Yes, it’s sad but true – I was glued to my work laptop last weekend in order to publish the winners’ lists from the Cannes Lions as soon as possible after embargo, and it’s been a week of the same as the nightly embargo is only at 10pm. But not all was lost as there were still many moments of fun. See below, what’s not to love?
Saturday, 20 June 2015: Breakfast pizzas, beach walks and scientific ice cream
Bassie asking me to please let her nap and stop taking photos now.The breakfast drinks at Enchanted, cup is turned so you don’t see the mini shortbread round in the saucer.Husband’s ‘hangover breakfast’ (once again, not that he had one) was good apart from the overcooked eggs, he asked for soft. Oh well, still a good start to the day.I went for the ‘Enchanted Frenzy’ – pizza base topped with bacon, banana, honey and sour cream. Finished the whole thing as I had a few hours of work ahead…Work done for the day we headed to the beach as the weather was decidedly sunny. Here is Husband dipping his toes in the freezy waters at Woodbridge Island.Whereas he enjoyed the chilly experience, I just ran briefly along the edge.We finally tried the N-ice Cream Lab at our local Foodlovers. Its all very scientific, with your specific concoction created fresh in front of you. We went for standard vanilla with choc hazelnut scattered throughout – like crushed Ferrero Rocher. Delicious. R35 seemed a bit much but it’s a lot of ice cream.The least smiley Husband. He was really quite pleased with his ice cream, promise.
Sunday, 21 June 2015: Father’s Day brunch, wine tasting and tour of KWV in Paarl
The doggies wished their dad a happy day too, and gave him an IOU for bangers and mash – still to be used, perhaps this weekend.Me with the bestest dad, who came over for Fathers Day brunch. See the large container of pawpaw on the table?Well, the doglets got so excited – they had not seen pawpaw before and insisted on trying some.The Big Bill, Mrs Bill and Baby Bill barrels, with members of family appropriately standing beside each.Look at the lovely KWV tasting glasses. R40 each covered the tour, 6 tastings, of which two were white wines, two were red, as well as a brandy and port, plus as it was day of the dad we also got to try their special Imoya brandy. Throat-burning stuff!Happy family post-wine tasting at KWV.
Thursday, 25 June 2015: Pretty flowers at the Waterfront after work
Gorgeous selection of orchids on display at Woolworths at the Waterfront, when I stopped in for a wander before an evening event on Thursday.Thursday was clearly day of the pretty flowers. This vase of clear pebbles and sunset-coloured blooms caught my eye at the Breakwater Lodge, where I attended the BrightRock #changeexchange.
Friday, 26 June 2015: Working department lunch and the view from Husband’s desk
Sipping a chai latte while perusing the Wild Fig menu for a ‘working lunch’ with my lovely team. After all that I went with the burger off the pub lunch menu. Was delicious, topped with relish and surrounded by chips – ate it before I could get a pic, sorry!You know it’s a good place to eat when you get baskets of fresh, steamy bread for the table along with tall jugs of iced lemon water.More pretty flowers! This is the fake orchid Husband keeps beside his desk. I stopped in after work on Friday and tried the Coo-ee Peach & Apricot fizzy drink they were gifted for their printing work.
That’s all, folks! Tis another working weekend alas as the final Cannes Lions award ceremony is tomorrow night, but you know we’ll slot in lots of relaxation, relishing and resting, too.
What do you do when it threatens to rain on your Winter public holiday? Wintery things, of course. That’s why last weekend we met a friend for a coffee-fuelled weekend breakfast (and tried Jason Bakery’s much talked about daily dough-ssant – more on that below), went to our nearest News Cafe twice, and spent the public holiday trying to keep dry as that’s the day it really bucketed down. More below…
Saturday, 13 June 2015: Jason Bakery breakfast, with Jana, News Cafe drinks with seagull
The menu’s printed daily at Jason Bakery, as the dough-ssant option changes daily. Look at my beautiful cappuccino with a shortbread biccie on the side.Lookit! Husband’s breakfast Cola was so tiny Jana suggested we take a photo including his hand to show the scale. So cute he had two (Colas, not hands, he’s always had two of those, and at R9 for the 200ml dinky bottle it’s not bad).The dough-ssants are the reason we opted for Jason Bakery, and boy were they good! What’s a dough-ssant, you ask? It’s like a cronut, sometime called a French doughnut – round doughnut shaped but the texture is all croissant. It’s R35 and Saturday saw us facing the ‘Turkish Deight-choc ganache’ option, with a thick layer of delight inside and glittery soft pinkness atop. Delightful.Proof that Jana and I were both there! Here we are, tucking into our dough-ssants. We couldn’t finish in one sitting and were HUNGRY to start with (though I confess I did finish mine in the car on the way home.)Husband was not tempted by all the sweet treats, opting instead for the Wild Wild West breakfast. His pleasing pan came with a bread base, Jack Daniels beans, fried egg and tasty sosswag.It was a cold day so we sat and watched some telly that afternoon – Bassie objected to yet another photo but Bertie didn’t notice me taking this shot, he was so engrossed in watching TV.We ventured out again that evening – a sweet seagull decided to get very close while we waited for our drinks to arrive at News Cafe, Blouberg. The whiteness in the distance is the sea.Husband glugged an Amstel Draught…I had a cafe mocha. Lovely mix of coffee and hot choc. The seagull had winged his way further up the coastline by then.
Sunday, 14 June 2015: News Cafe breakfast, lemon meringue pie and Milo
While at News Cafe we’d both spotted yummy sounding things on their breakfast menu, so we returned on Sunday morning. This is my strawberry cheesecake flapjacks and (empty) cappuccino cup…Husband went for the Hangover Eggs (not that he had one). It was very good, he loved them – slices of toast with baked beans, rashers of streaky bacon, egg and feta. Of course he doctored it with lots of Tabasco sauce. And washed it down with a Cola.Mum surprised us with Milo and lemon meringue pie when we visited for lupper on Sunday.The bottle the others sampled during lupper; I was still on flu meds. It was a lovely peachy colour.
Monday, 15 June 2015: Met at the bus stop by my doglet
Husband got home long before me on Monday (we were not among the clever few who took a day’s leave for an extra long weekend). Both doggies hopped in the car to come fetch me from the bus stop. Bertie was leaping around the back seat, Bassie was excited to know where we were going – a little sad when we just went back home.
Tuesday, 16 June 2015: movies in the rain
Here is Husband, dressed in skimpy T-shirt and shorts when we ventured out to Grand West Casino in the rain.
Thursday, 18 June 2015: Blue lemonade cocktails at African Pride 15 on Orange
The blue lemonade ‘cocktails’ handed to us when we arrived at the Meltwater marketing brainfood event at the African Pride 15 on Orange hotel on Thursday.
Friday, 19 June 2015: Weekend cupcakes!
One of my colleagues surprised us with delicious, moist chocolate cupcakes she’d baked using Woollies’ cake mix. Lovely way to start a Friday!
There you have it, kids. Hope your weekend ahead is lovely 🙂
This past week I was knocked flat by the awful cold/flu that’s spreading like wildfire the country at the moment due to change of season. I’m mostly better now, apart from the hacking cough that keeps breaking the silence – stay warm kiddos, my drenching on the bus last week was probably the final straw after fighting off the germs everyone had been spluttering around all week. That doesn’t mean we had a boring week though, stifled by tissues and throat spray – not by a long shot 🙂 Yes, I do love my job – you’ll see why in the pics below…
Saturday, 6 June 2015: Waffle breakfast, owlie gazing, Enchanted pizza
When I awoke on Saturday with a firey throat and tonsils ablaze, Husband asked what I wanted for breakfast. Only a Wimpy mega coffee to burn my throat and a waffle with ice cream to soothe it came to mind, so off to Wimpy we went. I had the waffle with brownies and M&Ms, clearlyThere was a flurry of activity in our local West Coast Village so we went to see and sure enough, the resident owlie was being photographed by all and sundry. I even had my owlie-dotted bag on my shoulder. Husband heard him asking ‘Hooo’.Bassie turned her nose up at Pupcorn once before, but she really LOVED this bag – maybe because it’s roast beef flavour, but most likely because it was bought for her brother.The interesting decor at Enchanted pizza – recently opened in Parklands. With daily comments on Facebook about how good their pizzas are, we tried them for dins.The pizza we shared – the Mexican. With chicken, guacamole, sour cream. I said I’d have a slice and ended up demolishing nearly half of it.That’s the outline of a lady silhouette in my cappuccino foam, and two homemade shortbread rounds in my saucer. Win win.
Sunday, 7 June 2015: Melkbos brekkie, Bassie gets a chinful of custard
Ontbyt.On Sunday I was well enough for an outing so we trotted off to I heart Melkies in Melkbos. This was my granola with sliced banana and berry coulis.Husband went for the ‘veggie breakfast’ instead. Marmite toast with avo, roast tomatoes and poached egg. “It was something different”, he said.Husband happily pouring his breakfast Cola. Note the herb box next to us. It ran all around the inner perimeter of the seating area.Beautiful serviette.My most beautiful doglet. Guess who had some custard at Granny’s house.
Tuesday, 9 June: Zomato Editor’s breakfast at Cape Milner
Had to snap this sign while walking through town on Tuesday morning.Beautiful orchid-topped glass table in the Glass Lounge, Cape Milner hotel. But that’s not why it’s called the Glass Lounge…This is! Amazing glass ceiling, glass doors leading out to the pool area, and views of Table Mountain. A real treat to see on a work day.This is why I was there – for the Zomato Editor’s Breakfast. Delightful. It’s work, I promise – read here.My cappuccino and fruity/yoghurt/muesli from above, even with some edible gold. Sparkly.The eggs ben on toasted English muffin, with ham and spinach, and a side of apple juice to wash it down.Even better? We were sent off to our respective offices with a personalised cookie from Charly’s Bakery. Was delicious and shortbread-like.
Thursday, 11 June 2015: Evening event at Marshall Music on Buitengracht Street
Isn’t this just the best collection of guitars you’ve seen? So many more to marvel at when I attended an evening event at Marshall Music in Cape Town.The full sign reads ‘Welcome to Marshall Music’. I only got up to ‘Mars’ in this shot. Teehee.
That’s all, folks! We’re finally both on the mend so should have a regular weekend of resting, relaxing and relishing food on the cards – enjoy! 🙂
Yes, it’s Winter. No, I’m not a Winter person. But I am a fan of enjoying the little happy moments that pepper my day, even when it’s drizzly all day and that famed Cape wind is so cold outside that I can’t breathe and have to hold onto things while walking towards the MyCiti Civic Centre station – yes really, I fought through this on Monday.
Here are a few of my happy (and not-so-happy) moments of the past week…
Saturday, 30 May 2015: Reload breakfast, Wintery dog walk
Husband’s brekkie of choice last Saturday – the German hot dog with an extra egg at Reload. Note his mustard spiral fell out of the roll. Sad face.I opted for the honey nut latte. Yummy.A little can of fizzy delight – we stopped at the UK Emporium for some treats later that morning, this was my first ever Cherry 7-Up.The rest of our spoils included Chunky double caramel Kit-kats, Vanilla Cola and Chocotastic Pop-Tarts (on special at just R10 for a box of 8!)Later that afternoon, Husband finished all the little DIY tasks in the study, including putting up this shelf, nailing all of our academic certificates onto the ‘wall of clever’ and sorting out my enormous pinboard of paper mementos. Tick!The weather was grey but the doggies loved their ‘just under 2 km’ long meander all around the neighbourhood.They LOVED all the new sights and smells!
Sunday, 31 May 2015: Rainy Sunday pub grub at Forries
I enjoyed last Friday’s office lunch at Forries so much that it was the first place that sprang to mind when I saw the weather on Sunday. Here is Husband just outside – you can just see the edge of Devil’s Peak behind Forries.Husband not-so-happy about being made to pose at the ‘History of beer in Cape Town’ walls in the beer-tasting room.Me at the Castle draught 1895 tankerHe tried the ‘1895 preservative-free’ Castle Draught and turned his frown upside down.He had three large bangers nestled on mash with veggie bits. “Very good,” he said.I went for the jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon, with pesto drizzled on the plate along with sliced fig and roasted baby tomatoes. A wonderful taste explosion!Bertie looks very proud of himself here, sitting next to two ‘smaller dogs’ at Granny’s house on Sunday eve.
Wednesday, 3 June 2015: Wet weather at the One & Only
I attended a mobile/IT-type conference at the One & Only hotel on Wednesday, my first ever visit. The weather was sunny and bright when I arrived – so much so that seagulls were frollicking in a water feature.The pretty tea selection inside.Tea time treats and Protea table decor – I’ve blogged before about Cape Town’s love of using this flower to brighten indoor events.The weather on my way home in the bus that afternoon – wet and miserable. Even more so when an opening in the bus roof leaked the rainwater it had collected all over my pants while I was seated!I took this pic on my bus trip home to show you the ‘escape hatch’ panel in the bus roof responsible for my rain water-drenched lap on Wednesday. See it, looking all innocent? Bad bus!
Friday, 5 June: Bright ideas at Bright Day
My team had newsroom training at the Bright Day space in Woodstock – this tea set-up was so pretty. (See, more Proteas). Was a wonderful afternoon.
That’s all for now, folks – I’m off to get cosy in front of the fire. Happy weekend! 🙂
Ramblings, rumblings and random ruminations. Also reviews, recommendations and alliteration. Based on living the good life in the fairest Cape. This is not a food blog.
Rambling Litchi 