Our (Mud) Island Adventure: January 2012

Monday, 30 January 2012

Family Visit

Hello dear friends,

So with the Christmas celebrations out the way, and a slow Boxing Day to recover, Sammy and I packed our bags and headed for London to spend some time with Nat, Dom and the kids. But before that, we were spending the evening with Andy and Hen, and going with her folks to Twickenham to watch Saracens take on Harlequins in the Aviva Premiership. We arrived just after lunch at Andys home in South Wimbeldon and settled into a nice cup of coffee before going to the station to meet Hen's folks for the trip. We were a little too happy to be catching up because we suddenly realised the time and ended up running for several blocks to make the train. We support Saracens as they have a number of South African players including John Smit who joined them after the World Cup. They have only lost one game this season, and Harlequins who were hosting, were unbeaten and solid favourites to win. Approaching Twickenham was just like going to a rugby game in South Africa, complete with a stand cooking wors and selling Biltong and beers to a very long queue of ex pats and locals who wanted to try the cuisine! By the time we got up to our seats, we were pretty impressed by the stadium, we are spoilt with enormous stadiums in SA and Twickenham is of the same standard. It takes 83000 people and there were 82500 people in attendance, a world record for a regular season club game anywhere in the world. The atmosphere was brilliant, the roar only bettered by the SA vs All Black game at the huge Soccer City stadium (or whatever it is called now, the National stadium? Venue of the Football World Cup Final) To top that, Andy ran for the beers (thanks Andy) and Saracens ended up putting in a stellar performance to win the game. John Smit played his role, coming on in the second half and sorting out a very dirty Harlequins prop forward who was tame as a lamb after scrumming against the legend that is our retired Bok Captain. Naturally I was wearing my Sharks jersey, under my jacket of course! It took an age to leave the stadium and Andy and Hen and Sam and I ended up in Wimbeldon village for dinner at the pub where they met. It was a fabulous day!

The next morning we got up early and went to meet Nat and the kids. We were super excited to be seeing them, and as they had arrived early, we arranged to meet at Hamleys. We ran around the store like two headless chickens looking for them, and it was joy to find them on the second floor. It had seemed like a lifetime since we had seen them. We had a brilliant first day with them, doing some shopping, doing the Ripleys Believe it Or Not attraction in Piccadilly Circus, looking at Trafalgar Square and some of the other sights and ending up at yep, you guessed it, Yupa's for dinner! Andy was so tired he fell asleep before the main course so we ended our evening early. The next day we took the family to the National History Museum, Science Musuem and Harrods, before a fantastic dinner at Zizzi in Chiswick. The next morning the family headed off for Manchester and Sammy and I went home happy and tired after a great time with the kids, New Years eve to look forward too, and more time with the family straight after that.

New Years eve was spent with our friends Rich and Carmen, and Ryan and Phillipa at a really good little local italian resturant called Il Gato Nero (the Black Cat) just up the road from us all. A brilliant dinner followed by champagne to see the new year in at Ryan and Phillipa's home was a perfect way to end what has been an unbelievable year of adventure. We were sad to see the back of 2011, but we cant wait for all the adventures 2012 has in stall for us. We didn't last long after midnight, the excesses of a long christmas holiday were starting to take their toll on us.

A few days later Nat and Dom and the kids returned to London and we went back up to meet them and spend some time with them. We finally got to meet Gus's wife Natalie and his kids that evening, and as always spent some good time with Keith, who always opens his home to us to stay when we are in that part of London. The next morning we met up with the family near Tower Bridge for the London Dungeons experience, which the kids loved so much. It was our second time and it never loses its charm and fun, and scare factor. We also took in the War rooms and Nat and the kids did the Tower of London whilst Sam and I walked around Fenchurch street and surrounds before we said goodbye to Nat and Dom, and headed home with Andy and Bella with us for a few days. It was a brilliant few days, we so loved having the kiddies with us, and we took them to see the sights and Corfe Castle which Andy loved, as he decided in London at the Tower that he was a Knight, and spent great quality time with them. It was so hard to take them back to London to go home with their mom, but we know we are seeing them in March when we come down to South Africa for a few weeks! We can't wait to see all of you, as many as we can, but before then we have lots of work to do. But we are counting the days.... Much love as always Rich and Sammy

Sammy, Bella and Nat

Andy and with Dom and I

Trafalgar Square

Everyone has to pose with the lions!

Picadilly Circus in early evening. Awesome!

Regent Street from Picadilly Circus

Great pic of the girls!

The early morning queue at the Natural History Museum

So Excited!

The Ice Rink outside the History Museum, at dusk

Harrods by night!

Dom + Champagne = Happiness

Keith, the legend.

Um, ok......

Squirrel!!!!!!!

Dom + Too Much Champagne = Priceless!

Tower Bridge early afternoon

Is it a Ninja? No! Its a cold Sammy!

Sir Andy the Brave

Sammy telling the kids the story of Corfe Castle

Thats it guys. No more to see.

Birthday and Christmas Follies

Hello Dear Friends,

As the dust settles on a fantastic December season, we wanted to share some of our adventures with you as usual. Its been a whirlwind of parties, family visits, dinners and celebrations. We have of course missed all our friends back in South Africa, but we promise we did the best job we could to make up for not being at home. It has taken some time to write the blog as we have both been very busy and focussed this January.

Christmas is a special time in any country and its no different here on Mud Island. I won't get into the debate about how commercialism has overtaken the religous aspects of christmas, because here political correctness has modified christmas to within an inch of its existence. And yet it is a very special time, celebrated in style by those who observe the day. From late November, people were already decorating their homes, store fronts had turned Christmasy, and all the usual Christmas themed adverts started appearing on tv. However, there are some things the Brits do better than anyone else we have experienced. When I say decorated their homes, I mean not only do people put up Christmas trees, but they also decorate their homes in hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of coloured string lights. Ok not every home has them up, but there are so many people who do it, you can be in no doubt about the season! Some homes just have strands of light, some have Father Christmases, snowmen, fairys, nativity scenes, reindeer and all sorts of shapes and stars adorning their homes. We think its fabulous! The other thing they do well is Christmas music. I am sure the DJ's all have a collection of the Christmas classics hidden in their attics, and sometime in November, after a few whiskeys and a mince pie or two, they all climb up into their attics and dust off the old LPs and take them to work. In addition to a dedicated music channel for christmas music, all the radio stations play all the standards, from "All I want for Christmas" to "I'll be Home for Christmas" to "White Christmas" to that old Wham! chestnut "Last Christmas". I mean repeatedly and all the time! Sammy and I always break out the Boney M album to put up the christmas tree, this year it was accompanied by Micheal Buble's christmas album, and about a million other christmas songs put on a loop by the local DJs!

So what have we been up too? Well, lets go back to my birthday weekend which we spent in London. Sammy let me decide what I wanted to do for the weekend, and naturally, I let my stomach do the decision making. And so it was that we went and stayed with my Cousin Andy and his wife Hen, and enjoyed a great evening with them and our great mates Keith and Gus, at my favourite Thai resturant in all of the world, Yupa's Thai Kitchen. If ever you are in London, its an absolute must, and don't forget to let us know you are going, we have been known to make the 4 hour return journey from Bournemouth just for the food there! Oh, before we did dinner, we were in Regent street drinking in the atmosphere, and also having a few pints of beer with our brother in law, Roland, who was in town briefly before going on to Cambridge for a conference. After a some great laughs we made our way to Yupa's for the evening meal. On Sunday morning we met our mate Shaun at Harrods, and had a good browse around at all the christmas goodies. I made the mistake of passing through the perfumery on the way to the Egyptian Elevators, and did not make it to the other side without denting our credit card with some Christmas pressies for Sammy. Next up was a visit to my favourite little Italian spot in Putney called Il Mascalzone. My brother Cam had introduced the place to us a few years ago, and we have been going back ever since. We met our friends from Bournemouth Rich and Carmen (we meet a lot of people! but this was organised) and Shaun and had a fantastic afternoon with some excellent nosh. Before we left for home, we popped into Covent Gardens for a present Sammy wanted to buy, look out for some pictures below of the whole weekend.

On Christmas eve we went across to the Isle of Wight and spent Christmas eve with Conan and his family. It was awesome to be around kiddies who were so excited at the prospect of Father Christmas visiting the next day. Conan and Kerri had done dinner for us, and Conan and I entertained ourselves practicing making (and drinking) dry gin martini's that were the starter drink for Christmas Day. The kiddies were brilliant and managed to make it all the way to 7am before they were allowed to come downstairs and open the mountain of presents that awaited them. Its always special to watch kids open their presents, and this was no exception. At lunchtime, we all moved over to Mark and Jo's home for a slap up full house christmas lunch. Mark cooked a huge turkey on the Weber, and although he knew what he was doing, Conan offered random bits of advice which were smiled at and ignored throughout the process. Piles of veggies, a sublime Ham cooked by Kerri and lots of dry gin martini's were prepared. The turkey was out of this world, seriously the best turkey I have tasted, and the whole meal was brilliant. I know this because I made a pig of myself and ate enough for 4 people. And as has become tradition at Mark and Jo, the late afternoon lunch turned very festive, and we all sat down in the evening and watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Mark pouring endless glasses of red wine and champagne. We crawled home with rather large hangovers, happy and still full from the night before to spend the night at home before the second part of our amazing christmas holiday, which will follow in another blog! For those who we never got to say Merry Christmas, we are now! Much love as always Rich and Sam.