Party time

It was party time at the old home last Saturday, although the weather was looking a little dubious on the Friday. There was lightning and bucketing rain galore, it felt as though we were back in Salisbury. The front lawn was flooded for a while, and it is on a slope, and there were people knocking boats together quickly and I am sure I saw someone with several pair of animals, all very worrying. I even went to work by car, although a motor launch was looking increasingly like a viable option. Saturday dawned as a typical grey and overcast day, so it looked as though the party was on. There were no ambitious plans, in view of Liz's recent operation. The plan was strictly limited to lots of booze and food, that is several pints of cider and gallons of lager. I braaied hamburgers, chicken, sausages and some boerewors that was hiding in the deep freeze. Liz made a sauce and I knocked up some sadza ( miellie pap, or maize meal) for our friends (victims), this is now expected at any of our braais and some of our pals are now actually contemplating buying some Iwiza No 1 for their own larders, we'll convert them yet. We did braai some Norfolk chicken, a local product, once it was done it was basted with some of Liz's home-made marinade, so that it wasn't too burnt, marinades tend to blacken the meat, Liz likes it black though, so I have to make sure at least one piece is really black just for her, everyone else wants normal burnt meat, that is quite easy. The sadza making is now attracting an audience and soon I'll have to autograph the stirring stick for people, perhaps I should trademark the process, ha ha, I think everyone was starving , as it was about eight o'clock. I may have to try the traditional African method of a bowl of water, for the hands, the sadza and a bowl with gravy for dipping, mm-mm, there's an idea, maybe next time, to hell with fondue dinners, sadza dinners here we come! We also had a few bags of tortilla chips and a dip to nibble on while people waited to eat. The folks started to pitch up at about four-ish, the party soon got under way, I had a few beers left over from Louise and Matt's wedding, anniversary beer, Boddington's, I am not too fond of it, but someone drank it and suffered no ill effects, so not too bad then. One of the guests was a three year old who tried to feed the fish a glass of drink, she also got to feed them properly and they came up with a lot of splashing to the surface and made her a little wet. Some of our guests did the dishes, something that has been my job for the last few weeks, so I was really grateful.

The cat flap was broken and needed to be replaced, another little job I had put off a few days, why don't cats learn to open doors like everyone else? I finally got round to it last week, Liz was impressed, the cats weren't! One was trapped outside for hours, and when a human finally opened the door, she bolted in and we found her bolted to the bed. The cats were very wary of the new flap, they knew it would attack them as the went through it. Even Liz was convinced it was smaller than the old one and the cats would get stuck, hah, well they didn't and now they come and go as usual, another crisis overcome.