I now get as excited about a bird as I used to about sexy shoes. These days I have zero pairs of sexy shoes as I only wear flats and most of those are boots, and not the sexy kind of boots.
That reminds me of a story when I first moved to Cape Town. I used to wear sexy high heeled black boots to walk across Cape Town to the client’s offices. It was about a 15 minute uphill journey (and There-Ain’t-No-Hill-Like-A-Cape-Town-Hill). I remember once I was wearing a beautiful matching tweed pencil skirt, waistcoat and jacket with fishnet tights and my black leather boots to mid calf. Back in the days when I wore expensive heels and carried beautiful leather handbags instead of now where I wear surfer boots and leopard print baggy trousers with my bedraggled cowboy hat. Anyway. A woman stopped me and said ‘I just want you to know that you are incredibly sexy’. I was floored, how many women stop other women to say these things? I will never forget it.
Back to the bird. I saw a bird that I have not noticed before. I am not going to say it has never been there because I am blind as a bat and seeing a bird’s markings is really hit or miss. Saying that, I have managed to identify every bird I have seen. I saw a beautiful little bird which was similar to my beloved Swee Waxbill, only larger. It had a silver head and a bright tail when it flew. I think it is a Grey Waxbill but Norm is not convinced and neither of us can see worth a damn. Here is a random pic off of the internets.
The weather was stunning all of last weekend, reaching up to 30℃ on Saturday! The security guys were here all day working on the security system. They have now replaced the alarm panels in each room so they were moving around in and out of the house. It felt very stressful having to manage the dog as the guy doing the work was not comfortable with big dogs and Finn is definitely that!
On Sunday I had a long lie in and Norm brought me a few coffees in bed as I needed some down time to recuperate from both Friday night and starting my Saturday so early and having humans all about. If you missed my post about Friday evening’s Drag Night it is here. We had a few errands to run on Sunday so we decided to go out for something to eat for a change.
For brunch we settled on The Pelican. The food is always good from there, I often have it delivered when Norm is away because I eat one meal around mid-afternoon when on my own body’s natural rhythm with no man to feed.
We chose a table in the shade at the back of the patio outside.
Finn settled nicely next to Norm on the deck. Norm fed him pieces of biltong the entire time.
We both ordered a smoothy, Norm had a banana one and I had a berry one. They were R57 each which is for nothing for something fresh! The Berry Delight contained berries, orange and banana. Nothing was overpowering (sometimes all you taste in a smoothy is the banana!) and it had minimal ice so you got a proper full serving of juice. Norm had the Bananarama which contained banana, milk, honey and cinnamon. They were both really tasty and fresh on a warm day and kept us occupied while they prepared our food.
To eat I had their Eggs Benedict with bacon. The bacon was perfectly cooked, the eggs were medium as requested and the hollandaise was divine. It was just the right amount of sweetness and not too lemony. Just perfect. There were heaps of spinach with a mix of delicious sautéed mushroom and baby tomatoes. I had mine on Ciabatta which was perfectly toasted. I hate insipid ‘toast’. It was bloody gorgeous!!! It was R95.
Norm had the Creamy Scramble for R84. It had scrambled eggs with spinach, feta, sautéed mushrooms, roasted cherry tomatoes, pesto and fresh tomato salsa.
Both of us asked to leave off the pesto. Weirdos who food avoid together stay together! Or something like that.
On Monday we had the security guys here all day again and Norm was running around like a madman. He managed to get to the shops for groceries and that evening he cooked fillet steaks and sliced and fried a block of halloumi while I made a huge salad. The steaks were just how I like them, charred outside and pinky pink inside. I used a whole avocado in the salad so we each got half and it was perfectly ripe and creamy.
My birthday was on Tuesday and I was so spoiled!! Norm gave me a lovely card with a stunning necklace from RockChic in Hout Bay. It is one of my favourite shops for jewelry.
He has also ordered a bench to go next to the swimming pool, in between 2 metal flower stands with birds on them. The design on the back of the bench reminds me of a butterfly.
I had to work that day but it was not overly busy. I had booked for me, Norm, Tamlyn, Caitlin and Wes to go for dinner at Cheyne’s in Hout Bay. Everyone was already there waiting for us when we arrived as Norman of course was late (he blames the dogs).
I was given 2 very different but equally gorgeous bouquets of flowers and I thought the flowers kind of summed me up: on one extreme, flashy and prickly and on the other, pink and girly. You never know which Lisa you are going to get.
The kids gave me a voucher to buy some plants once the area with the rock wall has had the dirt added which is very exciting! Tam gave me vouchers for some things I really appreciate and I felt so loved.
We chose the special which is 4 dishes of your choice for R420. The dishes are broken down into 4 sections: Sea, Land, Earth, and Happy Endings. Apologies for the quality of my pics.
I cannot remember what everyone else chose but from the Sea I had Firecracker Lobster and the Chilli Salt Squid, from Land I had the Mumbai Chilli Beef and the Peanut Butter shake for my Happy Ending. I also ordered 2 additional portions of Potato Coconut Dumplings for us all to share because we all love them. I was assuming they would come with the Land round of food but they brought these 2 portions to the table first. We were all starving so it was fine, we wolfed them down.
They brought the rest of the dishes in a sequence of the ‘same’ food for obvious reasons in regards to streamlining the kitchen, but the impact of that was that Norm was delivered 3 of his dishes at the same time. He had to wolf them down while they were hot and then had to sit and wait for every one to eat their food until we all caught up with the desserts.
I was served my Mumbai Chili Beef first. I always order this dish as I adore it and it was as gorgeous as always. Crispy, sticky, slightly sweet with a touch of fire from the little slivers of chilis.
Norm received his chicken dish, his fish dish and his pork belly all at the same time. This is the pork belly.
This is his chicken yakitori which he and Tam both said was delicious but a bit awkward to eat.
Next they brought out the orders of Crispy Squid to the table.
Wes and Tam had the Duck croquettes and they were both sighing in happiness with this dish.
Everyone except Wes had a dessert, he prefers the savoury to the sweet. Norm and Tam had the Apple Crumble and Caitlin and I had the Peanut Butter shake. It was rich with a bit of crunch and absolutely perfect to end with.
The food was divine, the service was great and the company was perfect (other than missing Lily, Josh and Trevor). The only blight was the food distribution pile-up for poor Norm. I still give it a solid 4.5 Kitten Stars (out of the full 5) as the food was delicious. ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
The next morning they dropped off a skip for the rubble and the builders arrived early to get started on replacing the brick driveway and parking area.
The bricks were dropped off by a giant truck. Norm was enjoying all of these big toys doing boy things.
By midday they had all of the old bricks lifted, the grout chiseled off and stacked tidily and the surface cleared down to the sand (which was smooth before I walked out to collect a delivery parcel, oops).
By the end of the first day they had replaced the drive from the gate down to the street.
Wednesday evening was the Social Circle meeting at Tamlyn’s house at 6pm. There were 7 of us there this week so we could sit in the lounge and cross chat easily. There were two women there whom I had never met before but I knew the rest. The cookies were the best yet!! Norm picked me up just after 8 as I was so tired from the previous day’s excitement and from days of having loads of random people walking in and out of our house.
The builders were there before we were even out of bed on Thursday mornings. They worked like machines with how quickly and efficiently they progressed. Pretty much almost all of the brickwork was laid by the end of day 3.
I cooked dinner as I was home that evening. I had organic chicken sausages which I then cut in half and fried. I made mash, steamed broccolini, roast carrots and gravy. I had the beans left over from Mzudumo’s lunch and Norm had my leftover salad from my lunch.
Friday the builders came really early and worked until midday. The guy whose company it is was Scottish and a perfectionist so he made patterns to save on bricks. It means we have proper parking now instead of just a muddy patch. I love how they finished off this little curved area.
Today we have woken to a stunning day. I lazed in bed until Norm had to head off to a meeting around 10 and Norm brought me cappuccinos and Finn snuggled with me. It was lovely and slovenly.
I have some bits and pieces to do around the garden while Norm is out. I need to top up all of the bird feeders and move around some plants that are getting out of control. Basically, pottering, my favourite activity!
I hope you all have a great weekend and week ahead. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxo
Kitten in the City 