Rainy Saturday

Woke up to rain. Of course, we’re all happy when it rains, wherever we are. Well, unless we’re in the US midwest or Durban, South Africa. Durban had terrible flooding this week, but here in Danabaai, I think people are quite happy with this rainy Saturday. Marita is quite stir crazy by now — she’s a very energetic woman and having to lie around sick is getting to her — so yesterday, we piled in her little Ford Figo and went off to Jakkalsvlei (Jackel’s marsh) winery near Herbertsdale. We love their wine and we like being there as well. Really lovely place, but, alas, their really good food is done on weekends and weekdays it’s mostly pizza and burgers. Though Laird and I had wine pairings, his was different kinds of prawns and I tried dry meat, thinking I would get more red wine. Nope. Whites outnumbered the reds and as y’all know, I don’t appreciate white wine. But I soldiered on and drank them. The meats were bokkom (dried fish, not quite as hard as bonito, but it did take some energetic chewing), biltong, cracklin’, bacon and something else I don’t remember. I was surprised at how well a slightly sweet white went with the quite salty bokkom, but I still don’t like it. The wine, not the fish. Laird’s shrimps were all fried — he let me have most of the one made with beetroot, which I quite liked. Have to figure out how one gets beetroot in powdered form to make a fry coating. If I find it, I’ll bring it home and we can have a shrimp fry. I also had ostrich carpacchio (spelling?) and brie with the most wonderful fresh-baked bread. I drank my pairings, then had a glass of their very tasty cab, so I was quite done in by the end. It was our turn to cook dinner so we went to get ingredients for lemon chicken with garlic and olives — our first purchase in SA was a One Pot — but poor Noekie, who had been in Port Elizabeth all week had come home very late on Thursday night and had to go to work on Fri AND work late so dinner was canceled. Perhaps Sunday. Tonight we go to our friends Carina and Stephen’s for dinner. She is my miracle worker physiotherapist who did wonders for me when I was in so much back and (unknown to me) hip pain. They have a dairy farm, but I don’t think I’ll be very interested in petting calves in the rain tonight! Otherwise I love that, and having them suck on my fingers — they’re so very, very cute! Maybe off to TekkieTown to get some shoes that I can wear socks with. It’s quite cold. Whether it’s day or night where you are, have a pleasant time!