what a day my saturday was

in fact the entire weekend was eventful.  i sat up until late last night putting together my (post)mortem on the royal wedding but on getting to work this morning and telling the girls about my weekend i think you will have to wait for the wedding news as my weekend was far more entertaining.

to set the scene on friday night i invited the family around for supper because matthew was in town for a couple of days.  dinner went really well.  i have a contact for sirloin and rib-eye steaks (R60 and R70 respectively per kilo, if you are interested let me know).  i did the rib-eye steaks with wasabi mash potatoes and green beans.  my mom brought along her delicious apple crumble and cream and together with the family, extended family and a few other friends, some good wines (and rockfield the R24.99 pnp bargain of the year) the table was full (and it is a seriously big table).  it was our usual everyone-talking-at-the-same-time kind of dinner - great fun and so great to have matthew home.

table was set

candles lit

i sent everyone home after telling them i needed no help tidying up.  i am getting clever in  my old age and i had the ever faithful jeanette coming in to help me tidy up on saturday morning.

saturday morning arrives, matthew goes off to meet some friends for breakfast, michael is off to see his mom and then golf and jeanette and i get stuck into the housework.  i decided to spring clean the kitchen with her.  as i had the girls arriving for an afternoon high tea wedding party i was going to be baking brownies and scones.  everything under control and a call from nic.  "hi mom, you at home? can i come and watch the rugby?".  first semi-final starting at 12.  "sure".   an sms follows "can bob and jambles come too".   "sure, nic".  then another phone call "i'm on my way mom, do you have eggs?".   nicholas james can make the most divine properly poached eggs (you know when you drop them with a ladle into boiling water (with a tablespoon of vinegar)).  really great and it usually goes with toast, spinach and feta (if there is no salmon (there isn't often salmon) or ham.  but nic is a messy cook, the kitchen was just starting to sparkle and i did not think it was a good idea.  i told him there was plenty of pronutro if he was hungry but no cooking.

a couple of minutes later in walk nic and bob.  bob is baring gifts of biltong and a vacuum packed frozen shoulder of lamb (he is from good farming stock).  "jenny, i could not find any bacon in my freezer but could we please put this roast into the oven?"  quite easy for me to say no to nic and his eggs but not as easy to tell bob to help himself to a bowl of pronutro.  "but, bob this meat is frozen" thinking this would let me off - "my mom always puts it in the oven frozen - 180 for 2 hours, just lemon juice, salt and pepper".    so i followed the instructions, they went off to watch tv and eat biltong on my couch with recently fluffed up cushions.  my brownie mixture and scone dough were now in a two hour queue for the oven.

well the match ended, the roast was done, bob did a great job of carving the perfectly cooked shoulder of lamb (believe me you can cook from frozen), we had lovely fresh french loaves from woolworths, some sliced tomato and an icy cold beer each.  it was 2 o'clock and the brownies were in the oven (what was i panicking about?).  oh in between all of this matthew needed a haircut before he went off to the rugby.

i then had amy to help me set the table, kelly rolled the scone dough and cut out the scones.   the ladies were arriving at 3.  i took out the bone china teacups, beat the cream, dalene arrived with her dog (one of those funny sausage jobs, like the one below, but not the one below, below is jack (another funny sausage job) who is not with us anymore - RIP jack (you were pretty cute)).  anyway i give sam the treat of the shoulder joint bone and put him outside with the bone.  sam does not like to be outside where it is cold underpaw and prefers to eat inside on the sparkling clean floor which jeanette has now mopped.  i decide to give him a gentle nudge back outside with my foot and the cheeky sausage decides to nip my ankle (lucky for him i had my boots on - very, very lucky for him).

this is where the afternoon started getting interesting.  lesley arrives with the remains of a jug of old brown sherry from our rusty gate weekend away.  she also has the most divine loaf of olive bread,  my mom and lucie arrive as does hayley (gareth's girlfriend).

 

caroline gives me a call.  "will it be ok if i come and bake my bread at your house, i don't want to miss any of the wedding?"  "sure".   caroline has kindly offered to bake brother matthew some of her "now not so secret cheese bread" to take back to kimberley with him on sunday.  she arrives and gets busy making another doughie mixture which has to go into the oven for an hour.  this oven has now been roasting and baking since 11.30.

then dalene takes a call.  she is babysitting her two great-nieces (she is 50 after all).  niece lauren is overseas with her mom and dad for a couple of days and dad dom is babysitting but is off to the rugby.  amy and kelly are in their element to be babysitting and dom walks into a house full of woman, a jug of old brown and in his hand he has a chilled bottle of very nice champagne (he knows dalene achilles heel) and a packet drinks and eats for his girls.  he must have been a bit worried leaving his 2 little darlings in pink with painted butterfly faces with this gang of noisey woman (and the jug of old brown, wine and now champagne). 

the wedding has now started.  dalene is making tea to put in my bone china teacups which i had on display.  caroline scored points again and gave me the "i-don't-do-tea" look so hayley and i needed no more prompting to open the first bottle of champagne (it was a wedding after all).  we had to sit through awful commentary of sabc 3 of the procession (for goodness sake we were better at identifying the celebrities than they were).  it was shocking (got that off my chest).   keira and jesse are now sitting on bouncing balls with kelly (and sometimes amy) in attendance watching the disney channel in my bedroom, the lovely birthday bielle arrives with a drum of the most delicious red velvet cupcakes which her mom had baked for her birthday the previous day.

 similar to these but with a

on the top

the wedding went on and on and started overlapping with the stormers / crusaders rugby match which amy and i were keen on watching.  whenever we tried to change channel to check the score we had a roasting from a lady in the back row (or two ladies, you know who you are!!), we tried to watch in the kitchen (but it is linked to the disney channel) so we put the radio on in the kitchen with rugby commentary.  well the rugby was as disappointing as jenny crwys-williams and that chinese looking ms south africa's commentary on the wedding.  the food was great and the champagne even greater.  (oh, i did not mention that a friend of caroline's also arrived with punnets of strawberry's to put into the champagne - even although the tennis had finished).  good thinking janice!!

oh and then we had the pleasure of nicky and megz arriving just in time for sundowners.  the rugby was over and dom (the dad) came to collect the two best behaved children we (kelly) had ever babysat.  michael arrived home after his golf and was happy (but unhappy with his golf) to stay home and catch up on all the sport he had missed and babysit kelly (strange that the best babysitter ever now needed to be babysat) and sam (that viscious excuse for a dog) at the same time.  3 car loads of girls left 12 st denis to continue their celebrations at kelvin.  (now that is another story for another day - names and numbers will have to be changed to protect innocent people involved - wink, wink).

one thing i can say for sure that we had more fun than that miserable bride...beautifully miserable bride.....beautifully, miserable, beautifully made-up bride with a beautiful dress and the most beautifully made-up sad eyes. 

and another thing - michael gave me a call at kelvin to ask if the oven was meant to be on.

just one more thing (RIP peter falk) a quick run down on numbers entering 12 st denis over the last 48 hours

friday:- michael, jenny, matthew, nic, james, dalene, amy, kelly, mom, rob, david, lucie, caroline, gareth, tom
saturday:- jeanette (thank goodness), kelly, amy, nic, bob, matthew, dalene, lesley, mom, lucie, hayley, caroline, dom, kiera, jesse, bielle, janice, nicky, megz, dom, michael
saturday (after kelvin):-  jenny, dalene, tom, amy, anton (all for steers burgers at midnight), matthew
sunday:- michael, helen, margaret (helen's 88 year old friend), nic, caroline, kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly, kelly (she now rides her scooter backwards and forwards between our houses many times a day doing errands and bringing smiles and messages)

we are waiting for her latest post on her blog which will be "babysitting michael" - too funny