THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR
- 19/2/2006 <--Prev : Next-->
Heehoo and his bookkeeping cycling buddy and their respective spouses
were lucky enough to have been invited to the wedding of Nads and
Steve in the "Fairest Cape in all the World".
Now it is a known fact that the Mother of the Bride has spent the
last twenty years of her life practising for this glorious wedding
day, as it was indeed most special.
Jane was one of Bulawayo's most sought after floral artiste and
decorator for hundreds of Bulawayo society weddings and trust me -
practise has made perfect.!!
The Cape with its magnificent scenery and bounteous winelands has
become probably one of the most sought after destinations for
weddings for couples from all over the world.
A more glorious setting would indeed be hard to find and a more
glorious Bride would indeed be hard to find too.
Heehoo has now made an executive decision that when his daughters
eventually tie the knot, he had better win the Texas lottery as we
shall need three wedding venues for each of our girls !
Weddings these days are expensive for Zimbabweans as we are all in
exile so far away from our beloved land. And so we shall have to hold
one wedding reception in the Cape Winelands where our friends who
have been scattered all over the world will surely want to come and
join us.
The second wedding will have to be held in the country where She Who
Must Run and She Who Must Sing will be living currently, and the
third and final bash will be for those few who still live in Zimbabwe
and those who are brave and stoic enough to wish to join us on their
Mother Soil !!
I have been designing our garden at home in Bulawayo for the last
fifteen years in anticipation of these glorious occasions and am
determined to pitch that famous old Iversens tent on the lawn on the
exact spot that our own wedding was held so many hundreds of years
ago !!
However the good news is that neither of the girls is remotely
interested in getting married just yet, and if we do not win the
Texas lottery they will both have to elope at anyrate !!
The Cape has some exceptional restaurants and during our stay there
we managed to eat our way round a fair number of them, all the time
bumping into many ex Zimbabweans who are happily ensconced there. Don
Newton ex CAA and Le Francaise in Harare, runs the Chamonix
Restaurant in Franschoek, and the meal we had there was superb.
Another fascinating eatery which our romantic spouses took us to on
Valentines Day, was Die Strandloper in Langebaan. Be prepared for the
rustic !! The restaurant is nestled on the rolling dunes off Saldana
Bay. The knives and forks are mussel shells, fine pure white beach
sand for the floor and fishing nets draped over poles to protect you
from the sun.
Take your own wine or buy it from the Beach Bar which has old lobster
pots for tables and sawn off jam jars as wine glasses !! Don't ask
for anything fancy because in computer acronym jargon WYSIWYG which
means "What You See Is What You Get"!!
They had excellent wines though and the boys were brave enough to
start the day with a very dangerous looking cocktail called "local
A**hole" which comprised mampour and chilli !!
The ten course braai cooked by the locals right in front of you on
the sand floor kitchen, included mealie meal bread with pampelmousse
jam, smoked snoek, paella, angel fish, sardines, lamb poitjke and
the piece de resistance was fresh crayfish.
After the meal one could snooze on the beach while the seagulls
cleared away !!
