My man asked for more “white space” which as a designer I LOVE  but it ain’t so great for mountain biking, you know what I’m saying?! The shiny white you see below will turn to a lightish shade of brown in about 2 hours in the valley. Kind of like the brown you see when your tea is a bit anaemic, neither here nor there (and not so tasty). And I’m not so sure it will look too sexaaaay with the black sleeves. I can do pink and orange together but brown and black…mmm, nah!  But hey, at least everyone who wears the shirt will get to look good in it at least once. And I really must stress here that I have nothing against light brown, it really is a beautiful earthy colour and mixes well with other earthy colours, so no offence to any light brown molecules out there! Luffs you.

So if you are wondering what the “CamelToe” reference is to then hell you need to do some reading hee hee!! You can find all the details here which I’m sure you’ll find either amusing or terribly grotesque depending on whether you’re an A or B Type personality or alternatively just grossed out by references to pieces of clothing creeping into places that they probably weren’t meant to creep into. Sjoe that was a long sentence.

FRONT

BACK

This is how it all started…………………………It was the day before my birthday and I’d climbed into my car to head for work – I laughed, this was funny!  Not being one for big parties, surprise or otherwise, I kinda hoped my 40^th would slip by with no one noticing…..

Then, throughout that morning I was sms’ed cryptic clues on the hour, something about  “sweaty palms”  and  “adrenaline” etc etc.

The big clue was to come at 2 pm…”check under your car passenger seat” the sms read. This is what I found……

I knew immediately what it meant! A chopper flight! How exciting! I was to be at Virginia Airport for an Intro chopper pilot lesson at 4pm sharp!

Excitedly I headed down there ready for my lesson…..”too windy I’m afraid” was the instructors advice. “You’ll never be able to hover…” . “we can re-schedule for next week”

So I left a little disappointed but still excited for my flight to come.

I headed back home to my wife and this is what was next at the top of the stairs…..!

The rest is Censored censored censored censored. Then it was a romantic dinner for the two of us at our favourite little local restaurant. All this and it was only the day before my birthday!

The day of my birthday had arrived. My gifts were opened one by one revealing great gifts from my wife, cats and unborn child. (wonder where the cats got the money?) After that I had planned to go for an early morning cycle – dressed up and ready, I headed down to the garage to get my bike and this is what I found!

I was to go to the country club for a lesson with the golf pro! Just what I needed, it was awesome and it’s definitely bumped my game up a notch.

My next instruction was on my car door window:-

I was to head off to Oscars (our other favourite local eatery) on my bike at 2 pm. I suspected there would be one or two guys there for a quick ride. Sure enough there was a big bunch of bikers led by Rohan, ready for a quick downhill spin into the valley of 1000 hills. Best part was it looked like the van was heading down there too and we didn’t have to ride out again! I didn’t event mind having to wear a kiddies bentley belt with a hippo head attached to the front!

As we got to the dam, another surprise, there my lovely wife had arranged a small gathering with cake and cool drinks! I just needed to supplement that with a few ice cold, ten rand quarts from the local shebeen and the sunset at Fundani’s development canoe club’s container clubhouse was complete. Cant get much better than a cold quart at sunset in the valley of 100 hills with my wife and friends.

Next morning was to be the biggest surprise of them all! My birthday was a thing of the past and I had set my alarm nice and early to go for a ride which I had pre-arranged the night before. As I got up I was handed my next clue card!

I dashed into Shewy’s room (our unborn son/daughter) and after a bit of hunting, found this!

I hurriedly packed my bags and we shot off to the airport to catch a plane to Cape Town where we picked up a rental and headed off to the Cedarberg, destination – Bushmans Kloof Lodge! Here we had a tranquil luxurious few days with great food and some great hikes!

You know you’re staying larney when you see this in your bathroom!

Big up to Lou at 6 months pregnant, hauling that big tummy up and down the rock ledges around the “Ravine hike”

The spa…..

The Picnic…..

The Cedarberg’s rugged beauty…

Did I mention how good the food was? Especially the duck…..

Monday evening we headed back to the airport for out homeward flight. My birthday celebration had been a 3 day fun affair!

I had a wonderful time full of surprises and more surprises (probably as a result of too much time spent watching the “amazing race” hey Lou?).  Thank you so much Lou, my special wife, thanks for all the effort. I love you.

I’ve got 12 weeks to go. So that’s 12 weeks to get the nursery sorted, find a cot, buy some furniture and think of some non-dorky but not-too-cool names. Piece of cake!

…and that’s exactly what I feel like right now mmm..

So everyone thinks I’m having a boy, so much so that I’m convinced I’m having a boy now too. All I can say is that if we have a girl, we’re going to get one humongous surprise and all pronoun references will have to change asap!  I cannot wait for the announcement… “it’s a ….”. So suspenseful but how exciting?!

Did I mention I was excited?

I’m so excited. Who will this little karate chopping cashew turn out to be?

I’ll let you know in 12 weeks.

Check my belly button – I have an outie!

The big 4-OH!

OH YES! I must say though that my man must be the youngest looking 4-tee year old that I’ve ever seen and most days I have to ask the rhetorical “..and how old are you hun?”. For example, if your 4-tee year old husband wanted to play soccer with a pilates ball in a busy gym – making it known by kicking the ball into the air and across the gym studio whilst other people are busy doing sit-ups and stuff – then you would say “and how old are you again?”. But it’s all okay with me, I don’t ever want to stop asking that question cos that would be the day I’d stop laughing!

Anyway…back to birthday celebrations: I planned a mini adventure for the special dude but he’s going to tell you all about it next week. The strenuous moments of the adventure however, went something like this:

and like this:

The view from the spa..

It was a tough adventure …

but someone had to do it

For the last 8 months we’ve been working on converting our Wedding Directory website into a dynamic site which means more functionality for our brides and easier management for us.

It took me about 2 months just to write the brief which was more like a thesis in the end. But I like being comprehensive, in fact I can’t help it, it’s one of my obsessive compulsive quirks when it comes to projects. So after all these months, we finally have our precious site looking all sparkly and fresh. Have a look at www.TheWeddingDirectory.co.za

Isn’t it perrrdi? It was a huge team effort but when you’ve got a good team and good developers, then it makes it so much easier, know what I’m saying, aight? Aight!

And then in the midst of all that, we’re doing alterations to the house which means running around getting quotes and painting rooms and cleaning up cat footprints which have been coated in cement. It’s really exciting seeing it all come together though.

And then…we have to make time for the soccer of course. A cup of tea at 8.30pm just wouldn’t be the same without Jabulani and a few yellow cards. Thanks goodness the Tour de France is on now as well because soccer withdrawal symptoms are bound to set in soon.

And congratulations are in order for one of the team. Kerry is pregnant too! Yes, be warned if you come and work at Limelight Websites…the pregnancy bug has taken siege and top buttons are shooting off left, right and centre. They certainly are not falling off due to the 10 varieties of sweets we have in the office.

And that’s all I can report for this week…need to get back to work now….

So, on Monday afternoon, Shirley unleashed another round of nagging on me, “are you going to the game tomorrow? Go to the fan park, go to the stadium, go to Florida road, nyagga yagga yagga” Just as she left and peace and quite returned (lots of love Shirl) I get an sms from my other mate Jess, “tickets for game tom, going fast”

“I’ll take them!” I said. First thing the next morning I went on the hunt for earplugs and earmuffs. (I planned to double up to make a vuvu-proof barrier).

We left nice and early, I packed up hungry bum (Lou) and she packed up baby Shewy (that’s our unborn baby called Cashew, shortened to Shewy). Jess, being the big larney that was in charge of building the stadium, chauffeured us to seeded VIP parking right next to the stadium. It has to be said that the stadium is a marvel of design, engineering and construction; it is truly one of the best stadiums in the world.  Sitting up in the stands looking out onto this impressive sight, Jess must have been very proud of what he and his team have achieved.

The stadium is breathtaking.

Jess at one of his site meetings.

What followed was a great new experience, the atmosphere was amazing. (So was the noise, we were very grateful for the double barrier ear protection.)

The noise was incredible, the vuvu is some thing of an anomaly, you’ve got to hate the racket it makes but you’ve also got to love the character it brings to a game.  I learnt how to blow one and I think there must be some sort of primal satisfaction in making such a noise. You can blow it till you are blue in the face without anyone looking at you funny!

I was clever enough to bring my own personal beer fetchers.

Lou said Shewy, now 22 weeks old, was kicking like mad, I’m sure he just wanted to get on the field and show those players how to really boot that Jabulani Ball!

The result didn’t matter, today I don’t even remember the score! All in all it was a great experience, thanks Jess and Co; our next mission is to visit a fan park!

By Jeremy

Instead, it will be dedicated to him….

Sniff..snifff..…tissues…

…This whole weekend, I’ve just kept thinking of his wife, Wendy. Their relationship was one that most couples would admire or perhaps wish for. They did so much together and seemed so utterly content. We  raced alongside them on the Imana Wild Ride in 2008, which wasn’t an easy race I might add! We portaged up hills that the race organiser’s called “mothers” (for obvious reasons) and whilst Jeremy and I were gasping for air carrying our bikes up these mountains, we’d look back and see Graeme, or “the pope” as he was commonly known amongst friends, carrying not only his bike but Wendy’s too!

So although he was strong, he was gentle and softly spoken and although he was competitive he was incredibly humble.

He will be missed by us all and will be remembered for his love of the outdoors.

Our thoughts go out to Wendy and his family.

The evidence…Graeme carrying two bikes, whilst Wendy follows. A true gentlemen who didn’t let his age define his experiences, or him.

And then yesterday, well it was hectic, we were one staff member short again and there were multiple distractions. We’re doing a few alterations to the house – very basic but I’m the acting project manager whilst my man is at work.  All in all I have to answer a lot of questions throughout the day – builders have the most questions, then plumbers then electricians. So building is fun but it does come with its distractions.  And poor old George, our cat, the one with multiple personality disorder and a strong tendency to be neurotic, developed full blown neurosis when the builders, electricians and plumbers descended on our little abode. Horrible! When he needs to leave the office to get food or do his business he does a 360 degree sniper scan of the area before tiptoeing to his desired destination. We then got him a “calming” collar which secretes pheromones and is supposed to relax him a little. At first he gave us death stares and was like “get this thing off me”  but then he kind of realised it wasn’t too bad and he calmed down. The neurosis is still there it’s just turned down a notch. Poor thing.

Anyway, like I was saying, we’ve been real busy at work and so I’m feeding the girls minty chewy sweets, shortbread and a whole jar full of yoghurt, ice-cream and sour pop suckers…it seems to keep them going. I think I’m going to fill the jar with either Marshmallow fish or Zoo Biscuits next – can’t decide. Or Muesli Rusks.

The Apprentice is coming on in 5 minutes and that’s my programme for the week so I’d better end this post now. Thanks for reading and coming back even though we didn’t have anything for you to read yesterday..it really sucks and I’m heartbroken about it…but I’ll get over soon…and I’m sure you will too.

Nighty night!

Nevertheless, its a lovely area to ride and is frequented my almost every mountain biker who lives in the upper highway area.

I took a camera as I knew that there was always fantastic light up there on most afternoons. During our ride, we rode through this beautiful wooded area where Lou took this winner shot of me riding. I wish I could claim to have taken it! (on self timer)

All in all it was a perfect ending to a perfect winters day in Durban.

The brief was, “the essence of the valley of 1000 hills”.  When we were training for the Cape Epic we spent many hours here, pedalling up nasty hills and down equally precarious downhills. We also stopped at a lot of shebeens, not for beer, but for ice cold 2L Cokes. The glass bottles would ceremoniously do their rounds amongst the riders, each person taking a swig before handing over to the next sugar-deprived soul.

I have such fond memories of the valley…

My man came back with so many gorgeous photos but this one really stuck out for me. We’ve ridden along this road more times than I can count up to in French (about 79) ..and that’s alot!

I’m hoping that he’ll do a “Valley Series”, capturing different parts of the areas we visited during our training here. Hint hint nudge nudge!