The Gardeners visit the Gardeners!

My folks arrived in East London on Friday evening after spending one night in Oudsthoorn. We met them on the way to Yellowsands caravan park where we would spend the long weekend.
It was a good weekend on the company side and not such a good weekend on the weather side. After a couple of weeks of summer-like weather it went slightly pear-shaped with a very strong wind for 90% of the time ending in heavy rain that turned into torrenting rain. The only good part of the rain is that the wind stopped blowing!
We still managed a couple of walks on the beach and on the one morning the wind did not blow Tess and I had a swim in the sea which was great. Saturday morning we headed for breakfast at Lavender Blue which has fast become a favorite eating place of ours. We then went and did some shopping before returning to the campsite and having a nice long afternoon snooze. There was really little other option with the wind making it unbearable to be outside for long periods of time.
Sunday we took a drive out to Haga-Haga where we had lunch and then carried on up the coast to Kei Mouth and Morgans Bay. That took almost the whole day before heading back to camp for some wonderful food. Sunday night like most we played card and board games until my eyes were shutting...then we played a bit more and then crashed into bed.

Monday we slept in before slowly packing up and heading for home. My folks are leaving on Thursday morning and heading for home via Addo Elephant Park. We are spending the evenings with them. It has been a good time.

Another visitor from CT!

This past weekend we experienced the wonderful company of our good friend Di Moffatt from Cape Town. She arrived at around 7pm on Friday evening and departed last night at the same time. It was a good time and we were sad to see her leave.

Friday evening we spent catching up on the happenings in Cape Town and reconnecting with our friend. We headed to bed at around 11pm in preparation for an early start on Saturday with a breakfast at Lavender Blue which included some of our East London friends.


It was a great time and we ended up only leaving there after 2pm! We took a short drive up the coast with the prospect of a walk on Glengariff beach but the wind was on the chilly side so we headed home and the girls had an afternoon nap while I read the paper and chilled out also managing to chat to Nic Black which was great!

Saturday evening stayed in and had a good chat. The weather was quite stormy and not conducive to heading out.

Sunday morning we headed of to church and enjoyed a really fun meeting with a lot of dancing and carrying on! At about 1:30pm church ended and we went for lunch at the Spar Deli in Gonubie. It has a great view and great food. Some of the HCC folk joined us there as well.

Sunday evening we pulled in to the Thompson's house for pancakes. This is becoming a regular Sunday evening feature on our schedule!

Monday morning I had to spatula myself out of bed, tip-toe around the house due to the sleeping ladies and go to work! NATIONS! Not too bad but I would have preferred to sleep in. Monday was quite a day for me as I had an appointment with the dermatologist about a small wound on my head that I have had for about 2yrs..it just never seems to completely heal! I have never been worried about it but Tess has been concerned so off I went. The Derm turned out to be a real card but I lost my sense of humour when he injected my head with local anaesthetic before chopping and cutting. He finished off the job by cauterizing the wound with a mini-blow torch! All good and for those who know me well you will be proud of me that I never passed out! Unfortunately I have no pictures.....

Monday for Tess and Di comprised of chatting until about 3pm before paying the East London Zoo a visit with Michelle and Ruth Thompson.

Tuesday I went to work again. Tess and Di went to the movies, did some photo developing and had lunch at Floridale coffe shop. I got home just after 5pm and before you know it we were saying our goodbye's at the airport.

My folks arrive in town with their caravan at the end of this week. We will be spending the long weekend caravanning at Yellowsands caravan park. Should be good.

Morgans Bay camp

This weekend we headed out to Morgans Bay for a young adults camp. This beautiful seaside village is about 40min out of East London towards Durban.

We were all split between the Thompsons family home and The Wardles family home.
Friday night we braaied and hung out before all trying to find a bed and get some sleep.
We were up early at around 7am for a walk on the beach and a swim before having 2 sessions starting at 9:30am going until luchtime at 1pm. It was good input and you could really sense the Lord touching hearts.Saturday afternoon was left unplanned so with the weather still good people headed off in various directions for a variety of activities. Tess headed up to the cliffs with some of the girls, Graeme and Reid went for a run and most of the guys including myself had a cracking 5 on5 beach soccer game before heading off to catch the 2nd half of the Bokke putting some points past the Aussies!Saturday night we had a massive stir-fry for supper followed by another session which was great.Sunday morning we headed off early to make the meeting before getting home to crash for an hour. Then off to a wonderful gane of footy in the driving rain. Brilliant! That is the main reason I can hardly walk today!!!

Tess and I are really excited about the way there is momentum building in GOD at HCC and we can't wait to see what happens when it breaks out. Di Moffatt is joining us for a couple of days at the end of the week which we are looking forward to. God is good.

Hogsback in the snow...I mean..sun

This weekend we cashed in our free stay at The Arminel hotel in Hogsback. It had snowed there earlier in the week so we had high hopes of some chilly fun. As it turns out friday was a cooker and by the time we got there the ground was a little slushy in places but not a bit of snow in sight. We were put in a lovely cottage overlooking a natural pool which was great.Saturday morning we hit the trails. First we walked down into a steep valley to view "Madonna and Child" waterfall which was pumping due to the rain and snow.
After hiking out of the ravine we took a short drive and then another walk to "Upper Thuyme falls". This was also flowing rapidly. With no more suitable walks handy it was back to the hotel for a bite to eat and then we settled down to watch the Bokke finally WIN A MATCH! It was not pretty but a win is a win!!!A little later it was supper time with freekin awesome food. A buffet of roast potatoes, beef, chicken, veggies, seafood starters, soup and the whole hog! After supper we played cards in the hotel lounge with a roaring fire keep the room nice and warm.
We crashed early again and sunday morning it was time to eat....again! It was a wonderful breakfast, although by now we were both a little "fooded" out so we stuck to the lighter things like fruit salad.

A low misty rain had settled in making our planned walk up "Tor Doone" a no-go so we headed off to Queenstown (About 60km's away) to explore a bit. It was quite disappointing as towms go with not much to see. We did come across a car acoustic competition...as in a "who has the loudest car sound system" competition. It was great and I won a prize just for being there...a CD and a bag!It was about 28degrees in Qstwn and after slowly cooking we went for a milkshake at a 1-stop and then headed back to East London. Can you believe it was raining heavily at home so we picked up a DVD and had an early night. A nice relaxing weekend...