Appelkoostyd in Montagu

Hallo Nederlanders,

Sorry to anybody else but this blog will be in my native language Dutch. Dit weekend ga ik vanaf vrijdag voor het weekend weg naar Montagu www.montagu.org.za/

Hieronder volgt een kaartje van de omgeving waar je kunt zien dat het zo'n kleine 200 kms vanaf Kaapstad is. Het idee is dat de boeren abrikozen plukken en het dorp daaromheen wat festiviteiten georganiseerd heeft. Ik weet het niet en moet het ook ervaren. We (Bert mijn Canadees/Hollandse vriend) en ik hebben een huisje gehuurd op een boerderij met warme spa baden ergens 7 kms vanaf Montagu en verder zullen we wel zien.

Hier is een leuke pagina over abrikozen in het Nederlands http://tinyurl.com/59fp2f En als je wil lezen waarom 2000kg abrikozen werden weggegeven i.p.v. uitgevoerd te worden lees je dit http://tinyurl.com/5blq62 en ze vertellen ook nog iets over waterblommetjies wat typisch van de Westelijke Kaap is.

Trouwens weten jullie wat blatjang is? volgens dit (Zuid) Afrikaanse artikel http://tinyurl.com/5ucppq moeten ze het vaak aan Hollanders uitleggen alsook wat bobotie is en vragen ze zich af waarom dit niet meer deel is van de Nederlandse cultuur is.

Het raakt al laat en morgen weer een dag, hoopvol maandag meer.

Lucas "What's in a name"

Hi just a quick update, the proud father of the baby boy let us know he is called "Lucas" and me being inquisitive had to look it up.

One of the meanings is "Man from Lucania"and apparently used in Dutch, English, French, Persian and Spanish speaking countries, (meaning the man can travel around the world.)

Bringer of light, Lucas was a physician in Rome and an early convert to Christianity. He wrote one of the four gospels describing the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Numerological Meaning. People with this name tend to be balanced, and receptive to cooperation. They are the ideal partner and seek peace. It is important for them to learn how to speak up, or they may be taken advantage of.

Well well well what's in a name, didn't know but now we know. If you want to know more about Lucania click here http://tinyurl.com/575qa6

I didn't know whether I could use a picture without permission and figured that a small one would only break the copyright laws in a small way ;-)

It's a Baby Boy

Congratulations to Jessica and Andrew Shofield with their first born baby. And of Course Welcome to "our" Boy to this world.

Marijke (my sister and grandmother) just got back home from Dunedin and tells us that he is 3.4kg and 53cm long (I don't know what but that's quite a boy - oh boy).

Silver Lining

Hi whilst it was raining this morning by later this afternoon at 16:30 it cleared up. It got quite a bit warmer and had to change from long jeans to shorts etc but it was too late for a walk. At least you can see the Devils Peak at least bit of it - can you imagine why it was called after the devil?

Origins of the name

Devil's Peak was originally known as Windberg, and supposedly gets its current name from the folk-tale about a Dutch man called Jan van Hunks, a prodigious pipe smoker who lived at the foot of the mountain circa 1700. He was forced by his wife to leave the house whenever he smoked his pipe. One day, while smoking on the slopes of the peak, he met a mysterious stranger who also smoked. They each bragged of how much they smoked and so they fell into a pipe-smoking contest. The stranger turned out to be the Devil and Van Hunks eventually won the contest, but not before the smoke that they had made had covered the mountain, forming the table cloth cloud.

In 2002 the African Christian Democratic Party attempted to have the name changed to Dove's Peak, claiming that this was the original Dutch name. In Dutch the words for devil and dove are relatively close in sound and the claim is that the name became corrupted from Duifespiek ("Dove's Peak") to Duiwelspiek ("Devil's Peak"). The English term Devil's Peak is a 19th century translation from the Dutch.

Rain falling

Hi, this morning I woke up early (well for me in any case is 07:15 on a Saturday early). Thought would be nice to have a hike up the mountain but before packing I looked out from the front "sun" stoep, does it look like hiking weather in the attached photo does it? Re-naming the front room into "Rainy" Room LOL ;-

Well must make it clear - look at the bottom photo - that is what I was looking at, the top was made during a less rainy day from top of the roof, just to illustrate that you should have seen Devils Peak (prev. Windberg) in the background.

Just to make sure let's open the curtains in the bedroom and look at the rain on the garden table, grrr no wonder all the cats are still snoring they have more common sense.

Well this gave me the opportunity to carry on with this blog and experiment a bit further, BTW (By The Way) I got now two followers Aatje and well ah myself. (PS correction Wow Welcome to Marten and Jiska also from Purmerend. I just remembered wanting to talked about the snow which was falling in Netherlands today but forgotten about and we should not complain about our weather and shit up.

My new blinds

After buying horizontal blinds for my office it was decided that the lounge could do with an improvement being additional vertical blinds as in the front. Challenge was to match them and to cover the ugly burglar gate, handles and all. You will notice that I got the measurement not spot on and they are hanging to low (on the floor). Maybe I could bend the brackets upwards otherwise it is getting the drill out and re-drilling holes and all the mess.

Happy Birthday

Dit is een Verjaardags kaart voor iedereen die ik vergeten ben om alsnog een leuk feestje te kunnen bouwen - leuk hè

A drive up north

Hi everybody - ah well - at least just myself - for starters and for now. All this is just to test this blog please log in and look again in future. A few hours later I added some readily available photos which were taken whilst taking a drive out to the West coast to see two stranded boats washed ashore in earlier storms whilst overseas.

Click on the photo to see them in large format

This vessel was taken days later by flatbed truck to CT Harbour

Spring flowers along the road

Ciau4Now
Frank