Kokstad Christmas – Part 1 | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that we are currently visiting our clan in Kokstad. We started our Christmas celebrations early. On Wednesday The Bakers came over for a pre-Christmas dinner. We wore the silly hats and pulled the surprise pack crackers and shared the corny jokes that popped out too. It really got us all into the Christmas spirit

Nicoline, Shan and Scott

Simon and Robyn

Al, Si, Shan, Scott, Me, Earl, Lauren

Al, Nicoline, Shan, Scott, Si, Robyn, Sean, Me, Lauren

We have had unseasonably cold weather this December so when we saw that the sun would be shining on Thursday we headed off to a dam in the mountains so the ‘boys’ could do some fishing. What a lovey cottage we had on The Du Plessis farm in the Swartberg.

It was Allan’s birthday on Friday. He and Simon were out fishing very early on on their return we presented the gifts and had a slap-up breakfast to celebrate his special day.

My Rural Family

Scrumptious Birthday Breakfast

Al is such a great dad and his kids expressed this so well in the cards they made.

Al, Earl and Simon fished and caught a total of nine bass. They kept two which The Earl cooked for lunch when we were back home.

Because of the iffy weather we have not done much outdoorsy stuff but on Sunday at the rude hour of 6:30 am my son-in-law and granddaughter knocked on the door – Hey Gran – do you want to come for a walk.

I thought it would be a gentle stroll along gravel paths suitable for a 65 year old grandmother.

Like this

But no – they took me on a bundu bashing ramble across farmlands, over barbed wire fences, through long, possibly snake-infested grass while dodging thorny thistles, low overhanging branches and rabbit holes.

Do you see the reed buck and the dog? – No? That’s how long the grass was!

Cody smelt a reed buck – but it was too clever for him and kept dead still – all we could see were it’s horns sticking up from the long grass.

We bent over to get through the trees

And climbed through many tricky fences

The plan was to cross the river over a bridge and then take the shortcut back to their farm but somehow the it seemed not to be there and so we headed back through the long grass observing many pretty buck and birds before reaching home two hours after we started out!

It was all worth the effort for the pretty scenes we saw

Lovely river – no bridge

Considering that Shan and Al both have much longer legs than I, I think I did okay to keep up with them – Yes my limbs felt like jelly at the end of it but it was great fun. I think I might join them again.

Today we celebrated Christmas with The Bakers and tomorrow we’re having the Macs over – More about that next time.