getaway long weekend

the family are off to rusty gate farm tomorrow for a long weekend. 

youth day tomorrow and dalene's not-so-youthful day on friday.   a friend owns the place and as usual we woke up a bit late.  all the cottages were booked for a mountain bike rally but they have the cowshed available for us.  "Bunkhouse sleeps up to 15 people. Ideal for a large family or wonderful bunch of friends".  sounds just up our street and going to be an interesting and noisey time.  night-time going to be interesting as there are quite a few snorers in the party (i am definitely not one to point fingers).

dalene's older daughter, the gorgeous amy is the organiser of the family.

she made the most incredible invitation for her mother and, if i was not sworn to secrecy and confidentiality, i would put it up on this blog.  very brave of my sister to pose in a leopard skin bikini (where did you get that from?) doing all kind of acrobatic movements - amy took the pictures and put her mother on the foefie slide and climbing boulders on the invite.  she has organised the menus, shopping lists, games to play and washing up rosters.  apparently the cowshed has a masterchef type kitchen so we are having a couple of cookery demonstrations (caroline making her famous cheese bread, nic making pizza dough) and competitions - pizza making on thursday night,  fillets and fancy sauces on friday night for the birthday party and a potjiekos competition on saturday night.

in between this we have games to play.  30 seconds in our family is the most hysterical game ever.  put dalene and i against my three boys and you have an awesome contest.  glad serious 30 second players are not there as dalene and my clues go something like this - clue antony hopkins - "what nicname did we have for a-holes?" - Anthony Hopkins - initials (get it?).  we could not go around calling people a-holes so we used to say "he is such an anthony hopkins".   the boys also have their own code and it is amazing how they get to the correct answers.  we have sequence (great board game), poker, darts and there is a snooker table and foosball (when last i played foosball i was 12 and pretty good at it). 

lesley and i had a rehearsal of the birthday speech last night.  lots of laughs and wine and not that easy this morning working out my notes.  she is driving through with us tomorrow so we need some serious practice. 

it is going to be a fun time.  the weather is looking pretty grim but i am sure with some old brown sherry and fires burning it won't matter a bit.

i will let you know all about it.  david, the ever busy brother is sure to have laptops and sound systems set up so i may be back sooner than you think with some pictures to share.

take a look here if you want to see more.  

 http://www.rustygate.co.za/