08.19.08
Long live the king
You’ll all be glad to know that the king isn’t dead, he just got a life.
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04.23.08
In tandem
Bruce and Carrie bought themselves a tandem bike a while ago and have been training furiously since getting married in November last year. Well, I say, ‘furiously’, perhaps not by king Armstrong’s standards but anyone who does 40 - 60 kms at 6 O’clock in the morning is training furiously as far as I am concerned.
I took my GPS watch back to SA for our holiday, and we managed to record 2 rides. Bruce and Carrie took the bike out Monday morning and did 25 miles (40km), and then Bruce and I completed a more modest 20km on the Wednesday. Even at 8 O’clock in the morning the temperature was pushing late seventies in Fahrenheit (25 Celsius), and I was pushing some bead doing 20-odd km’s in 51 minutes.
A mountain bike tandem is not the most stable piece of apparatus doing 80km/hr down Umhlanga Rocks Drive carrying 200kg! I struggled through physics first year, but no doubt there is a clever engineer out there (Emslie?) who could calculate our momentum, and how far we would have flown if stopped in our tracks??
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04.19.08
Fridge and Claudette
Congratulations to Fridge and Claudette, who got married on Saturday the 29th March 2008 down the south coast of Natal. Fridge has sent a link with Photo’s from Jono Nienaber - check them out here.
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The long road home
It has been nearly 2 months since I wrote on this blog, and I hope that the chateautoby faithful have not deserted me. Time has been precious recently. But we are back, Mr and Mrs Laister, and I will hopefully have more time moving forward. The company is thriving, we are finally settling into our house and now happily married.
I will document our journey from the end of February, through preparations for the wedding, The wedding itself in the Natal Midlands, the honeymoon in the Maldives and Dubai, and playing catch-up since arriving back. There will be some bad press for various furniture delivery companies as well!!
In the meantime, Roger has sent some photo’s so I have supplemented the Budapest collection.
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02.23.08
The 2008 story thus far
Steve has quite rightly pointed out that squatters might move in anytime soon….. needless to say therefore, that time has been a scarce property over the last couple of months. Work is back in 6th gear after, well, NO break over Christmas. There has been a lot of rain around in January which continues to raise the profile of the flooding problem in the UK. The problem needs sorting out, and we’ll do our best to solve it.
‘Spare’ time has been spent on the house. It has been a great first 3 months in Ewell, and we have thoroughly enjoyed owning our own house. Furniture is slowing arriving, with the bed, 2nd bedroom furniture and the dining room furniture in place. We are STILL awaiting our sofa’s and we continue to make use of the £8 ASDA camping chairs. Luckily we don’t have any time to watch the telly so it hasn’t made that much of a difference. The couches better arrive we before we fly to SA……. carpets are also in, and the main bedroom has been painted from head to toe so the two bedrooms are now complete. Wooden floors are next (hopefully also before we leave) with the long term project of the bathroom to follow in the summer. I am becoming a DIY machine. More by force than by choice!
Liverpool’s season continues to stutter (lose to Barnsely then beat Italian champions Inter Milan in the space of days - go figure?), and the Sharks have started the Super 14 in unconvincing style - the final score is all the matters though and a win is a win. South Africa are struggling in Bangladesh, whilst the administration of Cricket South Africa go out of their way to self implode in the identical manner to the South African Rugby Union did with the Luke Watson saga. It’s incredible how genuinely inept these administrators are. Phenomenal show of stupidity by Norman Arendse. It’s ALMOST funny.
Sarah has continued on her mission to arrange the wedding of the century, which I have no doubt it will be. The response from overseas invitees has been fantastic and we can’t wait for the big day. It is going to be awesome, for the obvious reasons, but also just to see everyone and catch up over one or two icy colds hansa’s. 3 weeks until we leave…..
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01.01.08
New Years 2007/2008
2008 was ushered in last evening in a rather low key but thoroughly enjoyable manner as Rog joined us for dinner and a few bottles of vino in Ewell. The wine was a particular highlight as the champagne start was followed by a Chianti Classico with the roast dinner and a classic claret with dessert and cheese. The New Years celebrations were accompanied by another bottle of the bubbly (which was near frozen and more ended up on the walls than in the glass).
This morning we climbed on the bikes and toured north Surrey. Surrey has some of England’s best scenery and riding routes, and it is awesome having it on our doorstep. Our ride took in local villages and areas of Chessington, Horton, Oxshott, Stoke D’Abernon, Cobham, Effingham, East Horsley (where Rog and I play cricket), The Bookhams, Fetcham, Leatherhead, Headley and the Epsom Downs. I have uploaded the route and details here. Epsom Downs (including the race course) are particularly spectacular. A fantastic way to welcome 2008.
PS I’ve also uploaded a classic Leith Hill mountain biking route here.
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Birthday presents
The one good outcome of turning 30 is you get really cool presents. I think my priorities may be slightly warped as my presents included a crystal whisky decanter, wine glasses and classic claret…..
However, The booze theme was broken by Sarah in some style who splashed out on a stunning Canon D400 digital SLR camera. I bought a digital ‘point and shoot’ Minolta 5 years ago, but since Sarah bought her Pentax digital, the Minolta has only served as a back-up. Until I threw it in a ditch a few weeks back……. I noticed a friend with a digital SLR and my brothers passion for photography initiated my interest. Digital camera’s are great for carrying around to all functions and snapping away. But they are restricting, especially in low light. It will be some time before I master the best this Canon has to offer, but no doubt its be good fun learning as I go……..
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12.31.07
The Festive Period
Well it certainly has been a bumper festive period in 2007, despite two farewells (one temporary, one permanent). If you like pictures and not text, then simply click here. For the rest of you literate people, please continue and Read the rest of this entry »
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12.28.07
Budapest - the big 3 ‘O’
The moment that everyone dreads throughout their twenties, turning 30. Personally, I couldn’t give a monkeys cos there is so much other stuff going on at the moment that all it REALLY meant was big presents! Thanks to all those who splashed out, especially so close to Christmas, it was not necessary but thoroughly enjoyed. Even more so, thanks to those who took the bait, donned the beanies and joined us for a ripper in Budapest, Hungary.
Of all our travelling in the past five years, city breaks have contributed a fair percentage. With a gabillion trips to South Africa and the World Cup in the West Indies it has been a while since we did a 2-day jaunt on a true city break. We have always wanted to visit Budapest, and my birthday offered the perfect opportunity. So the invite went out and 6 lucky souls accepted. Needless to say it was an absolute belter, and we came back having experienced just about everything you can in 2 days - flight delays, hotel misunderstandings, beautiful city architecture, beer, gluwein, Christmas markets, lost comrades and a lot of champagne (some more expensive than others). Read the rest of this entry »
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12.27.07
Ewell
The big news of late is that Sarah and I have finally made the commitment to purchasing a house! We have been looking passively for about 6 months now, investigating areas, checking travel times, types of places we can afford, etc, whilst keeping an eye on the market. We knew that the second half of 2007 would mean buying at the top of the market and to be honest unless we found ‘the one’ we were probably aiming to buy in the New Year.
During our touring of Southwest London on the bikes, we had decided to narrow our search to Ewell and Claygate, two villages we really liked. We checked out Walton, Esher, Hersham, Molesey, Surbiton, New Maldon, Raynes Park, Epsom, etc but none had the same attraction as Ewell and Claygate. The chances of getting a small place in Claygate are as likely as Liverpool winning the Premier League this season (if I’m to be honest) so our attention turned in earnest to Ewell, a small village just north of Epsom on the A24 and the Waterloo train line.
In Sept/Oct Sarah stumbled upon this place in Ewell, Surrey and it was all over from word ‘go’. The place went on the market on the Monday, Sarah saw it on the Tuesday evening, I saw it on the Wednesday evening, we put in an offer on the Thursday and we had a deal by 3pm on Friday. As all of you who have bought houses in the UK, this is only the beginning of a traumatic adventure. Read the rest of this entry »
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