Under our own olive tree

My week in Instagram

I recently upgraded my phone and almost the first thing I did (after my husband did all the boring set-up stuff for me) was to add Instagram to my phone. Now, a week later, I am still figuring out which filters I like best, if I like the borders or not and how to compose pictures using my phone. I just love it and seem to have a compulsive need to check for new pics on my feed every few minutes. It is a wonder that I get anything done with so many online distractions!!

Here are a few photos from last week:

1. Emma received this charming night light from her French aunt who tells us that this bunny is in every cool Parisian baby room. 2. It’s been a very tough week at home with colds and flu. Daniel spent four days at home and I had to play more than one round of snakes and ladders. 3. Emma could not escape the germs, but she still manages to smile! 4. The love between the two siblings is beautiful. Daniel calls her his “baby girl”.

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Spring Festival at Garden World

Here are a few more pics from our Kirstenbosch Chelsea exhibit excursion (see here). It is currently the Spring Festival at Garden World and they have 11 designer show gardens on display. It turned out to be a great outing for our boy. Daniel had a wonderful time exploring and running around and he loved the children’s gardens (especially the miniature box gardens).

Butter in Berario

From time to time the youth group at our church has cake sales to collect money for their activities. We usually make a beeline straight to the carrot cake baked by Janie Visser. So when we heard that Janie, together with her husband Pieter, opened a new coffee shop, showcasing her baking skills, this amounted to big news.

Butter is located in the small Berario shopping centre. The shop offers freshly baked cakes, including that famous carrot cake, breakfast quiches and daily specials as lunch offerings. The shop’s décor is charming with bright red enamel buckets as light fittings, colourful bunting and a fantastic wall feature with wallpaper depicting the multi-coloured houses of Burano.

On Saturday morning the four of us, in search of a decent cup of coffee, went to Butter. It has a wonderful neighbourhood feeling to it - the customers greeted each other and chances are very good that you will have had a chat with the owners before your cappuccino is done. For us, the decision Janie took to follow her dream after being a stay-at-home mum for 16 years means that we don’t have to wait for church events to have access to her talents, and that means that life is just that little bit brighter as a result.

Butter, The Bake Shop

Berario Shopping Centre

179 Arkansas Drive

Berario

A bit of the Cape

Just 100 years ago Kirstenbosch, the beautiful National Botanical Garden on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, was a run-down derelict farm. This year the garden celebrates its centenary. That provided them with their theme of “100 blooming years” for their display at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show that took place in London earlier this year.

South Africa has been exhibiting at this prestigious event for 38 years, and this year’s entry provided them with their 33rd gold medal. That is impressive!

This year’s the display was a circular, walk-through exhibit that creates the experience of being in the heart of Kirstenbosch. On the one side it featured the Dell and Cycad Amphitheatre, and on the other side with a clever depiction of Table Mountain, the Protea Garden.

The exhibit is currently on display at Garden World, a garden centre just outside Honeydew. After I took my friend Eljanne to the Apartheid Museum, we loaded the family in the car and for something totally opposite to our morning excursion, we went to see this Kirstenbosch Garden. It literally took my breath away, especially the colourful and exquisite proteas. My photos cannot do it justice.

PS. The Chelsea garden is on display at Garden World till 21 August. It will then be recreated at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town from 31 August till 24 September. Do go and see it!!

For more info, click on the Kirstenbosch FB page or the Garden World FB page.

Nelson Mandela, the gardener

This past weekend my friend Eljanne visited us and I took her to the Apartheid Museum. I’ve been there two or three times before and as usual, was in awe of just how fantastic this museum is. It is wonderful that the history of apartheid is displayed in such a clever way, showing the brutality of apartheid and showing the policies of segregation implemented by the whites and the benefits they reaped, without making judgements and letting history speak for itself.

This time the museum also has an exhibition celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela with wall displays, films, original artefacts and hundreds of photographs. I was moved by one in particular. It is an image of Mandela, dressed neatly in prison clothes and leaning on a spade.

The story behind this picture is that John Vorster’s government allowed a number of journalists to visit Robben Island in April 1977. It was a propaganda ploy to persuade the outside world that the prison conditions were not as bad as reported by the media. On that day Mandela and his fellow prisoners were told to work in the garden instead of going to the lime quarry. What attracted me to this picture is the body language of the man behind the Jackie O sunglasses. You can detect Mandela’s composure and his stature, his bearing more that of a president-in-waiting than a prisoner.

You can visit the Apartheid Museum's website here or like their Facebook page.

When in the Breede River Valley ..... Mo & Rose

Here is the last blog about our great holiday in the Robertson area. I think I can hear you sigh in relief, because this one week holiday has already been relived for more than two weeks on the blog. Time to move on! -:)

We visited Mo & Rose at Soekershof, a stylish contemporary bistro in the Klaasvoogds area between Robertson and Ashton. An old barn on the farm was converted by a young European couple (he is German and she is Italian) into the restaurant and boutique guest rooms were built on the site. All the buildings, and the outdoor seating at the restaurant, look out onto a truly amazing succulent garden.

Maybe this place sums up our overall impression of Robertson: that it’s comfortable in its own skin, just being uniquely, stylishly and unapologetically itself without trying to impress anyone. But, of course, you do leave the valley impressed, and with plans to come back soon.

You can visit their website here or like their Facebook page.