A roundup of the holiday

We left Joburg on the 20th, managed to do all our Christmas shopping on the 18th (bought everyone books). Hermanus was awesome, the weather just perfect.

We got back home on the 6th. C was not too impressed because that was her 9th birthday. We celebrated it on the 5th. J&C go back to school on the 18th.

1 - Christmas lunch was spectacular.
2 - Presents were opened and promptly played with, read or built by the 26th.
3 - New Year's....now that was an interesting one. The house across the road from The Inlaws was rented out to a bunch of young student types. They partied, not too loudly. At around 10 minutes before midnight, one of the bright souls got out a box of fireworks, those mostly noiseless but colourful sparkly things that go up about 3 stories before bursting in a shower of colours.

One of the other neighbours from down the road came lurching out of her house, glass of booze with ice clinking in hand. She planted herself at the front gate and proceeded to shout and swear in English (half incoherently) at the students (fair enough, she had a point to make about fireworks and animals). Which in turn set the students off swearing back at her. She threatened to call the police. Then proceeded to call someone all shouting out abuse at the students implying that it was them who'd started the noisy verbal abuse (as if! We were all standing on the balcony and would have set them straight anyway). She left and came lurching back with a man. Then left again. In the meantime the students had moved their fireworks to the back of the property, where she couldn't get at them. At midnight, one of the students came back out onto the upstairs balcony and shouted out HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU OLD BAG! (The dogs on the property only started barking when the woman started shouting and swearing. The fireworks had no effect on them.)

The house across the road but a few houses away....people spent the 31st coming and going, then more and more people arrived. They camped out. After the midnight wishes floated to us on the wind, we all trooped inside to go sleep. Himself couldn't and spent an hour watching 2012 while I went to bed and read. Just before 1am, I heard one woman shout to another YOU'RE PREGNANT??? YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE PREGNANT! and a whole babble of voices chimed in.
4 - New Year's lunch was also spectacular.
5 - We had trifle both days. AWESOME!
6 - Don't eat anything at Sandpiper in Kleinmond. Not unless you want really shit service and an attitude to boot. We took C there for her birthday. Their fish and calamari is usually beyond belief good. New owners recently took over the place and it shows. A party with 6 adults and 4 kids. We ordered food, waited an hour for the first plates to come out. As the others slowly trickled out of the kitchen, they were either cold or looked terrible. Their chips sucked donkey balls. Seriously. Oil drenched, cold and looking like someone had made them last week. The fish inside the batter tasted good but the batter itself was awful. Nothing like the beer batter of previous years. Oh and the waiter argued with MIL about what she'd ordered. Seriously dude? You'd argue with a customer? Eventually Himself went off to find the manager to complain about the ice cold food, the crap chips, the shitty attitude from the waiter. He did take off the cost of the cold plates of food. But still, probably never ever going there ever again.
7 - When will the CEM driver ever learn that they cannot just pull out into traffic without actually looking to see if there are cars coming towards them?
8 - We had a lice scare. Big C's kids had been spending time with their other cousins and one of them was infected with the nasty little fuckers.
9 - J broke out in a rash, he started with 2 on Sunday but was mostly covered by yesterday. The doc confirmed chickenpox.

All in all a great holiday. We're hoping to do the same this coming December. Well, until the world ends on the 21st, or is it the 23rd? Wonder if the Mayan calendar is going to prove to be right?

CTFM Southdowns - a review

Last Friday Himself decided to treat the family so we went to Cape Town Fish Market in Southdowns mall. We'd been there with friends before and thought J&C would enjoy seeing a sushi bar and eating off it. J is into sushi big time right now and he and I treat ourselves to a few pieces every other month. C....not so much a fan.

We sat down at the table first, just to make sure the kids really wanted to try the sushi. Then we sat at the sushi bar. Between J, Himself and I, we had 7 different dishes. C tried one but ended up eating the rice and not the fish.

The first time we were there, we'd found the service really slow. Not any different this time either and the place was only half full. I don't know what it is about a restaurant that is about half full. Every time we eat out somewhere and it is half full, the service slows down. It's weird.

J had calamari and chips, C had steak (yes my carnivore struck again ;) ) with chips. Himself tried the Sizzler, a seafood mix with prawns, calamari strips, mussels and bits of fish in a peri peri sauce. I had a combo of fish of the day and calamari strips. We ordered a seafood noodle dish for all to share.

The prawns in the Sizzler....6 heads without bodies and 3 tiny prawns, no sign of bits of fish. My fish of the day was the tail end and so overcooked I couldn't even taste what species of fish it was. The calamari was great though. Kids enjoyed their meal.

When the manager came round asking how the meal was, Himself showed him the last of the heads he'd just removed from the sauce and wanted to know if that was what it was supposed to look like. He said no and immediately arranged for our waitress to get him 6 more prawns.

For R600 which included 4 soft drinks and two beers, it wasn't a great meal. The sushi was really good, J outdid even my expectations of how much he enjoys it.

Rating : 4/5 (originally 3/5 but an extra point for the manager organising more prawns)
Service : Not great. Expect long delays between courses