed mine down so fast I forgot to snap a pic. Oink.

Would one call Martins a Patisserie even though the owners are Portuguese rather than French. What does one call a Portuguese bakery? Whatever you call it, I give everything we had from there a full on 5 Kitten Stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We walked back over to Caitlin’s and Norm packed up his tools and other bits and pieces and we headed home. Norm and I had a quiet evening as we were a bit tired from all of our running around that day. I built a fire and we cuddled up with the pups and relaxed.

We have just finished watching the Netflix series Guilt which while watching we fluctuated between loving it and being annoyed with the silly bits. I can usually always identify the murderer in a show but this one had me flip flopping on who I thought was the killer. It had plenty of twists and turns.  The show was based predominately in London and had roles where the actors were supposed to be playing someone of English, Northern Irish and American origin. However it was oddly cast and I could hear the actor’s real accents coming through the fake accents the actors were portraying. The Northern Irish roles both sounded like the actors were from the south, not the north. My Belfast accent is far superior to either of the supposed NI actors. The part of the Prince was played by a Brit, but his accent is not naturally posh, I could hear his vowels slipping on occasion. The American actress who played the part of Grace did not sound American to me, I could hear British phrasing slipping in on occasion. The things that annoyed Norm were more factual points like the fact that the Special Prosecutor was interviewing people when they were arrested and various other things about the British justice system which wound him up as being blatantly ‘not British’ according to Mr Kitten. Also the portrayal of the Prince and the lack of support and counsel from the Royal family when he was deep in the poop was a bit of a stretch.

Saying that, we were really gripped by this show (in between being really annoyed) and so I will give it a solid 4 Kitten Stars.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sunday Josh and Shane were up early and heading off up the road towards home. I had drumming practice at 10.30 but my morning got away with me and by the time I got out of the shower I was already late! I made a piece of toast and Norm very kindly offered to drive me over to Constantia so I could eat it on the way and he could stop for petrol on his way back to save us time for our lunch appointment at 1. We raced over to Gerri’s and I arrived as they were busy doing their breathing exercises and they had to start over. Oops. I am normally the first to arrive and have never been late before so I did not stress too much. We had 2 solid hours of drumming and singing.

We learned that one of our songs is being sung wrong. The lyrics are:

CHU NO MUGEN NO CHIKARA GA KORE KOTTE ,
MAKOTO NO DAIWA NO MIYO GA NARI NATTA

It is in Japanese and as we sing phonetically we were garbling the message. However as when you have been singing misheard lyrics for a long time, it is hard to sing it the right way once the wrong way is stuck in your brain and we struggled a bit with the rhythm on that one.

Norm collected me around 1pm and we headed off to meet my friend Julie who is over from the UK. Julie is here with her Father and they are staying with Julie’s cousin Belinda and her hubby Wayne and their 2 adorable little babas. We arranged to meet at Dunes on the Beach as it has a playground for their son who is 2 and a half and a gorgeous view for the overseas visitors. We were seated in the children’s play area under a brolly. It was shady enough even for my wee Scotsman.

We were seated looking up towards the restaurant which is always good for people watching.

We had a view of the beach if we peered over the playground wall.

It was lovely to see my friend Julie. We worked together at British Gas when I was in the UK. I have not seen her in about 9 years since she last came over to SA.

I ordered the mussels and as I was starving by the time we finally ordered I scarfed up every little mussel.

It came with bread and the bread was so soft and fresh it must have been made that morning. Norm had the fish and chips and Wayne had a burger which he said was very good. Julie’s dad had the cajun chicken burger which he also enjoyed. Julie and Belinda shared some sushi and the salmon and were happy with their food too. The salmon come on crushed potatoes which they compared to warm potato salad. The pizza oven was off for some reason and several of them had planned on having pizza but quickly had to make a new choice when they heard the pizzas were off the menu.

We hung out for a while enjoying the nice weather and catching up with each other’s news. We were due to pop by Retha’s late afternoon but we had cancelled as we needed to nip home to check on the dogs and walk them. It had turned a bit chilly and so I built a fire while Norm was out with the pups.

On Monday Norm had a business meeting but was kind enough to cook for us before he left.

He had bought woolies hake fish cakes which were on special. He steamed some vegetables and made home made coleslaw. It was yummy and there was enough left for my lunch on Tuesday.

Norm had a bit of excitement on Tuesday when he received the required number of resident approvals to implement an SRA in our area. This is great news as it allows us a bit more control over the security issues we have in our suburb. A few individuals were strident in their disapproval, however the yes votes outweighed the no votes so it should proceed now despite the objections. Norm has put in so many hours of his personal time working on this for the benefit of many residents so I am very pleased to see that work pay off.

I realised yesterday that my drivers license has expired and am in a bit of a panic about getting pulled over. I will have to go as soon as possible to the filthy licensing department to queue with the millions of other people getting their licenses. Oh the joys. My car has gone in today for a service as the brakes have been pulling since my near miss accident when I was working on the UCT project. It is so difficult to achieve these tasks when you are working full time. Norm dropped me off at 8am and then drove me into work and collected me afterwards. It cost me almost R5k for the new brakes and the service. I still have to go to another service provider for the alignment but at least the brakes are sorted and that was the worrying issue.

Last night Norm cooked dinner for us and kept it simple but it was delicious. He baked chicken breasts and mushrooms in coconut oil and roasted some veggies to go with it.

This weekend is a long weekend as Monday is Heritage Day in South Africa. I am meeting Caitlin and our friend Carla for lunch on Sunday and I am looking forward to that. I am also going for lunch on Saturday with my friend Helen and it will be great to catch up with her.

The Cape Town Marathon is on this coming weekend which may impact our ability to get in and out of our village. I will have to check the routes to see what is happening. If I am housebound maybe that means I will do some of the chores around the house I have been putting off forever. Maybe. 😜

Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten x0x0x0x0x0x