Ann wakes up really early and starts to prepare the vegetables then brings us a cup of tea in bed. It’s slightly overcast outside but at least it’s not raining.
There are lots of phone calls to be made but everyone and his dog seem to be doing it using Skype and when we try, it keeps cutting out so we have to resort to using my mobile phone – that bill will be a nice present.
I wait as long as I can but my jewellery gets whipped out from under the tree and liberated from it’s wrapping pretty early on and I proudly walk around with my pearls and their lovely new setting, waggling my head from side to side so that I can feel them swing. They do look lovely.
I make our traditional breakfast; Bucks fizz and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. The salmon is excellent (good old Woolies/Marks) and the weather is mild enough to sit outside and eat – what a welcome change.
By late morning all the food is prepared and sitting on the side in the kitchen. As nothing will take longer than an hour to actually cook, we can wait for our guests to arrive before popping anything in the oven.
Mike sets Ann’s new present up, copying all our films onto it for her. While it can quite happily do the copying by itself once you have set it up, Mike feels the need to supervise the operation and make sure that nothing goes wrong! You can judge from the picture how much supervision is required!!
They all arrive around 2.30 pm, adorned with Christmas decorations and cuddly monkeys and we open the wonderful champagne that Jutta and Jochem have brought from the vineyards at Stellenbosh and Constanziana. Wearing a Christmas hat, we have our very own Father Christmas thanks to Jochem.
It’s still windy on the veranda so we take our glasses around the back to the deck where it is in the sun and is sheltered from the wind. Ann puts blankets down and we sit and chatter.
Trish, Ann’s next door neighbour, arrives with a beautiful table decoration. Her two dogs can hear her voice but can’t get to her through the fence so on and off they cry like a couple of babies.
The buffet breakfasts at Simola are meant to be wonderful and I would imagine that for Christmas they go all out for it. (We had tried to book in but there were no places left.) Unfortunately, they all missed breakfast because they woke up too late so Ann and I bring out all the delicious prawns, some dips and olives to keep them going. I don’t want to put too much out though in case people get too full for their dinner.
Ann brings out a load of newspaper and tells everyone to make a Christmas hat to wear at dinner. We can use anything from the garden to adorn them but she has no sellotape, just a very uncooperative stapler to hold everything together. I cheat. I steal some baubles off the tree and hold them on with some sticky labels – I know where Terry keeps his little supply!
Everything goes in the oven and just over an our later, with Christmas music going through the house we eat dinner. Naturally, being in South Africa, there’s a power cut during dinner but it only lasts for about half an hour.
Everyone is stuffed after dinner so we leave pudding for a while and go back out to the deck for more drinks and to watch the sun go down although some take the opportunity of having a little nap.
Immediately the sun starts to go down the temperature plummets and some reach for blankets. Eventually it is just too cold and a hot dish is required so the Malva pudding goes into the oven. While it cooks, Jutta and Eline use the oven to warm up.
After pudding and cheese, there’s just time to take the photograph around the Christmas tree before people start falling over.
It’s been a lovely day and to top it all, as they leave I discover two bags of goodies under the tree from Chessie, one for Ann and Terry and one for Mike and I. What little treasures they are.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
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