A Delightful Descent Into Decrepitness

Mineral soaking by 8:00 am.  

If you’d ever have suggested that would be me… I’d never ever, EVER have believed you 😂

Lake slept good and I did too thanks to the medicated assist 🤪👍🏻 (Mike nearly always sleeps good. Just letting you know this fact so it doesn’t seem like I don’t care about his sleep quality 😉.)

It was still a 6:30 am wake up from him though and unfortunately we couldn’t find any restaurants that were open that early and if we waited until they were, it would be passed the  ‘first nap’ 😅

The new scheduling conflicts a baby produces 🤪

So instead, we hung out in the hotel room and filled the jacuzzi for Lake to enjoy for a bit and ordered breakfast in from the hotel restaurant.

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Tub time was just the right thing to tire out the sapling and he fell asleep on the sidelines of watching soccer with dad 😉

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Breakfast (though not presented prettily due to it having to be eating in our room 🤪) was good!
It was a BBQ breakfast bowl and I’ve begun to really love breakfast bowls.

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I like things drenched in sauce, if a sauce is available and I prefer savoury to sweet.
So the idea of potatoes wedges, meat, eggs and veggies, topped with sauce as a way to begin the day, is an appealing one 😉👌🏻

 

It was a beautiful day, so once Lake awoke, we headed outside to enjoy it ☺️

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We walked through the farmers market and then found ourselves at Wildflowers Bistro & Boutique.

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It was an eclectic little place to explore while waiting for our pecan sticky bun and caramel macchiato, which we then took to enjoy in the nearby park.

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We sat on a bench and dug out the paper bags contents.

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The sticky bun was nice and light without being too airy and sweet but not sickly so and the macchiato was just like Starbucks 😉

The Wandering Market was visited next, as I had read they had pottery mugs available.
There were a few but not quite what I was looking for, so we went back out to explore. Many murals were spotted along our way, which I found to be a charming characteristic 😉

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Popping in and out of gift shops and home decor stores, enjoying the sunshine in between each.

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My ever patient shopping companions  😉

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We stopped in at Taste Patisserie by Katrina, as we always try to hit some sort of bakery on our trips.

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It smelt delicious upon entering and the clean, simplistic elegance was noted and appreciated😉

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What wasn’t my favourite was that none of the goods displayed had either names/descriptions or prices.
I hate having to ask prices of things 🥴
There were two sandwich cookies to choose from, s’more or white chocolate and lemon.
I should have went for the second flavour but they were decent sized cookies and I figured my husband would share with me and he’s not huge on lemon flavours.
So, s’more it was 🤪
It was a mistake in the fact that he didn’t even really feel like cookie so didn’t want more than a bite and I don’t LOVE chocolate 🙈 But I could still appreciate the fact that it was a VERY good cookie sandwich, the texture being very pleasing 😉

It was then nap time ‘for Lake’ 😉😜

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So we walked back to the hotel and all partook in the nap time… an aspect of travelling with a child, that you will not find me arguing about 😴

We decided to go explore via vehicle for a little while, grabbing a Starbucks (as the room only had a Keurig machine, so I couldn’t make use of the coffee grounds I brought 😩) on the way to observing homes and architecture.

Then pausing that exploration, we stopped to try to get some photos.

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As mom is always the one behind the camera capturing cute little father/son moments, she was feeling a little left out 🙈 …and I loved all of our outfits and wanted them documented 🤪

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Stealing kisses.

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Believe it or not… this is the narrowed down version. My apologies 🤪

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We decided to eat at The Mad Greek again, since we don’t have greek food available anywhere by us, we figured we ought to make use of it while it was there 👌🏻

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Mike got the boneless dry ribs and Greek salad and I got the feta fries so we could sort of share the two.

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It should have been called FETA with a couple of fries, as there was a LOT feta 😅
Thankfully it wasn’t as strong as the regular feta and it was easy to move around to equal out the fries and sauce ratio to go with each bite 😉
They were both very good dishes but it got to be a bit of the same flavour, so I’d say that’s where the previous nights platter was nice in offering variety.

The pool was calling our names, so we changed and went up to enjoy them for a while before bedtime, using swimming as a hopeful way to tire out the son 😋 As soon as I stepped into the pool holding him, he tried to lunge out of my arms towards the water 😅

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He truly enjoys himself in the water, splashing and playing but also completely relaxing when being held and allowed to simply float.

 

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They have flags hanging above the pool… can you spot the one for The Netherlands? 😉

 

Lake had begun to show a little bit of a rash that morning and I sent a photo to his Oma to diagnose as it had progressively gotten worse come evening.
Her conclusion – heat rash.
Which made sense with the temperature of the mineral pool and him having his wet swim stuff on so much. It’s very handy having a pharmacist on call to ease mom stress 😉
I’m paranoid that he will have an allergic reaction to something and I won’t know what to do 😅😬

 

He wasn’t overly content in his bed so he eventually ended up in ours for the night.

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I was wrong to expect the king size bed would offer us space from his tossing and turning though 🤪

Well, reading this now, I see my life and what it was reduced to during this getaway – mineral soaks, naps and eating at the same restaurant more than once… how old did I turn anyways ?!?! 😂

 

Decrepit – 
 
de·crep·it
/dəˈkrepət/
 
adjective  (of a person) elderly and infirm.
feeble,  infirm, weakly, wasted, doddering, out of shape, in bad shape, aged, ancient, 
long in the tooth, senile, past it, over the hill, no spring chicken
 
worn out or ruined because of age or neglect.
“centuries-old buildings, now decrepit and black with soot”
 

Feasts For All Senses

April 19th –

Our Simonstown part of the trip came to an end and we checked out of our Azure Retreat Airbnb house.
We had a splendid sky to bid us adieu and it had been a very enjoyable place to stay.

Having no complaints besides sheddy towels 🤪👌🏻

We ate the rest of our milk tart for breakfast that morning, so as we headed towards our next destination of Strand, we stopped at Kalky’s so Mike could try the fish and chips he wanted and I actually ate my leftover meal from the night before 😏

Both were satisfying 😉

It was around an hour drive to get to our friends place, where once there, we sat with cool drinks in hand, catching up on the last two years highlights 🤪

The men went out to buy some braai (BBQ) meat for dinner and from that time on it was a leisurely coming together of prepared items to enjoy for supper ☺️

One item on the menu was specifically South African and necessary to try… and that was mutton liver 🤪 Continue reading “Feasts For All Senses”

Tumultuous Times, Oblivious Observers

Monday Nov 20th –

It was departure day for the parents and relocation day for the rest of us.

So we packed up and shipped out that morning, taking time to stop at a few places along the drive to Kona side.

Coconut Island was walked to, pretty much just to say that we had been to someplace called ‘Coconut Island’ :p

It’s a very small little outcropping of land that people mainly go to for relaxation I think.

We drove on, stopping to take a little-big walk, that lead to the Akaka waterfall.
Little because it wasn’t far distance wise but big as in it had many stairs and we took the harder way up, accidentally 😜

We glanced through a neat little place called ‘glass from the past’. Continue reading “Tumultuous Times, Oblivious Observers”

Lifting The Foggy Curtains From My Brain

Wednesday April 5th –


The start, of the last bit of packing.

I woke with a pounding head and so did Mike.

I don’t know if our heads were anticipating the task ahead or what… but the coffee Inge bought specially for us, helped immensely, if only momentarily 😉👌🏻

And so began the clothes folding and sorting, bag emptying and repacking, item organising and piling everything into stacks according to estimated values, depending when we’d be needing them.

Cactus plants were on the ‘needed’ list so they were carefully transferred into a plastic container, some wrapping paper placed gently around to add support 😋🌵💕

Around noon we went over to Oma and Opa’s with Inge, partly so Mike could help move something and also so we could say goodbye.
For lunch, Inge had made and brought over a broccoli tart, especially for me and I enjoyed it greatly 😉👌🏻

Our goodbyes to the grandparents were said and after a quick stop in Doesburg to buy some last items to take with us, it was back to the house to finish packing.

We were nearly done by suppertime.
I having sorted and Mike having maneuvered it all to fit.
Planning for the next day’s travel, writing down roughly what we were still leaving behind for visits/pick up later on and finally, calling it quits for the night… leaving a small spot in the suitcase free for the little bit that would need packing come morning.

Tomato soup and bread was waiting for us to eat for supper and after enjoying that we relocated to the couch for one last evening.





Thursday April 6th –

Unable to sleep due to thinking of what was or wasn’t packed, trying to know if anything was missed or forgotten and knowing the hours of travel that awaited, I was up by 5:00 am and we planned to leave by 7:00. Continue reading “Lifting The Foggy Curtains From My Brain”

The Never Ending Day

Thursday March 30th –

4:30 am… what a time to be up on vacation😳
Or any day of life really.

We got ready and drowsily headed out to the tea and coffee area.

We were the first ones there and we clumsily poured some coffee and munched on a peanut butter cookie or two while waiting for the others to crawl out.

Our guide joined us to say good morning and that he was ready when we were, so we quickly finished up our drinks and loaded into the jeep.
He’d warned us to dress warmly because mornings were usually pretty brisk but it wasn’t too bad at all with the blankets around our shoulders and we forgot about the cold once a lion was glimpsed on the road and then another further on and once the sun was up 😏👌🏻

Photo creds to our guide👌🏻

www.chrisbatessafaris.com

The second (pictured above) was a bit of a younger male and he cared less about us being by him, calmly walking down the road.

He walked long enough that we decided to move on and try seeing other things.
Like a leopard that had been reported!

On our way to see the leopard, four hippos were seen bathing in a dam.

A baby tried to get up on its mother back and the group actually swam closer to us, grunting in slight annoyance.

We then drove as quickly as possible to reach the area the leopard was, all in anticipation of seeing one of the harder to spot, ‘big five’.
With roughly 1 to see in every 9,000 hectors, you may better understand our excitement 😉
We got to the red rocks where the leopard had been seen sunbathing and after squinting greatly and having some direction of where to look, it was seen. Continue reading “The Never Ending Day”

Journeying To And Through Johannesburg

Monday March 27th –


The view from the surf lodge was taken in one last time that morning before we drove off, looking for breakfast in the town of Jeffrey’s Bay.

During the drive there, my first flamingos were spotted 😁

They’re actually super weird… which I pretty much knew, but seeing their spindly long legs work in real life brought it more into perspective😋

‘InFood – Coffee Society’ was where we sat down for a drink and bite to eat and though it was one of the cooler ‘looking’ dishes and drink serving, it was probably the one of the least tasty 😬

It was a nice sunny spot though and we enjoyed the weather from our table beside the window.
I was also able to get a blog posted so it worked out well.

The town was home to one of the biggest surfing competitions in South Africa, hosted by Billabong.
Thus, there was a large Billabong factory outlet that we took our time looking through.

Then our drive to port Elizabeth began. Continue reading “Journeying To And Through Johannesburg”

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