8:52 p.m. - 13 March, 2007
And so we're back....
But not from out of space, just South Africa where we had an absolute ball. I must say that I was incredibly apprehensive about 11 hours worth of flight with 2 children (no such feelings when we actually booked the holiday - anything was possible then!!!). All in all my fears were completely unfounded as my babies were so utterly fantastic both on the flight going over and back. On the flight over Zach woke up a couple of times for a feed and was a bit wakeful a couple of times but that was it - no wailing baby, so no people shooting daggers at us. It made me laugh as at one point I got up to walk Zach around to try and get him back to sleep and there were about 3 other parents doing exactly the same thing with their kids. Nicole was also an absolute star but my poor baby was ill. At the airport Nic had started to be really lethargic and was running a real temperature. I'd cunningly packed the calpol in one of the suitcases so my ma in law made an emergency Boots run and we gave Nic some as we queued up in the longest passport control queue I've EVER encountered! She perked up after that so I thought that danger had been averted, only for her to run a high temp again on the plane around the time she'd eaten, so again I got the calpol out - well, no sooner was it down than it came back up again - allllll over her clothes, all of which had to come off otherwise she would've been a very whiffy little thing. I hadn't thought to put a change of clothes for her in our hand luggage - only for Zach so the only thing there was for her to wear was a size medium pyjama top from the first class section which totally swamped her, so Nic emerged at Cape Town airport looking like a little refugee...

We were met by my sister and brother in law at the airport and promptly whisked off to Gordon's Bay where we were staying for the first few days in a house built into the hills with this view...

Some friends of Kate and Paul's were going to be away for the w/e so let us stay at their place - quite a nice introduction to S. Africa we thought. The first thing I needed to do when we got there was breast feed Zach and thought 'this is the life' as I did so on a balcony with the lovely view above surrounded by gorgeous blue skies, enjoying the feeling of the 30 degree heat. The weather was beautiful and there was a beach within spitting distance from the house which unfortunately we never got to enjoy as poor little Nicster was ill for the first few days of the holiday - running a really high temperature, very, very sleepy, listless, not eating and wanting to drink water almost constantly. I really didn't know what else to do other than keep giving her calpol and water and trying to bring her temp down (hot - no pun intended - tips for which I got from two of my BC buddies - I love those girls!). Whatever we were doing it worked taking Nic back to her old self and you could tell that she was getting better when she had a go on the trampoline in the back garden

We eventually even wandered on to a beach on the Monday we went back with K&P to stay at their place, although Nic was still feeling a bit fragile so the most she could do was wander to the edge of the sea...

We could tell she was fully recovered though when she did this...

I love that photo - my little powerhouse in motion. This is how Zachy enjoyed his time on the beach...

K&P live in Somerset West, about 40 minutes out of Cape Town. The place is surrounded by the Helderberg mountain range but also has beaches about 5 minutes away - could anything be more perfect??? We went to the beach a few times but the sea was too cold for my Mediterranean taste and also there was a red tide - where algae accumulate rapidly in a water column discolouring the sea and there is so much algae it cuts off the oxygen supply to the water beneath it causing all sorts of sea creatures such as jelly fish and crayfish to die, which are then washed up on shore - leaving the beach not particularly pleasant. We spent a day in Cape Town which was really lovely - would be nice to see more of it next time to get a real feel for the place and visited four wineries - Zorgvliet, Spier, Vergelegen and Waterford. All were utterly stunning as you can see below...

There are LOADS of wineries and a lot are located in Stellanbosh, about 20 minutes from K&P's place and we merely scratched a tiny bit of the surface. They're all set in stunning grounds, provide wine tastings of the most delicious wines and some even do gorgeous food (more on that later). We've decided that a perfect holiday and our next visit to SA will comprise beach in the morning followed by a different winery each day in the afternoon.

When we weren't going to wineries we made it to Table Mountain via cable car...

where we had this view...

And to Cape Point - where the Cape of Good Hope (most south-westerly point on the African continent) is where we had this view...

One of the most novel things we did on holiday was to go and eat in a treetop house - the Spier winery has a whole resataurant complex (that latter word makes it sound awful and it really wasn't) hseating 2,000 people that has some of the tables built onto trees - not sure this picture really shows it very clearly...

There's an "eat as much as you can before your belly explodes" buffet served of the most varied and delicious food you could hope to get and you can get lovely wine to go with the meal. If you're unsure about which wine - you can always do a bit of a mini wine tasting of a variety of them before you hit on the one you like. The whole meal for the four of us cost us around �70 which to us didn't seem like a lot but I know that to Paul and I think probably Kate now must feel like a real extravagance. We were really happy to be there with sharing a really wonderful night with them as they'd never been to the restaurant, which included a spot of face painting....

....African drummers banging out some top chunes (I might sound like a bit of an ass but I love the drums), two African singers performing at our treetop table and a trio of singers who sang a lovely lullaby for us as Zach was asleep. A major thing that struck me about SA was people's kindness - a couple of times when we ate out I would try to be jiggling Zach around on my knee while trying to eat when a waitress just came up and offered to take jimmy me lad off my hands so that I could eat in piece. They weren't doing it for the tip (for the cynical amongst you) but just because that's what people do. Also, a friend of Kate's who we didn't get to meet on the trip, who heard that one of Kate's brothers was in town spent one of her evenings cooking as an authentic South African meal just because she wanted us to experience it.

In terms of our kiddliewinks, on the whole they did rather well considering the flight, illness and the heat. In the whole 2 weeks - we had one nightmare day with Nic where she was a horror and where, in retrospect, we didn't really appreciate that because of the heat and lingering illness, she might need a couple of sleeps a day. As for Zach, I think the holiday made me appreciate how much babies need routines and how very fractious and vocally unhappy they can be when theirs gets upset in order to allow the parents to go out on trips to wineries. Talking of the little fella, here is my lovely, most utterly gorgeous wee man...

All in all, a really rather successful holiday to a gorgeous place that we fully intend on going back to.

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