Blanket run

Friday evening was good, we had a bunch of friends around for dinner and as we weren't sure about the weather I decided to do a potjie (do you remember the pronunciation of that word? If you have been reading this blog for a while you might remember it is; poy-key.) It is an Afrikaans word literally meaning "pot" or more accurately "small pot" and the meals are stews done in the cast iron three legged pot.
Depending on what kind of meal you are doing the cooking time can be anything from one hour for chicken or seafood, up to five hours for oxtail. I did a quick and easy chicken pot on Friday but I will be doing the full oxtail for my friends at the end of the month for my "Coming of age party" and I will let you know how that goes.

We started off on Friday with oysters and fresh steamed mussels and my friends really enjoyed them, Don and Connie are off for three months holiday overseas so it was a farewell for them, here you see Don and Div tucking into the mussels which I steamed in a little white wine and fresh lemon;My chicken pot was alright, it wasn't spectacular but there's not a hell of a lot you can do with a chicken pot, at least we all ate well and everyone had a good time. It was great to have my friends around and I must admit that I really enjoy entertaining and it's good to start the weekend off with a jol, makes it seem a lot longer.

Saturday the weather was bloody terrible so there was no riding, we drove down to Paternoster and had a really good lunch at the "Voorstrand" (Beach front) restaurant, and even though the weather was so bad, the restaurant was very busy, which goes to show what a good restaurant it is. I had their signature dish of three different fish fillets with chips which was fantastic, Janet had their beef burger which she really enjoyed. It was the first restaurant that we had been to where they ask how you want the burger patty done, Janet asked for medium/rare and that's how it was done, a lovely thick pure beef patty cooked to perfection.

Janet said she was keen to go back for the chicken burger which suits me fine because I'll have the fish again anytime. Saturday afternoon we watched cricket again, did you see the game? I'm telling you South Africa is going to win this World Championship.

This morning we got up early to go on the blanket run and it was raining! We sat quietly on the back verandah with a beer and contemplated our options, we don't mind riding in the rain if we have to, like if we are out on the road and are heading home and it's raining and you have to get going, fine - go for it. But if you are at home and you are warm and dry and you don't have to ride, what the hell? Anyway soon it stopped and the sun came out so we got the big red machine out and headed off and I must say that it was great to be out, at first I took it easy because the roads were wet but there was a fresh smell of wet tar and grass and the roads had been washed clean and it was good to be out there accelerating through the cool, early morning.

We met up with quite a large bunch of bikers at the "Drop Anchor" bar where we had a couple of beers and handed our blankets over but there was not much going on and we were getting hungry, we sat chatting for a while but we could see that the heavy clouds were coming over again so we decided to call it a day.It worked out just right, I had no sooner pulled the big red machine into the garage when the skies opened up again. It was good, we had a couple of beers and chatted with some friends and got a bit of saddle time, man I love it! I'm gonna leave you with another great quote;

"Without question the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer, Oh I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." - Dave Barry.