Ready for a weekend?

I certainly am!

Today I am sharing some photos I took this week of a part of our garden we affectionately call “The Secret Garden”. When we bought the ground, and were planning the building of the house, there was this natural grouping of wild Black Protea trees growing which we immediately earmarked for a perfect little secluded garden.

Over the past 6 years of living here, the garden has transformed a little season by season. This year, my husband has been planting Bromeliads and air plants in old twisted tree branches/ trunks which he has collected from all over.

I love the pretty entrance with the metal pergola and gate smothered in a crimson creeping rose and flanked by a purple potato bush which has made its home in a dead Protea tree. It looks so welcoming and through the gate you can just see the little 4-seater concrete table and benches.

This is where we like to have a sundowner over the weekend. In fact, my husband often ends up gardening here, pruning his Bonsai’s or planting a new log full of colourful Bromeliads while I chat away sipping wine. My parents inevitably join us and the kids pop in from time to time or run around on the lawn. The dogs are always around- especially if we’re also snacking on biltong!

Talking of wine, I have been wanting to make a little sign with this saying for ages. I just love it! So I thought I’d share it with you today in celebration of the weekend approaching.

To download, simply click on the sign - printable A4 size.

The pointing hand and background are both from The Graphics Fairy.

TGIF!!

Customised Wine label artwork

I have been bad with blogging of late. I can give many reasons, but few excuses LOL! Basically I’ve just been plain busy!

I recently received a subscription email from the CSI Project.

(One of many crafty places I subscribe to). Their latest challenge is to create something inspired by Ballard Designs. Now we don’t have Ballard Designs in South Africa, but if we did, I’d be there in a heartbeat!

I loved the cute wine cellar plaque here:

I just thought it was so sweet and love that it’s personalised. So I decided to create something similar for the challenge.

Here’s mine:

 

 

{sorry – not the greatest pics, but I didn’t want to use a flash and the lighting in the room was not too good}

 

And how I created it :

I had saved this cute vintage wine label from The Graphics Fairy ages ago and now got to use it! I edited it a little by taking out the original vineyard’s name.

I added “Hurly Vineyards” in uppercase Times New Roman Font to replace the winemaker’s name.

I then added a ‘rub-on’ action from Atomic Cupcake to the whole lot to age it even more.

I added part of an aged book background (please forgive me I can’t remember where I got it from).

I printed the artwork out on cardstock using the ‘borderless' printing option onto a sheet of cream-coloured A4 paper and voila (vwah-la!)!

I popped it into a dark wooden frame and it is now in it’s new home in our wine cellar/ movie room. Love it!

And I think this will make such a cute gift! ….mmmmm

(** Note to self : Christmas is just around the corner!)

Proud mom, nervous mom & excited mom....

Yes I am so proud! My little eleven year-old girl, Shannon, won the regional round of the Dros Kidz Super Stars competition! (For anyone who doesn't know- the Dros is a family restaurant chain) She did the best performance she has ever done! As I watched her, I could not believe it was the same child her started singing 3 years ago. The shyness had completely vanished and she took to the stage like a natural! Even if she doesn't get further than this round, I will still be so happy for her- her eyes literally sparkled with joy when she won!

And oh boy am I nervous & excited now too! She will compete tomorrow night (19 March) at the Dros in Midrand in the semi-finals (provincial round). They select 6-7 kids (as far as I know) to go through to the finals on 1st of April at the Silver Lakes Dros. I am beyond excited coz if she does go through, that happens to be the date of my 40th birthday! My niece says it's fate- and has already decided that Shannon will be in the finals. Well we're all rooting for her of course and praying that she is selected.

Shannon of course is really excited about the competition- especially due to the fact that the winner receives R100 000 in prizes! This includes a recording contract - she dreams everyday of recording her own CD!

So that's our exciting news at the moment!

I have almost finished my "Blue Dancers" painting - I'll glaze it next week and then also start my monochromatic paintings - I want to do two small square portraits in sepia tones of each of the kids. I'm really looking forward to that!

Last week we visited the gorgeous village of Franschhoek for 4 days. Our friends, Neal & Rika, invited us to join them from Wednesday till Saturday at the Franschhoek Country House. We stayed in one of the villa suites. What an absolute treat! It really is probably the most amazing place I have ever stayed in! It beats staying at the Palace of the Lost city by far!
Our friend, Mandy who manages a large liquor store, arranged private tours at two wine estates. What fun! We first visited Haute Cabriere, with its infamous Pierre Jourdan sparkling wine - made in the French Méthode Cap Classique. We ended up having a fabulous lunch in the restaurant there afterwards. Needless to say it was quite an inebriating day! Enough said!

The next day we visited L'Ormorins - owned by the Rupert family. Wow- what an estate! After a vineyard tour, we went on a cellar tour. They were harvesting so it was really interesting. The grapes were being moved in small crates from the vineyard (to avoid being pressed too much) into refrigerators while waiting to be hand sorted (the green stems and over-ripe berries are removed). After that, the conveyor belt moves them through a machine which lightly crushes the grapes as these particular ones had very strong skins and needed help bursting during the fermentation process. Fermentation takes place in new French oak barrels which cost around R9000 each. So the slightly crushed berries are poured straight into the barrels. They also add dry ice which helps to keep any oxygen out the barrel so the grapes cannot oxidise.

The natural yeast on the berries (grey powdery residue on skins) is the only yeast they use at L'Ormorins to ferment the berries. They believe in keeping everything as natural as possible. From not adding minerals etc to the soil and only using the minimum amount of pesticides. In fact they rely on birds to help with insects and feel that even if the birds also eat the berries, it doesn't matter as they prefer quality grapes over quantity. So interesting!

After going through the cellar, we tasted some wine - and bought some- and then ended off with a tour of the Franschhoek Motor Museum where we saw some 300 cars housed in 3 large barn-style rooms. As much as I have really not much interest in cars, I found the museum really interesting. The cars ranged from some of the first cars ever made right up to the 2002 Enzo Ferrari (I think there were only 3 made if my memory serves me correctly). The cost of each car and the entire collection is simply not up for topic there. We were told that the one particular Mercedes (forget the model now), was bought on auction for R17 million rand on auction (around $1.7 million)- and that's just ONE car!

Reece is sick at home today with a cold-so he is here nagging me, so I'd better go. Will post photos later of Franschhoek and of Shannon singing.

Wow has time flown? We are exactly one week away from Christmas! I still haven't got all my shopping done - so tomorrow is D-day!

I've had a busy week. Starting off with a wine-tasting on Monday evening- we decided on Monday as Tuesday was a public holiday here in SA. Our friend of many years, Steve, finally got to do a winetasting fro us in our cellar.

We invited 8 guests (plus my folks and us - made 12) and we were treated to a wine tasting on "affordable South African white wines for Summer". Here's list of the wines we savoured...

• Pierre Jourdan Cuvée Belle Rosé - a delightful pink bubbly in the méthode cap classique
  
• Cape Atlantic Sauvignon Blanc - a gorgeous summer wine - maybe a little to acidic, but with the right food- perfect!
  
• Blue Cove Viognier - I loved this one- really different to my usual favourite, Sauvignon Blanc


• Hartenberg Weisser Riesling - this one I really loved- filled with the aroma of oily paraffin


• Savannah Chardonnay - not being a fan of wooded Chardonnay, this one was great- unwooded with plenty of fruity flavour


• De Krans Pink Port - wow, this was delicious! Soft pink port - such a pretty bottle with a taste to match!

Well on Tuesday, we were all recovering from the wine overdose, but there's no rest for the wicked as they say- we had a huge family reunion at my cousin, Jay & his wife, Belinda. The entire Preece family got together for our first reunion.

"Plus que les choses changent

Plusqu'ils ne changent pas"

-The more things change,

the more they stay the same.

In this case, I found that my cousins had not changed all that much, except that they all had children who had grown up really quickly & some of them I had not seen in years- the last time I saw them they were toddlers! Totally unrecognisable, of course.

One thing that was amazing was Reece's resemblance to Raymond, my cousin Wayne's son. My word even their mannerisms are similar! We always thought Reece & Wesley (Jay's eldest son) looked alike, but now there are 3 boys in the family who look alike- must be a Preece thing!

We also were so happy to have Elaine Reed out from Rhode Island in the US. Her father was my dad's cousin. She has just spent about a month in Aus & New Zealand, and stopped over here for 3 days and then flew out this evening for England before returning home for Christmas on Sunday. I think if it hadn't been for Elaine's visit, we would never have got together for the reunion, so thanks to Elaine, we were all able to catch up & thoroughly enjoyed the day together.

I have to get going now as I have to be up early tomorrow to get everything ready for our trip to Madikwe Game reserve on Saturday where we'll be spending to nights.

The deck outside the chalets...I think I'll just spend the time reading and relaxing from the early morning game drive to the evening one! Absolute bliss....

I'll be updating the blog asap with an account of all we get up to at Etali Safari Lodge in Madikwe as well as tons of photos!