What a weekend!

We left Cape Town early Thursday morning. I was a bit worried as this would be the furthest Spud has travelled in the car with us and he has been known as a very active little boy! But four hours sitting still would be a challenge for any boy. Things went much better that expected and we arrived in Albertinia around 2:30 in the afternoon. We were lucky not having too much traffic on the road. This is not something that the guys arriving the next day, Friday evening, could say. They were not impressed - the roads were clocked with long weekenders then! Thank goodness we could leave a day early.

This was the view from the balcony, that first evening. It was beautiful and we were lucky to have some wonderful full moon nights. You just feel so much nearer to nature without the city lights and noises. :) And that extra day that we were alone was very precious to me - we had lots of fun just being together.
This is a photo of part of the farm house. We made good use of this balcony - that was our meeting and "being together"-place. And off course a weekend away would be nothing without lots of bbq's (braais in SA lingo!). The men would have bbq'ed for breakfast if they could!

Spud had such fun running up and down the river! He was exhausted every night. :) He imagined being the boss around the farm even growling at big, big farm dogs - I had to rescue the big dogs lots of times by just taking him in my arms and cuddling the stress away. :)

He loves water and had great fun swimming and playing in the river. It was very hot (about 29 degrees Celsius) and it is winter here in Cape Town at the moment. It was a relieve to have the river nearby. When we got home last night we drove right into the rain again.

The farm is a three part operation - one part being an aloe farm.

Another aloe photo. We drove up in the mountains where they "bleed" the aloe leaves and got a bit of a farming lesson - very interesting. The sap of the plants are cooked until it crystallizes before it is shipped to the rest of the world. It tastes terrible!! Luckily it is not for eating . . .
Another Spuddie photo. :) I have too many photos of him already . . . but we could not resist.

I took along some stitching pieces but in the end only worked a few stitches on the Boots Fairy. Here is a "before" and "after" picture.

Before:

After this weekend:

And now it is back to work tomorrow . . . oh no!