Today Rob and I took ourselves off to lunch. The reason being that we met eighteen years ago, on the 19 February 1998 to be precise!! Mutual friends decided that we 'deserved each other' (we are still trying to work that out...) and finally managed to get us in the same place at the same time. It has been a wonderful eighteen years with Rob, and hopefully we shall celebrate a lot more years together before we shuffle off this mortal coil.
So, off we went to Paternoster to a fabulous restaurant that is literally on the beach. Called 'Voorstrandt Restaurant' (it really does mean on the beach), it is a bright green and red corrugated iron building that serves some of the best seafood around!
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| Voorstrandt Restaurant. |
While we were there we watched at least fifteen fishing boats race to shore and our waiter told us that they were offloading crayfish! Closely watched by the fisheries men I might add. Each boat was being followed by a cloud of gulls fighting and squabbling over the debris that was being thrown over the sides as the crayfish were being cleaned ready for sale.
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| Somewhere out there are fishing boats!!!!! Our view from the restaurant. |
The sea was a calm, flat line, the beach was clean and empty with a few dogs racing up and down on the sand and it reminded us of the first time we drove into Paternoster, many years ago now. The beach stretches for a good few kilometres and the wind blew my straw sun-hat off my head, onto its brim and sent it bowling along the sand with me in hot pursuit! Right past the restaurant! Once I had retrieved it, we sauntered back with me trying not to pant, and had our first taste of their delicious meals.
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| Crayfish being offloaded. |
Anyway, today, once we had completed our meal, we drove to the beach where the boats were by now empty and lolling around on the sand, waiting patiently until they head out again tomorrow.
And the reason we are not waiting until Friday to celebrate? Well, I am a granny, and grannies babysit.
Tomorrow I am driving to Catherine and Stuart as they are going away for the weekend.
So I shall be 'babysitting' the three littlies.......William, Harry and Jemima.
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| Jemima is the tabby. William is behind.....or is it Harry? |
Their much loved and well travelled cats!
And then I shall stay on for a few days after they return to 'kuier' properly!
4 comments:
Congratulations with your 18 years together!
The Voorstrandt restaurant is owned by Hedwig van der Westhuizen. So she has the same (not so common) first name as my wife.
She says: "Paternoster is lovely and one of the things that give it character is that the community is integrated. It was never really that affected by the Group Areas Act, which tore most of South Africa apart." How this happened is one of those anomalies that pepper South African history. Originally there were three farms: Gaatjie,Kraaifontein and Vaalplaas, which all intersected at a point where the village developed. Coloured fishing folk mostly made up the communities but, because they didn't own the land or the cottage they were living in, the government wasn't able to force them to leave. And so the village stayed, and has continued to grow. Now it's developing at a phenomenal rate, which has its pros and cons. In the 1994 elections there were around 555 registered voters. The voting tied between the National Party and the ANC so they drew lots and the National Party won.
Have a lovely few days with the feline family how lucky they are to have granny babysitting !
Yes, it is growing at an amazing rate and becomes extremely full over the holiday periods. We never go there in season as it is simply unpleasant! Many of those quaint cottages are now over-priced Self Catering cottages.
I hope that they know how lucky they are.......
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