The week gone by, the weekend to come & a trip down memory lane...

This week has been mad and I'm so sorry for not updating my blog any sooner (for those who've been checking). It's the end of the month though and I've had a small mountain of work to get through. With working half days, the last week of each month is always mayhem. All I can say is, thank goodness it's Friday today...

That said, it's not going to be a much of a lazy weekend either. Jake's going home with a friend from school today, Michael. After work, I'm joining them at Michael's house to have tea with Michael's mom. Tonight, I'm going out to dinner with a friend, which we've been planning for ages. We're going to Maestro's in Milnerton (http://www.maestrosgroup.co.za/). Despite having a manager with a realtively bad reputation, it's always been one of my favourite spots. The views from the restaurant are just breathtaking. It looks out over Table Bay, across to our beautiful city at the foot of Table Mountain. While it's not the most exclusive restaurant in town, the food's always reliable and yummy. My very good friend, Wes, used to be the manager there, so I have plenty of good memories of drunken evenings spent at the bar. I am looking forward to revisiting it and spending some time there with my special friend.

Tomorrow we have no plans for during the day. Jake's got so many seedlings to plant in his garden and we're dying to get stuck into it, but the weather's just been so rubbish this week. It seems that the powers that be were just teasing us with spring last week (wasn't the weather just perfect??). I've got a wedding in 2 weeks time and I just hope that the weather clears up a bit by then or I'm going to freeze in my little red number. Added to that, I need to wear my new red shoes in and it's just too cold to even think of putting sandals on...

Where was I? Tomorrow night I have a "kitchen tea", or hen night, for one of the girls in my slightly less-then-tame book club. Sam's getting married in Mauritius next month, so not many of us can make it to the big event. I'm sure tomorrow's party's going to be quite a raucous event to make up for most of us missing the wedding. It's at a house in Camp's Bay and I'm sure there'll be plenty of half naked men serving snacks and drinks to all of us. Oh, and I'm pretty sure there'll be a stripper or two as well. They always make me blush. They're planning on going out clubbing after the festivities at the house, although I'm not sure that I'll get that far. Also, I'm driving, so definitely won't be drinking. Besides, somehow, I just feel really old when I'm in a night club with a bunch of 17 year olds. I'm almost twice their age now; almost old enough to be mother most of them! And, truth be told, I hate the thought of them calling me an old lady behind my back.

As for the rest of our weekend, I'm sure I'll be needing to recover from Saturday night's shinanigans on Sunday - when you've got a kid, no matter what you did the night before, they're always up at 7. It doesn't matter how rotten you feel, or how tired. I'm going to see Mamma Mia on Sunday with my parents and can't wait. I saw it while I was in Scotland and really loved every second. I guess it was a combination of it being my last night in Scotland and I was out with Sharon, with the fact that it was filmed on Skiathos and Skopelos, two of the islands we spent quite a bit of time on while in Greece last year. Actually, speaking of that, it was exactly a year ago that we were there. Bugger, bugger I want to go back!! Definitely going to have to start thinking about another Mediterranean holiday again soon. And now I've gone and looked at the photos from my holiday there and want to go back even more now. Sorry to bore you, but here are a few of Skiathos and Skopelos (they are scanned photos I took with a film camera, so 'scuze the quality)

Koukounaries beach, Skiathos. This beach is hugely popular - it's a really gorgeous beach and the water is just unbelievable...

The view from our yacht in Skiathos...

Skiathos again. We spent a night at Hotel San Remo...

view down ally-way at Hotel San Remo...

View looking back at Skiathos from our yacht...

Skopelos town as seen from the harbour wall early in the morning...

Inside Skopelos Town...

My dad and Jake taking in the sights...

View of Skopelos from the ruins at the top of the city... One of the many churches - the tiny town of Skopelos has more then 300 churches, cathedrals & monestaries! Our yacht was moored in the little group of 3 near the middle of the pier. That's Jake & my mom waving infront of the church...

Ahh - what a life and what an experience. Maybe I shoud start saving up to go on the sailing trip to Crete with my aunt and uncle next year. Very tempting...

Back to me. Besides the busy week and weekend ahead, I have a seriously sore throat and a head cold of note. I slept really fitfully last night, so I'm actually just exhausted. Hopefully it'll pass quickly, I don't have time to be sick!

Ending off, as usual, with photos of our week. Hope you've all had a good one and wishing you a happy weekend!

Lots of love,

Sue xxx

Jake & his new Batman duvet cover. I bought it about 4 days before he got it and it was a fabulous bargaining tool...

All ready for bed...

OK, so I think I have an almost unnatural obsession with Batman myself. But seriously, check out his muscles!! Here's Jake practicing his bike riding. The weather hasn't been all that great lately (read: damned freezing/rainy/windy), so we haven't been out riding much lately. He's coming along really well and is very steady on his bike now. We're working on getting him to push himself off the curb to get going and to use his brakes to stop. Then I'll move on to rules of the road. I really need to get myself a bike soon too, so we can get out when he's a bit more confident. Oh, and he does have a helmet that he'll also have to wear when things get a bit more serious. Bad parent... Look how excited he is... Getting confident - standing and pedalling...Catching his breath. This is the face I got when I asked for a smile... And then this... And this is what happens when you won't smile nicely for the camera. Don't worry, he wasn't hurt. Actually, he found the experience really amusing... Turning around for another go... Check out Jake's "hot" new pyjamas! He went shopping with Jacques' mom and picked these out for himself. No offence to anyone, but they're really not the prettiest pyjamas I've seen. Jake absolutely loves them though! He even insisted on wearing them to bed last night in this freezing weather. And, yes, he's still wearing his t-shirt from the day underneath. He told me he was using it as a vest. Anyway, these pyjamas are proof enough that I'll need to continue doing his clothes shopping for him until he's 94, or finds a wife to take over the job...