A vote, a braai and an encounter with an octopus

Wednesday was a public holiday, it was election day, an auspicious occasion indeed and Janet I were in the line by 0750 eager to do our bit. The line wasn't very long and in fact it all went very smoothly, we were done by 0800 and on our way home, by 0815 we were in the bath enjoying a bottle of bubbly and planning our day.
I had a brief work appointment later in the day which actually spoilt our original plan of going to Beira Mar for lunch but second prize was to organise a braai, Rene' phoned to say that he and Bronx would be in the area for a delivery so I invited them as well as Frank and his English visitors; Dennis and Linda to come for lunch.
Sorted. Janet and I started making plans and it soon developed into a really good sounding lunch; marinated chicken wings, fresh mussels in a creamy ginger liqueur sauce and marinated, de-boned leg of lamb with aromat potatoes and salad.Here Frank and Dennis can be seen tucking into the mussel pot after we had eaten all of the chicken wings. We then had a bit of a gap to allow food to settle and make room for the main course and then I started the leg of lamb which I had de-boned earlier and then left to marinate in olive oil, aromat, garlic flakes and mixed herbs.I know this picture makes it look like I could be braaiing the neighbour's bloody noisy little Maltese Poodle, but I assure you it's not! It was a particularly delicious leg of lamb and there was not a scrap left by the end of the afternoon.

Janet made a wonderful creamy aromat potato dish and a lovely salad of tomato, feta and olives to go with the main meal and then warm blueberries in liqueur with ice cream as dessert, truly a meal fit for a king! We love spoiling our friends.

Today on the mussel farm was plain lousy! Winter is definitely on it's way, it poured. Big fat heavy drops of rain pounded us, at least the wind wasn't blowing as well. I had a terrifying encounter with an octopus during the morning, they often come up onto the deck with the mussel ropes and my staff are absolutely terrified of them, work stops as they scramble away from the beast and doesn't resume until I have cleared the deck.

Here you can plainly see that this monster was trying his utmost to drag me into the sea, after an epic battle lasting ........... well, about a minute I was able to free myself from his tenacious grip and get on with the work. Actually there has been an incredible number of octopi the past couple of weeks, far more than I remember in the past, it would be interesting to know why this is, on Tuesday alone I threw 18 of them back into the water! Apart from the octopi there was also this massive crayfish;

What I wouldn't have given for a Provita biscuit right then!

We did get to go for a short ride last Sunday, it was a breakfast run to the local Wimpy at the Engen One Stop, all of 17kms but it was still enjoyable. I intended to go for a bit of a longer cruise after breakfast but the weather started crapping up and it rained most of the day.

Thank you Harry for this lovely photograph! This exactly what I was talking about earlier, can you see the two of us heading off on a breakfast run like this later on?