Monday morning thoughts

That was a pretty good weekend. Some highlights:

• Watching Defending the Caveman at the Pieter Toerien Theatre - hilarious! TSC and I are still laughing about it.
  
• Supper club breakfast (oxymoron, I know. But we decided to do something different this month) at my favourite breakfast restaurant in Jozi - Grand Central Cafe.
• Watching ancient movies in front of the fireplace with a hot, home-cooked meal and a glass of wine.
• Relaxed lunch with my folks at Cafe Blue with good food and conversation.

And this morning I remembered that when we helped my gran clear out some stuff last year, she gave me a pair of never-worn slippers with microwaveable heat-bag inserts. So I'm sitting here with warm feet, possibly for the first time this winter. This makes me very happy. And a little bit sleepy.

Lots to do though! Off I go.

Happiness and

*happy sigh*

It was a good weekend. TSC and I went to one of the nicest weddings we've ever attended and danced so that my feet still ache three days later. We met new people and watched our amazing friends celebrate the decision to spend their lives together. We ate good food and marvelled at the beauty of the venue. We plotted to kill their annoying peacocks (seriously - how is it that wherever I go there are damn noisy peacocks around?!) and took countless photos.

We spent time with my folks over a relaxed Sunday lunch and caught up on their news and snippets from their Russian trip. We enjoyed the sunshine and some great wine and talked for hours.

We studied TSC's varsity subjects together (anyone want to know about the different bedding classes for laying drainage pipes? No? Didn't think so) and watched the F1 race.

Well done to Jenson Button on tying up the driver's championship and Brawn for taking the constructors'. And, of course, well done to my boy Hamilton for driving from 18th place to a 3rd place podium finish.

And, finally, I got hold of my package from Kalahari that I ordered with my birthday voucher from Angel and Glug, which has been awaiting collection from the Post Office.

So exciting to get a package in the post! Made me feel like a kid on Christmas morning, even though I knew what was inside the box. I got a small bird guide (so I can figure out which birds my cats keep trying to kill), a LIVE CD, and... the book I have been hankering after since it was published, Jane's Delicious Garden.

For those of you who are not gardeners, excuse me while I sing the praises of this fantastic book. It's rare for me to find a non-fiction work that speaks to my soul, but this one does. Nerdy as that sounds. See, most gardening books are quite factual, scientific and logical and they seem to miss the absolute magic of watching things grow and the way a green garden produces peace. Jane Griffiths understands this.

She writes logically and factually, but the pages are also filled with gardening quotes, personal anecdotes and an underlying passion. From the first sentences, where she tells of how she used to pull carrots from the ground, wash them under the garden tap and enjoy them right there in her grandfather's garden (which is exactly what I would do in my grandpa's garden), I have been captivated.

I can't wait to get some reading time this evening!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Off to download my photos and get some Monday admin (yuck) over with. Have a good one!

Rocking our leggings and side ponytails

What a weekend! Friday and Saturday flew by preparing for our 80s event on Saturday evening, which was a total blast! Aside from a few no-shows and last minute cancellations (grrrr), it was fabtastic.

My Rubik's cube cake turned out quite nicely, along with the neon decor. See below. The punch was also a hit.

I painted big stars on a piece of polystyrene with neon fabric paint and spattered some on a black plastic tablecloth. We borrowed a UV light, stuck some glow in the dark bits on the windows and this was the oh-so-80s result...

Here's me in my 80s kit (pity you can't see my leggings, rah-rah skirt, luminous pink legwarmers and uber-long glitter false eyelashes in this pic)... I borrowed the glasses from some-one else for the photo. I reckon I should've kept them - they're so cute and sparkly ;-) Those long-dangly earrings were also glow sticks.

Sunday was spent tidying up. It's weird how people always find really odd places to stash their empty beer cans. We found wine bottles in the garden, paper plates in our kitchen sink, bottletops in the guest loo and general mess all over the show. But the cleaning went more quickly than expected, so we were ready to work our double shift at church on Sunday evening. My poor feet are aching after all that rushing around the whole weekend long.

One of my darling best friends spent the night on Sunday so she could help man the phones in the office on Monday while everyone else was out at a tradeshow. It was great to catch up with her while I worked before dashing off for the usual Monday meetings. Blegh.

Worked till 9.30 last night on a big deadline and off to do more of that now. Ticking bits of this project off my list helps me to lower the stress levels slightly and avoid meltdown.

Have a great week, people.

Garden stuff (in which I wax lyrical about peas and whine about my sore back)

Monday.

What did you feel when you saw that word?

Hope you're all having a good one so far. Mine hasn't been too bad. Irritating clients who don't communicate have been my worst problem so far, which is pretty good going for 11am, I reckon.

My back is killing me. I spent the whole of Saturday digging in the garden and serving TSC's ungrateful bunch of varsity people while they built their concrete boat. Which is actually more of a paddle ski, to be honest. It's quite impressive - they've made a metal frame, stuffed it with polystyrene and coated it with concrete-soaked cloth and some more concrete. They just have to paint it with a few coats of waterproofing paint and it should be ready to race.

I got one no-dig veggie bed done. What a mission! The veggies better be worth it in the end. first you make a frame, which I made with two layers of stacked concrete bricks. Then you put down a layer of newspaper, 5mm thick. Then you put down a layer of hay or lucerne (I had to get all this stuff from a horse-feed place), 10cm thick. Then you put down some organic matter (kitchen scraps, wilted weeds etc). Then you put down a layer of loose straw, 10cm thick, and some more organic matter. Then you water it well. Lastly, you top it with a 20 - 30cm layer of compost and water it again. Now I have to leave it to settle for two weeks before I can plant.

I have said before that patience is not my strong point. I want to plant NOW.

The point of a no-dig bed is that in theory, you never have to dig it (was that maybe a little obvious?). When you harvest your veggies, you just top up the bed with another 10cm compost and plant your next crop (obviously making sure you follow rotation guidelines so you keep your bed healthy).

The thing is... I ran out of bricks after this one bed. So now I need to get more to do the next oh, I dunno, five or six beds. Yes, five or six more of these back-breaking expensive bloody beds.

Like I said, the veggies better be worth it.

My current veggies are making me happy though. My peas are divine. There are few things in this world as yummy as a handful of freshly shelled sweet baby peas out the garden. Mmmm. In fact, these sparked my latest salad creation: a bed of sweet, tangy lettuce (not the boring variety) with sliced avocado and strawberries, finely chopped green pepper and fresh baby peas, dried cranberries and a handful of mixed seeds, all tossed in Pomegranite-infused white balsamic vinegar. Yum!

Hmmm... hungry now. Off to make some lunch. One last thing to say...

CONGRATULATIONS to ANGEL and GLUG on their ENGAGEMENT!