Sitting on the stoep of Rose Cottage at Glenconner in the Jonkershoek Valley of Stellenbosch. All is very, very pretty. The vines are all a-trellised. The properties are grand and the Eerste River looks just swell. The horses have done their contractually specified 1/4 mile gallop, spring and back roll in the paddock before going back to just looking like pretty, underemployed and inedible livestock. The river's murkiness and odd supermarket bag gambolling over the big round pebbles add a lively worldliness to flowing waters only minutes from their source up in the mountains. Sort of like a 10 year old girl sporting nail varnish on her toenails. But then any lacquered toenail is just plain ugly, I have just taken off Noontide Bruleé from mine forever and ever.
As Talk Talk said in the 1980's: The Party's Over and in less than 24 hours we will be back home and back to work. Not that that is a bad thing. Anyway what's more work anyway: wading from a carpark into the supermarket to stock up on milk and Handy Andy and black peppercorns or speaking to nice people on the phone and via email?
And there's the home coming walk around the garden to check out the tomato and onion crop and see if the Sausage Tree still hasn't succumbed to the sour earth syndrome that lurks in the southern corner of our garden.
What's been good? What's been un-good? What has made these 5 or 6 days at Glenconner's Rose Cottage in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch blow away all the other holiday experiences of the last 41 years of my life. Even better than when my mother organised a week for us at the Beacon Island Hotel in Plettenberg Bay in about 1981; a package put together by Fair Lady magazine. Me and my sister still can't get over the blue sarong and t-shirt with whale motif we each found in our ultra luxurious hotel room.
The Holiday Rentals Cape Town list of good stuff here in Stellenbosch:
As Talk Talk said in the 1980's: The Party's Over and in less than 24 hours we will be back home and back to work. Not that that is a bad thing. Anyway what's more work anyway: wading from a carpark into the supermarket to stock up on milk and Handy Andy and black peppercorns or speaking to nice people on the phone and via email?
And there's the home coming walk around the garden to check out the tomato and onion crop and see if the Sausage Tree still hasn't succumbed to the sour earth syndrome that lurks in the southern corner of our garden.
What's been good? What's been un-good? What has made these 5 or 6 days at Glenconner's Rose Cottage in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch blow away all the other holiday experiences of the last 41 years of my life. Even better than when my mother organised a week for us at the Beacon Island Hotel in Plettenberg Bay in about 1981; a package put together by Fair Lady magazine. Me and my sister still can't get over the blue sarong and t-shirt with whale motif we each found in our ultra luxurious hotel room.
The Holiday Rentals Cape Town list of good stuff here in Stellenbosch:
1) De Oewer restaurant on the banks of the Eerste River. I thought Eerste River was an industrial area next to N1 City until a few days ago. This restaurant is coupled with another Die Volkskombuis and had good food and a perfect evening outdoor setting with skilled service and burning braziers everywhere. Burn yours sometime.
2) DSTV @ Rose Cottage - Blackadder and MNET films and watching even better SABC and eTV films via a decoder. There is so much TV out there. A whole weekend of 80's music on VH1. There is no need for the cruel outside world. Give me more shelter behind bad hair and vintage video concepts.
3) Die Wijnhuis- On Rose's birthday. Thin and tender veal and good ole sole with champagne and shrimp sauce.
4) The Jonkerhoek Tea Room (please forgive me if I have the name wrong, it might be the Jonkershoek Coffee House or Place of Holy Carrot Cake of Jonkershoek). At the entrance to the place of forestry and good mountain bike tracks. Many places that are perfectly located in scenic areas with high volumes of human traffic passing by their doors seem to make it their duty to ensure that there is at least some tarnish to your experience by creating a dull menu of of instant pie and Orley Whip. This place does a thick and rich carrot cake and a good burger.
5) Ginos: R80, R90, R115, R154. These are the prices that we are becoming immune to for a main course. Swill it all down with at least a 100 bucks worth of wine and say hello to a credit card statement that will bring on bout of jaundiced wallet. Ginos are happy to take no more than R75 for their main courses. My oval pizza with chicken livers and mozzarella was R55 and was made from a dough that had a beautiful bend and bite to it. They are on Dorp St in an old Cape Dutch building, with oak trees in the garden. Corkage is R10 which adds a nice unexpected twinge to the experience, like finding a little model
car in your bowl when you've just poured your breakfast muesli into it.
6) Cupcake: Little shoes, yellow rubber ducks, woollen baby clothes and a dauntingly good pan-grilled emmenthaler and ham sandwich with wholegrain mustard. I'll have another coffee with that apricot mini-cardigan...
3) Die Wijnhuis- On Rose's birthday. Thin and tender veal and good ole sole with champagne and shrimp sauce.
4) The Jonkerhoek Tea Room (please forgive me if I have the name wrong, it might be the Jonkershoek Coffee House or Place of Holy Carrot Cake of Jonkershoek). At the entrance to the place of forestry and good mountain bike tracks. Many places that are perfectly located in scenic areas with high volumes of human traffic passing by their doors seem to make it their duty to ensure that there is at least some tarnish to your experience by creating a dull menu of of instant pie and Orley Whip. This place does a thick and rich carrot cake and a good burger.
5) Ginos: R80, R90, R115, R154. These are the prices that we are becoming immune to for a main course. Swill it all down with at least a 100 bucks worth of wine and say hello to a credit card statement that will bring on bout of jaundiced wallet. Ginos are happy to take no more than R75 for their main courses. My oval pizza with chicken livers and mozzarella was R55 and was made from a dough that had a beautiful bend and bite to it. They are on Dorp St in an old Cape Dutch building, with oak trees in the garden. Corkage is R10 which adds a nice unexpected twinge to the experience, like finding a little model
car in your bowl when you've just poured your breakfast muesli into it.
6) Cupcake: Little shoes, yellow rubber ducks, woollen baby clothes and a dauntingly good pan-grilled emmenthaler and ham sandwich with wholegrain mustard. I'll have another coffee with that apricot mini-cardigan...7) The Spar Liquor Store: Le Pommier Cabernet Sauvignon for about R40 @ 15% alchohol per bottle. Heavy and healthy.
8) Oak trees- the theft thereof. Riding around on a stealth bicycle with a slim trowel digging up acorn saplings to transplant in Philadelphia. Once you’ve deviated onto the path of guerilla botany there is no turning back.
8) Oak trees- the theft thereof. Riding around on a stealth bicycle with a slim trowel digging up acorn saplings to transplant in Philadelphia. Once you’ve deviated onto the path of guerilla botany there is no turning back.
