there's something about norma

yesterday was going to be a lazy saturday.  no plans for the weekend and fiddled around in my gown for most of the morning.  at around 11 middle son nic arrived with nieces amy and kelly (sister was catching up on some much needed 50-year-old beauty sleep).  we had just decided to take a walk to cafeen in harfield

(sorry cafeen hopefully later this morning)

for some coffee and milkshake for kelly (she is a milk-shake machine – only drinks water and milky stuff – never even tasted coke or juice).  well, we get an sos call from dalene – "lets go winetasting at buitenverwachting" (let the party continue).  this call is closely followed by a call from my mum to come to afternoon tea and cake with her, aunty norma is visiting.

by the time sister arrives to collect us nic and i have had 4 cups of tea each and by the time we get to buitenverwachting the tasting room was closed. the trip to buitenverwachting was not wasted because we caught the end part of horses mating (oh my word) – it explained the expression “hung like a horse” (and rogered rigid – the poor mare was paralysed for about 10 minutes) to dalene and i.  nic was fascinated and had to twitter pictures and amy and kelly were speechless.  in a pretty shocked state we headed off to tea with mother and norms but to get there we have to pass steenberg.  dalene had recently been to a 50^th birthday party at catharina’s and said we had to go and have a look and “perhaps their wine tasting would be open?”  (let the party continue....)

entrance - stunning proteas in long vases

what a lovely place.  happened to bump into pecan bob (nic’s great friend who was at a boozy birthday lunch – heard afterwards that the bill was split and the damage was R490 each (hectic).  worse was that he had a hangover from a heavy friday and had not really participated in the fruit of the vine (silly)).   so we did the winetasting (free) and ordered 2 of the cheaper wines to take along to “tea”.  it was a quick winetasting and we did get a history lesson as well about catharina  -take a look at the link -(dalene prompted the wine guy to tell us the story as she had heard it before).  interesting catharina was the first woman to own property in the cape. 

the catharina red - a bit out of my price range

poor kelly had lost out on her milkshake but was happy to get to nanna for milk and cake.

well it was 5 by the time we arrived and norms and mum were in hysterics because they were tired of waiting for us and “norms was having nothing more out of the kettle”.  these two ladies have been friends since their school days.  we used to live around the corner from the colli family and aunty norma was a stay-at-home-mom with uncle louis working for the local bakery (the biscuit tin was always full).  they also had a one of the first portapool's (remember them?) and between the biscuits and cakes there was also a connection (can’t remember it now) the “star sweet factory” (remember those pink sweets that when you ate too many your wee turned pink?)

(can you spot dalene?)

their house was full of those too.  so it was a homely home (with lots of treats and a pool) but where you could always have a few laughs and a good time.  mark the oldest son was an entertainer of note, dalene was the comedian, magician’s assistant and/or dancer and poor sean and i were given the job of selling tickets to friends and neighbours in the road.  there was always some show or other in the pipeline.  mark is one of the few people i know who has known since he was 10 years old what he loved and was going to do.  he has lived his dream and works in europe entertaining at circuses as a mime artist and clown.

so enough background – back to the “tea”.  as i walk in i get a friendly roasting from aunty norma about yesterday’s posting – it “exhausted her”, was “heavy reading” and i must please “stick to what i do best” (luckily i think she gave up the reading before she got to the punch line, or i may have been in more trouble).  she has a way of telling you off and laughing at the same time.  so norms (what i sometimes call her but cannot get out of the “aunty norma” habit) hope this one is better.  you are a legend, always happy and laughing (are you ever unhappy or cross?).  as nic said to us in the car on the way home “hey, i did not know that aunty norma was such a hoot!!”.

this is "norms"

not an after-though just forgot that i could steal pictures from facebook friends!!