The Riebeek Valley olive festival

This past weekend was the last of our "long weekends" for a while now and whilst the month of April has been bad for business it has been bloody good for jolling! Four public holidays in April plus the 1st of May - excellent! We made good use of them believe me.

Saturday saw us in Riebeek West by mid morning for the annual olive festival, it is a very pretty little town with a lovely mountain as a backdrop and we met up with Dick and Janet at a restaurant called "L'attitude" where he had managed to secure a table. We sat and chatted over our first beer of the day.

We decided to have a stroll and have a look at was on offer and as soon as we stood up another group was already edging into our seats, seating is a scarce commodity and the town was filling up rapidly.

We wandered around after arranging to meet up with our friends again a bit later, I bought some lovely fresh black olives and some olive oil but after about an hour we had had enough, you can only eat so many olives and chunks of bread soaked in olive oil and then you need some real food!

It was then that I got another call from Dick, he had secured a table at a cafe where there was some "lekker music on the go." We should get there quickly. We did! We sat there for most of the afternoon enjoying the music in the warm sunshine and gradually worked our way through four bottles of Riebeek Valley's finest Sauvignon Blanc, what a pleasant afternoon that turned out to be.

That evening we went to our friend Amanda's house where we had a very pleasant braai and after the afternoon we had had it was good that we didn't have to drive anywhere!

Sunday morning we were on our way by about 0930 and we stopped for a very nice breakfast at the "Pleasant Pheasant" in Riebeek West, while we were there this guy and his lady arrived on a "Cam Am Spyder", a 990cc three wheeler, a very interesting looking machine.The bloke had apparently suffered a stroke, his left arm was in a sling and he had the bike set up for right side controls, there was a velcro strap to hold his left foot on the peg and he rode it with only his right hand. To me this guy is a hero who epitomises the biker ethos, once you are a biker you will always be one and he doesn't let his disability stop him from doing what he loves.

Once we got back home we got the bike out and went for a bit of a local cruise, it had been a good weekend but now it's back to normal and winter's coming!