Breakfasts on bread boards and new early morning offices

In this week’s highlights you get an insider’s glimpse of the new Bizcommunity offices, post-week drinks with colleagues at the Fat Cactus, winter mid-week evening half-price curries with husband and more! See below…

Saturday, 4 July 2015: Breakfast at Bread & Butter, electric fence installation, dins at the Italian Club

Beautiful cappuccino with side shortbread at Bread & Butter.

The muesli jar is always a treat, filled with fresh sliced strawberries, bananas and nuts.

Husband had the bacon, egg and avo croissant. Note it’s still served on a bread board and not a plate – that’s his only complaint.

Husband found this large Scotch egg on sale at the local food market. It was lovely, he says.

I savoured my own treat later that afternoon with a coffee lovingly made by Husband – a Nuss Plunder. It’s much like a twisty croissant. Often find them at the bakery section of Pick n Pay and Foodlover’s Market.

Don’t worry, Husband hasn’t lost his top half – if you look closely you’ll see he’s standing bent over atop our front wall, cleverly extending our electric fence himself.

When darkness hit we zoomed off to my old offices to pack up my desk and bring all my odds and ends home for the weekend, then stopped off at the Italian Club in Milnerton for dins.

Husband at the wall of barrels and flags inside the Italian Club.

You can just tell this was an Italian meal from the colours in the shot, can’t you? And indeed it was, our first meal at the Italian Club this year (gasp!).

The best gnocchi bolognaise, covered in parmesan and chilli.

Sunday, 5 July 2015: Breakfast at Primi Blouberg, evening at the Fire & Ice

Look at Husband’s lovely lemony breakfast Cola against a backdrop of tableclothed Table Mountain. This was at Primi, Blouberg.

My cappuccino wanted a similar photo taken. That’s an enormous mug, with a sliver of biscotti on the side. Delicious.

My french toast would have been just R25 if I didn’t add a portion of summer berries for R15. So glad I did, they were tart and tasty.

Husband opted for the ‘Rancheros’ bowl of all sorts of Mexican goodness. Nice, he confirms, and at least it’s in a bowl on the bread board and not just left to slither and slide across the wooden plank.

We celebrated Husband finishing the electric fence extension with a quick afternoon visit to the Driftwood. Husband had a Black Label draught…

I had a red cappuccino. Above my head you can see the inspiration for our patio roofing, especially with the twinkly fairy lights you only see at night.

We got to the Fire & Ice a little early for my Sunday evening event, so we sat and ‘people-watched’ at the Milkshake Bar. That’s my chocolate-orange-honeycomb milkshake, and Husband had the Almond Whiskey Espresso Martini.

I did try his, but mine was better 🙂

This is what we attended at the Fire & Ice – the closing awards evening of the first ever One Show diversity boot camp to be held in Cape Town. Click here for my overview.

Tuesday, 7 July 2015: New offices and sunset curries

Look how pretty! This is the view from my new desk in the brand new Bizcommunity office. Note the real live trees, the pink sunrise sky and the lovely open space.

JUST caught the pink streaks in the sky at sunset on Tuesday after work…

It was such a gorgeous night that we went past home to Eden on the Bay, as we had a suspicion they’d brought out their winter specials menu – indeed they did, so we opted for the Tuesday ‘two chicken curries for the price of one’ special. Husband also had the ‘double Scottish Leader for R22’ special, as you can see.

Setting sun just visible through the window at Inside.

My chicken korma and cafe latte. Husband opted for the bunny chow, which was delicious.

Wednesday, 8 July 2015: A doggie surprise at Husband’s work!

The fake potted orchid will give this away as Husband’s work – but what IS that on the red foot rest? A special delivery, just for Bertie and Bassie! You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for their special review blog post, coming soon…

Friday, 10 July 2015: Friday celebrations at the Fat Cactus, Woodstock

What do you do when your new offices are walking distance from the Fat Cactus? Head across after work on Friday with your colleagues, of course! This is a ‘mixed moggy’, a margerita of lime, with a swirl of strawberry and dollop of mango in the middle.

That’s all for this installment – keep your eyes peeled for the special guest post translated from the doggies, coming soon!

Introducing the ghost of Blouberg beachfront

Everybody loves a good ghost story, especially if you’re huddled around a roaring campfire. Not near a set of twigs and flint? Oh well, the light from your laptop screen will have to do. Here goes…

None of the research I’ve conducted into ‘Cape Town ghosts’ shows that there’s been a sighting in the Table View/Blouberg area yet, though there was a ghost ship spotted close by in Milnerton (click here to find out more) – so I conclude that the lack of evidence must just mean I have super strong ghost sensing skills.

See, last Saturday Husband woke with a rumbling tum, of the ‘must have a buffet breakfast’ variety. Luckily we have one such option just a few minutes from home, at Doodles on Blouberg Beach. So we set off to Doodles, filled out plates, took a few foodie shots as per usual, and left.

It was only on scrolling through the photos we’d taken much later in the afternoon that I noted the ‘ghost’ – Husband thinks it’s a trick of the eye or camera, I’m not so sure.

Here’s the view from Doodles – see pretty rainbow?

Gloomy sky when we sat at Doodles

Then here we see the ghostie. He/she’s actually in the first photo too, look again…

Aah, lovely rainbow… then your eyes are drawn to the funny ghostie figure. What IS that? Husband’s convinced it’s the reflection of something behind us but the section of Doodles we sat in was empty apart from us…

Enlarged for your horror…

See? It’s like a gremlin/ghoul thing with its arms raised above its head

If you do have another explanation, please share in the comments section below! This is what the rest of breakfast looked like:

First course – cappuccino and crunchy muesli cereal things with yoghurt

Second course – toast with scrammlies, bacon and warmed crumpets. The wetness on plate is neither steam nor tears of happiness but instead rain as our enclosed eating section was nowhere near the buffet plating section.

Tummy full, my ghost-sensing brain wasn’t satisfied so later that afternoon we drove slowly past the ‘no entry’ sign where we’d first seen the ghostie but it was nowhere to be seen. And seeing as we were in the area, we had a mini-adventure in Big Bay, with drinks at Saints Burgers in Eden on the Bay (the burgers do look delectable – click here for the menu – so I’m sure we’ll be back to try them when we’re feeling more flush with cash!), followed by experimenting with the big yellow ‘National Geographic’ photo frame just in front of it.

Trying a chocolate cookie shake at Saints, Eden on the Bay. So delicious, like an Oreo McFlurry mixed with chocolate ice cream. Plus they gave me a tartan blanket (which you can just see – the white and grey one clashing fashionably with my purple tartan scarf) to keep toasty

Of course Husband tried a beer instead. He enjoyed his Jack Black

Tada! Result of the Nat Geo photo frame: Winter-me in front of the mountain (Winter me is quite different to Summer me)

This is how it was taken

And of course we ate even more the next day, especially as it was time for the monthly lunch buffet at the Italian Cub in Milnerton. You’re just not Italian if lunch isn’t a three-hour long affair (I am a quarter Italian so this was my ideal lunch)…

Coffee shake at the Italian Club

Mum, dad and me waiting for the starters to be declared ready for consumption at the Italian Club

We took many versions of this selfie, but this is my favourite – yes, while waiting for the go ahead to queue for yummy Italian food

Mmmm delicious pasta. This was between the cheesy starters and meaty main course.

Dessert! If you know me, you know I love dessert. This was my first bowlfull

Even more sweet treats going down the gullet

Nom nom nom!

That’s all for now, folks – let me know your thoughts on the ghostly snap, and click here to read the ‘ghostly’ short story I wrote many moons ago – it’s not scary at all, I promise :).

Long live lazy long weekends!

There’s something so exciting about the moment when you realise a long weekend is looming. It’s not just the thought of ignoring your ridiculously early alarm so you can sleep in late and relax, giving your ‘work brain’ a rest for an extra day. There’s more to it than that. I find my excitement building for weeks before a public holiday (our next ones are roughly a month away and I have to hold myself back from doing a little jig each time my synapses spark with a happy reminder).

This past long weekend was no different. Here are a few snaps…

Thursday, 20 March – eve of the long weekend

We got things off to a silly start with some ‘doggie selfies’ in the evening after a long, tiring work week

Selfie with Bassie. She is not impressed

A selfie with both of them

Family selfie on the swing bench, Bassie’s favourite place

This one makes me laugh, looks like she is after her dad’s whisky

Friday, 21 March – the public holiday itself – Human Rights Day

We had a lazy day starting with a lie in and a quick Wimpy breakfast, then caught some sun at Kleinbaai, caught some mussels at ‘Mussel Beach’ near Bloubergstrand, brought them home to soak, went off to Hout Bay for lunch, watched the giant seals being fed fish mouth-to-mouth, had a ginormous two-tone ice-cream, stopped at GrandWest casino for a spot of fun on our way home and collected coal from the beach to light our first fire of the year

I used the beach time for more important things, like reading and burrowing toes in the sand

If you look carefully, you can just spot Clifton in the waves, ‘catching’ mussels

The mussels he caught were large and delicious

He’s actually enjoying the currywurst roll despite his facial expression

Ditto my chiproll drenched in vinegar and tomato sauce

And then this happened! Biggest bestest two-tone soft serve, for a whopping, 12 ronts

We even had the electric bus thing to ourselves at the casino

Saturday, 22 March – Saturday that felt like a Sunday

We breakfasted at the local nursery, acted like silly buggers by dancing around on the dunes near Sunset Beach, watched SA lose the T20 against Sri Lanka on TV, then took off our SA shirts and went to Woodbridge Island for our weekly chilli poppers. The evening was filled with me watching Glee (you know I love it… click here too for arb reference in a short story I wrote a while back) and Clifton cooking the most delicious Thai beef curry, so we could listen to the Bandstand of 702 (you know we love it) with tummies purring (but not too full, there was still space for a marshmallow or two from the fire…

It’s a hard job keeping Bertie away while toasting/roasting a marshmallow to perfection

Sunday, 23 March – second Sunday, what a treat

We took the doggies for a gallop/run/song-singing session at Kreeftebaai, then had a very long lunch with my parents at the Italian Club, then spent the afternoon wandering around the Waterfront and surrounds. And ended with a gorgeous sunset

Bertie leading his dad straight towards the sea birds

Bassie’s telltale ‘I’ve just been to the beach’ sandy nose

Dad and me at Italian Club (yes, that’s the ever-present coffee shake in front of me)

Boy and mum were also there

We ate and we ate! All this for 100 buckeroos

Pretending we live the high life at the Waterfront – though I have been on a catamaran, click here if you don’t recall

Beautiful sunset sky to end the lovely long weekend

 

There you have it 🙂 Was it lovely? Yes. Lazy? Indeed. Long enough? Sadly not. Oh well, a month and counting until the next one…

The in-laws’ “between birthdays” visit 2014

The end of January is usually time to slow down from the excitement of the new year. But not in our family. For the past two years this has been the time of year my parents-in-law have come to visit us from Joburg (here’s a reminder of last year’s visit) – it’s the perfect time for them to do so as it’s slap bang between my husband’s birthday and mine, and this year they also had a 90th birthday to celebrate – I’ll blog about that another time though.

Why not blog about it all in one go, you ask? Well, with over 200 photos taken across our various cameras and phones it was hard to pick just a few, but these are my favourites from their first few days with us…

Saturday, 1 February 2014 – collected parents from the airport, explored Hout Bay, had supper at Simply Asia

We had ‘Boy’ and ‘Girl’ cans of pop at Mariner’s Wharf in Hout Bay along with a fish-and-chipp-y lunch once we’d collected the parents from the airport

 

We ate at Simply Asia that night as a delayed birthday meal for the lovely birthday boy. The waiter was kind enough to take a photo

Sunday, 2 February 2014 – we visited the Sunday Market in Milnerton and the Italian Club’s lunch buffet

We celebrated the parents’ visit with my parents the next day, by having the buffet offered by the Italian Club once a month

The queue to eat! Such delicious, authentic food

See? Mmmm it was good

My favourite coffee milkshake from the Italian Club

Eating with his mom

Not enjoying the dessert quite as much as he did the mains

Tuesday, 4 February 2014 – boys climbed Lion’s Head

Success! They conquered Lion’s Head

Taking in the breath-taking view on top

Wednesday, 5 February – dogs were walked on the beach, lunch at Driftwood Café, home-braaied roast lamb

Pretty birdies at the beach

During his walk, Bertie made his way on to some rocks and couldn’t find his way back. See the panic on his face? His dad had to hop across to rescue him

Lunch at the Driftwood Cafe is always filled with the sound of ruffled feathers as various birdies come to see what you’re eating

Lunch at the Driftwood Cafe to celebrate hubby’s new job

Very suspicious of this photo-taking business, the cooks were

The only way to cut up left over lamb bone…

Much to the doggies’ delight

That’s all for now, folks – watch out for my next blog post, which will cover the last bit of the parent’s visit this past weekend, including snaps from three parties (two for the same person) 🙂

The pink sparkly August celebrations

Right, as promised, there are quite a few photos I’ve been meaning to share with y’all based on a few of the birthdays, anniversaries and other life events related to the Cape Andrews-Delaney clan that we celebrated in August.

‘Celebrate’ usually means a small family get-together with good food and sparkling wine – red, pink or peach is the best, we find 🙂 Proof? See below…

First up was Dad’s birthday on 10 August. As lots of the UK and Joburg rellies were in CT for the weekend, we had a combined get-together/birthday breakfast at On The Rocks in Blouberg

Birthday boy (non-hatted) enjoying something eggy at On The Rocks

The UK/Cape family get-together at On The Rocks – the sea is just behind those windows

Here’s how the photo was captured

Next, we went to my parents’ house for supper the night of my mom’s birthday, Tuesday 13 August…

Mom and granddogs celebrating mom’s birthday

Family shot of the birthday meal – with hatted birthday girl

Proof that Clifton was there, and that he ate 🙂

A week later we celebrated my half-birthday (click here for an explanation of why I have a half-birthday)…

Pink sparkling wine being poured to celebrate his new job, and my half-birthday

Pink sparkling wine for my half-birthday

Lastly, on to our 6th wedding anniversary on 25 August…

My FAVOURITE meal! Gnocchi Bolognese and a coffee milkshake from the Italian Club in Milnerton

For proof that the gnocchi/coffee shake combo really is my favourite meal, click here to see what I chose as my final meal at Lucio’s in Joburg 😉

Happy 6th wedding anniversary to us! 🙂

That’s all for now, folks. Looks like we may be seeing the first signs of Spring now that we’re nearing the end of September… at last! So there may well be a braai on the cards for Braai Day/Heritage Day – watch this space 🙂