Day 355: Knysna, SA – 27/12/10

Mike and I get up early as refrigeration guy is coming to the boat and I really need to do some cleaning ready for going to Cape Town tomorrow.  I borrow a really large bag of Terry’s with all our clothes and drag them down to the boat to unpack, leaving Ann with the last few bits of our washing to get done.

The guy turns up and gets the freezer going but not the fridge – there’s a blockage and although he has a suction pump it is not strong enough to clear it.  Mike decides that the best solution is to have a working fridge so we switch the freezer down to fridge mode.

I clean out our cabin and bathroom thoroughly and make up the bed.  The rest can wait until we get to Cape Town.  I suddenly realise that it’s gone 2 pm and we haven’t eaten or drunk anything so we eat a mars bar and have a glass of water (haute cuisine, huh?).  The boat is still in need of a good hose down in the cockpit but the pressure in the water system is really high and Mike doesn’t want to risk more holes in the new hose so we leave it. 

Heine rings and we invite him and Jenny down to look at Jeannius.  Terry calls and he and Ann come down too.  We go to the oyster bar just along the dock for a couple of rounds to say goodbye.

Photo:  Ann, Mike and me

Photo:  Heine, Jenny and Terry

Photo:  All of us

Terry takes us shopping – at least with just a fridge there’s less provisioning to worry about and there will be plenty of time to sort it all out in Cape Town (the list of things to do and get done in Cape Town is steadily growing!).

We make a mad dash back to Ann’s to have our last decent showers and get ready to go out for a meal at the Dry Dock restaurant at the Waterside.  It’s at this point that Terry decides he trusts me enough to cut his hair (either that or it’s now got so long it’s annoying him enough to trust anyone) and in the failing light on the veranda I plonk him down on a chair clutching a carrier bag and give him a trim, my heart in my mouth in case I do anything horrendously wrong.  I’ve been cutting my hair for a year now and never made a disastrous mistake but this could be the time for one now.  In the event it’s fine – I think.

Photo:  Saying goodbye – Mike and Ann

Photo:  Saying goodbye – me and Terry

It’s been a lovely stay in Knysna, and a lovely stay with Ann and Terry (I don’t think Ann and I have spent so much time together since we both lived at home with mum and dad), but it has to end for the next bit to start.  We hug at the end of the dock and head back to the boat.  They’ll be down tomorrow to say goodbye again and to watch us go out through The Heads.

It’s good to sleep in our comfy bed again with our wonderful pillows, especially as Mike’s is now freshly laundered again and dried properly this time and no longer smells.

Tomorrow it’s back to the sea.

Day 354: Knysna, SA – 26/12/10

For the first time in ages I wake up at a reasonable time – just gone 8 am, and am without my regular companion, the terrible backache.  Obviously drinking a lot throughout the day must have done the trick and I am also minus a hangover.  How wonderful!

It’s a beautiful day, hot and sunny from the start, and needing to get rid of the cobwebs and have a bit of exercise, we drag Ann out of bed and head out to find a beach.  Terry has heard of one where the houses behind the beach are built castles.  It’s at Noitzie and we decide to give it a whirl. 

Noitzie is accessed behind one of the townships along a wide dirt track.  We have to go very slowly so as not to kick up a whole load of dust and eventually we end up in a very different setting – the golf and luxury housing of the private Pezula estate.  Although the township we passed through from the main road is a relatively affluent one, the difference between that and Pezula is stark to put it mildly.

Noitzie itself is a nature reserve, and at the car park we read about all the wildlife we could see on land and in the sea here, most of which I desperately hope we don’t see – sharks, jelly fish, snakes – but we end up seeing nothing.

The beach is accessed down a long slope then a very steep, irregular set of steps, but is well worth the walk as it is truly spectacular – a wide sweep of pristine sand with waves breaking all the way out to sea, coming in all directions over sand bars and the like - and it is almost deserted.  The castles built behind the beach are indeed bizarre though.

Photos:  Noitzie gives ‘sand castles’ a new meaning

I take the opportunity of rolling my trousers up and going in the sea.  Terry finds the sight of me standing in the water holding a handbag very amusing.  I find it less amusing as the bloody water is so cold I nearly wet myself with shock when the ankle deep water suddenly hits me with a knee height wave.

Photo:  Yes it’s freezing!

There’s a small river which flows down into the sea at Noitzie.  I don’t know what it flows through, or what flows into it, but the water is full of amazing colours – golds, blues and purples.  It is probably completely full of noxious chemicals or something but it looks beautiful as the sunlight shines on it.

  Photos:  Sun, fun  and strange colours at Noitzie

We go to The Heads but it’s so crowded that we can’t park near and we figure the restaurant must be really packed out too so we go back to Ann and Terry’s and have some lunch there instead.

Bev phones.  They have been trying to get hold of us but their phone calls haven’t come through even though Mike’s phone has been switched on all morning.  The mobile phone lines must be really busy.  We arrange to go up to Simola for sundowners with them.  They had managed to get to The Heads and had a lovely lunch then visited the waterfront where they assure us Jeannius is still sitting.

After the lovely invigorating walk in the morning, and once again with full stomachs, we all have an afternoon nap.  Well, all of us except Terry who doesn’t need one until just before 6 pm, giving him 10 minutes before I wake him up to get ready to go to meet the others at Simola!

We drink wine on their veranda watching the sun go down.  The sunset is glorious.

Photos:  From their veranda at Simola

Again, once the sun drops behind the hills, the temperature drops with it and Jutta and I are the first ones to head indoors, Jutta in her familiar place by the fire.

Photo:  Jutta warming her tootsies

We don’t make it a late night.  We’ve got to be at the boat early in the morning to see the refrigeration guy again and Jutta, Jochem and Eline need to make it down to breakfast at least once during their stay!

Day 353: Knysna, SA – 25/12/10

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.

Photo:  Cheers – Happy Christmas!

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!!

Photo:  Mike working on two computers – yeah, right!

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.

Photos:  Champagne and nibbles on the deck

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!

Photos:  Christmas hats galore

Photo:  Bev doing her ballerina yoga pose – hope she’s wearing knickers!

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.

Photos:  Christmas dinner 2010

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.

Photos:  Watching the sunset from the deck

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.

Photos:  Jutta and Eline find the top oven warms them up

After pudding and cheese, there’s just time to take the photograph around the Christmas tree before people start falling over.

   Photo:  With Father Christmas around the tree

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!

Day 352: Knysna, SA – 24/12/10

It’s Christmas eve and a very different one to the one we spent last year in Grenada.

Mike and I still need to get Ann’s dongle.  The shops are getting crowded and the parking areas right by the shops are filling up so we leave the car at the Waterfront (too far for most people to walk to the town centre – all 10 minutes of it) and walk up to the shops.    Amazingly, everyone else seems to have decided to buy dongles as Christmas presents and at this late stage, we can’t get one anywhere as the promised supplies have not turned up.  We end up buying her a hard disk which we will fill with films that she can watch through the TV to wile away the hours she spends on the sofa in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep.

I do the last bits of food shopping.  There are no sprouts to be found anywhere (thank goodness as I thought the last ones here were tasteless – no frost on them) but I manage to get everything else including a pair of ready readers (Victoria will kill me).  I also manage to slip another pair of flip flops into my shopping basket in Marks/Woolies while Mike isn’t looking.  Well, they are 30% off and just the colour I want!

I go to the jewellers where they clean and polish my gold and diamond bracelet.  While there, I risk pointing out a rather nice mabe pearl and mother of pearl ring and (trying my luck here) unsubtly hint what a lovely present it would make.  Unfortunately Mike thinks it looks like a hideous piece of plastic so it’s a non starter.

We speak to Bev.  She, Moe and Eline are driving to us from Cape Town -  Eline arrived early in the morning from Perth.  As they will probably arrive around the time we are picking up Jutta and Jochem from the airport at George so I tell them to stop somewhere for lunch.

I drive to George to take the rental car back and Mike follows me in Terry’s car.  We arrive at the airport on time but Jutta and Jochem’s flight arrives nearly 20 minutes early and they are standing there waiting for us.  As usual, Jutta is freezing.  It has been warmer in Cape Town and the weather this far along the cape is a bit of a shock.  Unfortunately it starts to drizzle as we drive back.  Great.  They say it always rains on Christmas day here – let’s hope they are wrong this year.

We have just got back to house when Bev, Moe and Eline arrive.  We cannot believe what comes out of the boot of the car.  Champagne, white wine, red wine, cheeses, smoked fish and turkey, chutneys, dips, nuts, olives, crisps and two huge cakes.  I’ve never known such foodie generosity. 

They all stop for a drink and a guided tour of the house.  I just wish the weather was better.  By now Jutta and Bev are so cold I lend them a cashmere shawl and fleece to warm them up while we pose for photos in the somewhat brisk wind on Ann and Terry’s veranda.

Photo:  Christmas eve drinks with Jochem, Jutta, Moe, Eline, Bev, Ann and Terry

By the time we take them all to Simola, the drizzle has turned to rain.  Being the guests, Jutta, Jochem and Eline get a lift down in a buggy and we follow in the car, having been told that it’s too far to walk.  We discover that it’s about 200 yards!

Photo:  Jochem, Jutta and Eline take a buggy ride to their apartment

The apartment they have booked, however, is fantastic and its heating system is impressive.  As the porter is desperately trying to show them around, Jutta insists on him putting all the heating on – all the under-floor heating systems and the big gas fire in the lounge.  The hotel apartment is bigger than ours in the UK and stylishly turned out right down to the very last detail.  Jutta produces Christmas decorations from her bag and proceeds to do up the lounge then some more wine comes out.

  Photos:  Just one more little drink!

Mindful that Mike has to drive back, we leave and head for home.  Jutta, Jochem and Eline have dinner in the hotel but Bev and Moe join us later for dinner at Ann’s where the relatively simple dinner of smoked chicken and salad is finished off with a slab of the delicious baked cheesecake that Bev and Moe brought with them from Cape Town.

The evening ends there for us but Bev and Moe go back to Simola where a few more bottles are cracked open.  Christmas eve is very big in Germany!

Day 351: Knysna, SA – 23/12/10

What a bummer.  For some reason I am wide wake at 4 am and try as I might, I can’t get back to sleep.  Eventually I give up and get out of bed, taking my computer with me and catch up on some blog.  I find Ann lying on the sofa, half asleep but with the television on.  She too has been having trouble sleeping.  I set myself up in Terry’s office but before long I can hear familiar voices – Eastenders!  I abandon the blog and settle myself down in front of this awful British soap that I used to watch and enjoy myself for the next hour.  I now have little idea who most of the characters are or what has been going on in the story lines but I enjoy it anyway – how sad!

Mike and I leave early to take some stuff back to the boat and do the last bits of food shopping.  When we go to pick up the lamb it’s not ready and they prepare us some on the spot.  When I see the size of the three huge deboned legs, butter-flied out, it looks like we have the whole animal waiting for us, enough to feed about 20 people, and I have to get them to go and search for a lamb who was the runt of the litter with slightly thinner and less muscled legs!.

Mike goes back to the boat and I go off to do some shopping.  I am looking for a wifi dongle for Ann as a ‘thank you for having us’ present.  She often wants to use the internet at the same time as Terry and if we buy her one she will no longer have an excuse not to do her e-mails!  I try all the shops but no one has them in stock although I am told them might be in on Friday and take my details. 

Terry’s present is easier – a mosaic candle holder that I had seen him admiring in Kloppers.  While I am there I also get my new broom and handbrush – one just like Ann’s - exciting stuff!  My excitement is short lived however as when I get back tot the boat Mike tells me that neither the fridge or freezer are working.  In the late afternoon, Mike goes to Knysna Golf Club and plays half a round of golf with Terry. 

While those two are being sporty, I go to bed in the afternoon to try to catch up on sleep and Ann sunbathes on the deck.  I cat nap for a short while but come to with a thumping headache and take some strong painkillers which fortunately ease it quite quickly as we are going out to dinner at Jenny and Heine’s in the evening.

When the boys come back it’s obvious from the big grin on his face that Mike has had a great time, beating Terry (just) and returning with a back that hurts more (from the unaccustomed twisting) than his arthritic hands.  Maybe there’s hope for him.

Not wanting to drink much with a waning headache, I am the nominated driver.  Heine prepares us a wonderful Bobotie – a mild South African curry made from minced beef, a mixture of spices and apricot jam (it sounds weird but it works) with an egg custard baked over the top (again, weird but works).  Jenny, who doesn’t like cooking, makes us a great Malva pudding.

A lovely evening

Day 350: Knysna, SA – 22/12/10

Another early start for Mike and I.  The refrigeration guy is due today and I am going to clean the boat.  We head down to the marina and see the guy just walking off but manage to catch him just in time.

He has another go at the fridge and freezer and manages to get the freezer going again by sealing up a leak, although as he has done this a couple of times already, I’m not over hopeful.  The fridge fixing is even less successful and doesn’t seem to even start getting cold even though the compressor is working.

We then start to have our diesel delivered in cans from the one of the local garages.  They make three visits with the cans in a supermarket trolley and carefully fill our tank, not spilling a drop.  They are cheerful and helpful and get a good tip for their efforts.

I get a phone call from Volente at the jewellers.  My jewellery is now ready and I trot down to have a look.  As soon as I enter the shop, Volente comes over with two of the other girls to see my reaction to the jewellery.  No pressure then!  Luckily it’s beautiful although still needs one small change (they don’t call me fussy for nothing) so I leave it with them and go and do my shopping.  I am after some cropped white cotton leggings to go with some loose tops that I have, and first I try in Woolworths, not Woolworths as we know it in the UK, but the equivalent to Marks and Spencer if ever I saw one.  In fact their whole store layout and range of goods looks so familiar that Ann and I keep referring to it as Marks.  I grab a loose top to try on with the leggings but the leggings themselves look so hideous that I end up buying the top which is lovely.

I go along to the oyster bar at the marina to see if they can do us a large portion of potato wedges with sour cream but they are so busy as it is the holiday season now that the wait is ridiculous.  I see the fisherman unloading their fresh catch of oysters from the beds in the lagoon.  You don’t get much fresher than that.  Pity I’m not over keen on oysters.

Photo:  Oyster fishermen

Mike and I have a cheap burger for lunch from the stall at the waterfront, and while I stay on the boat, planning to do some cleaning, Mike goes off to see if he can play a half round of golf.

All I get round to doing is sweeping the floors of the boat then the jewellers ring again and off I go.  This time everything is perfect and they gift wrap everything for me so that I can’t get my hands on it until Christmas day. 

Photo:  Ilze, Volente and Anita at Knysna Jewellers

Wandering around the shops I buy a beautiful ostrich egg which has a sort of filigree  design in pewter on it and a wooden stand for it, my souvenir from this part of South Africa.

My quest for the leggings continues.  Having already tried all the chain stores, I try the shops at the Waterfront.  They have some but they are not what I want and are expensive anyway – who wants to pay £40 for a tiny pair of leggings just because they’ve sewn a bit of mangy lace on the bottoms.  I then traipse all around town trying all the cheap Chinese shops who have every colour except white and nothing in cotton anyway, just nylon – yuk!  Eventually I get some for £6, which, as I’m hardly going to wear them, is just right.

Happy with my purchases, I start to walk back to the boat in the drizzle when Mike calls me.  He is back from golf already and waiting for me on the boat.  He is quite pleased with his performance.  Not having played for years and with his hands in the state that they are, he expected to play very badly.  His first and last holes were not good but everything in between was fine although he found it difficult to grip the clubs and it was quite painful.  He had expected both but worse.  He knows that back in the UK he can get special gloves with splints in to help and support his joints and will investigate this when we go home.

Once back at Ann’s, he lies in a nice hot bath as his back is aching from the unaccustomed twisting and I have a quick shower and change before we go out to dinner at Chatters, a pizza and pasta place owned by friends of Ann and Terry.  We are joined by Jenny, Heine and their son, Chris, and have a lovely evening.

Photo:  Chris, Jenny, me, Mike, Terry, Ann and Heine at Chatters

Day 349: Knysna, SA – 21/12/10

Ann, Mike and I go into town early – Mike to meet up with the refrigeration guy and Ann and I to go shopping.  We do our bits and pieces in the mall and then go to Fruit and Veg to order more meat and buy some of the vegetables and stuff for Christmas dinner.  On our way round I pop into the jewellers and see if my things are ready.  They aren’t but Volente assures me that they will be ready late today or tomorrow.

It’s a lovely day.  The sun is shining and there’s hardly a cloud in the sky.  Immediately we get back and put the shopping away, Ann goes out to sunbathe but I phone Mike who sounds really fed up as once again the refrigeration guy has failed to turn up although Roger is there in his diving gear scrubbing away at the hull to remove the green growth.  Poor Mike sounds so dejected that I put together a picnic of sandwiches and beer and go down to join him.

While I am there he makes two more phonecalls to the refrigeration guy and we are assured that he is on his way but mid afternoon we get a call saying he won’t make it until tomorrow but he will definitely come then.  By this time, not only is Mike well and truly sick of it but I am as well – our moods have fed to each other.  I lie on the bed, alternately fuming then being near to tears.  I can’t provision until the fridge and freezer are working and time in Knysna is running out.  Of course we can provision in Cape Town but we have a car here, know where all the shops are and access to the marina from the car park for loading is easy here.

Mike calls it a day and we go back to the house where he sits and tries to work out some plans for Brazil - Johanne and Steve are hoping to come out for a visit - and I sit in the late afternoon sun for a while.  Ann brings me a glass of wine to cheer me up but it doesn’t help.  The icing on today’s cake is that Mike’s extremely expensive pillow, which I put in the washing machine then the tumble drier for hours, obviously needed even more hours to dry, and even though we put it in the sun, spray it with smelly stuff and leave it to air, we get a very nasty, sickly smell from it every time we walk past it.  The smell that comes from damp washing is more disgusting than B.O. – the dammed thing will have to be done again, this time at a laundrette.  I take it down to our room before dinner but it stinks the room out so much that I have to leave it outside the door.

In the evening, just as we are cooking dinner, I realise that it is probably just warm enough to sit outside to eat for the first time since we have been here.  Ann and I hurriedly set the table but typically by the time we sit down to eat, the wind has picked up a little and it is somewhat chilly again.  Still, the sunset is pretty.

Photo:  Sunset at Knysna