The Petting Zoo!

On the weekend my aunt told me about a sweet petting zoo set up at the Waterfront for the school holidays. Of course when the girls heard they were desperate to go!
I had to make a trip into Town today, so we took advantage of that and hopped over to see what it was all about.
It is set up by Zoo to You in the Craft Market warehouse next to the Aquarium and costs R20 entry pp.
R20 well spent for us as my girls just LOVED it, they could have stayed all day.
At first Niave was, shall we say a "little" hesitant! 
After begging to go the whole week, she stood stuck to the floor on the wrong side of the hay bales as if there were tigers inside!! 
Eventually I picked her up kicking and screaming (not so easy to do anymore!) and hauled her in because I knew she would be fine once she got inside, and she was, apparently it was the (tiny, ankle height, adorable) piglets that were the problem!! Niave - always a "surprise" at every corner!!!
Anyway, once that hurdle was over and the discovery of the tiniest ginger kitten she was made she was one happy little camper, she sat on 1 spot and cuddled it too her hearts content and the kitten was not complaining, too gorgeous for words!!

Abigail loved all of it! She is so my sisters child!!! (Hi Bev!!), she had baby pot-bellied piggies sleeping on her lap and sheep eating out of her hand and bunnies and ducklings and rats and chicks...you name it, she loves it!

But best of all was little "Ginger's" brother or sister, the fluffiest, cuddliest grey kitten, only too happy to fall asleep in her lap!

These kittens made our kittens look like fat giants!

My favourite was the Merino lamb, such a cutie, she still had her umbilical hanging from underneath, only 2 weeks old apparently - aaaah, too precious! 

Here are some of the other cuties, from top left round to bottom left: my little lamb again (if you look closely you can see the cord hanging underneath - and I know from personal experience that you leave it to fall off by itself!!); another kind of lamb (I forget the name but they usually have black heads and only 1 in however many have brown); 1 of the 3 adult ducks (there were also ducklings but they were difficult to hold as apparently they have no sense of height and will just jump like lemmings off of anywhere!); 'Wingspan' the goat is below Duckie - the most gorgeous goat with really long ears - (hence the name!); the other sheep with the black head, 1 of the many bunnies, and the (scary!) pig.

There were also guinea pigs but somehow I didn't get a picture of any!!

If you live in Cape Town or visiting for the school holidays, it's an affordable outing that is worth a stop.

A Birthday.

I love having my birthday in June, slap, bang in the middle of the year, I know it's winter where I live, but actually I've recently decided that I like winter the best! Summer in Cape Town is great but that wind, and that heat, it's so much easier to warm up than it is to cool down!
Anyway, this year my friend, Mandy and I made a pact: with our birthday's 8 days apart we would meet at The Mount Nelson Hotel for High Tea on the Saturday between her birthday and mine. 
And we stuck to it like glue, come rain, hail or tornado, you would've found us sipping our tea at The Old Nellie!!


The Saturday in question turned out to be the most wonderfully warm and beautiful day, we sat on the terrace and enjoyed the jokes of our waiter as he introduced us to the Tea Ceremony - quite a precise affair!!

Note the egg timer - each different kind of tea has to draw for a stipulated amount of time, we'd get chatting only to have our funny waiter come back and ask us how long our tea had been drawing...oops! But it was good anyway, I tasted/tested 3 different kinds, not thinking I'd really taste a difference but they have their own flavours for sure, the "House" tea has a "secret" ingredient...we were asked to guess and you can very definitely taste and smell the rose petals from the Mount Nelson rose garden!


We chatted, and laughed, and chatted some more and enjoyed the delicious cakes and eats on offer.

It was a wonderful afternoon to catch up and have uninterrupted conversations - something mom's don't get very often...

Mmmmmm!

June.

Earlier this month Grant took part in another dancing competition, the girls had never watched him compete before and we joined him 1 Saturday afternoon in Khayalitsha to watch him in action! It's always a very long affair so we didn't stay for the whole thing, just long enough to see Daddy and some of the other Chaeli dancers:

And as usual my batteries went flat mid-way through the event!!

Niave entered the Chaeli Campaign Art and Poetry competition again with this painting:

She didn't win anything this year!

We took part in a fun run/walk organised by the SACS Old Boys Union which took place on the most beautiful Sunday morning, we did the 2km walk version around the school grounds while the fitter people enjoyed and 8km run up into Newlands forest.

June brought with it rain - of the torrential kind! After 1 day of 8 hours solid driving rain we donned our boots and hats and went to explore the puddles in the park which could have been mistaken for a lake!!

What I love about winter n Cape Town is that while we have days like today when it is stormy and cold, we also have wonderful sunshiny days which are warm and windless, these pictures taken at Kirstenbosch were taken on one such Sunday, it would be perfect if the days were a little bit longer!!

June also brought Chicken pox for Niave, but she weathered it very well with nothing more than a few spots and no other symptoms to speak of.

As June draws to a close we are getting ready to go on our first family holiday/trip in more than 4 years!! 

Very excited we are!!

May.

It's been another busy term and hence 2 months since the last post, this term saw Abigail write her first exams and with all the other usual busyness it was all quite hectic! But now we find ourselves in the first week of the winter holidays and life can slow down a little - hooray!


So a little bit of May catch-up: Niaves school had their annual May Fair which is always a hit with the girls, they just love it - my wallet doesn't like it quite as much but it's always a fun day. 

Terms 2 and 3 are netball terms for Abs, they played a number of matches and lost them all! Here are some pics of the U11B team in action:

The month of May also saw Abs join Grant on a 10km cycle:

She came back with all her skin intact!!

Abigail also took part in a choir festival with 2 other small girls schools, Oakhurst and Micklefield at Oakhurst.

So that's pretty much it for May!