Two in One Party

Though I might as well keep on going with the entries....

We were invited to Yolanda's ( Wanda's cousin) 30th Birthday party which would also be her and Burger's (engaged to Yolanda) farewell party.

We set off on the train again to Putney... never even knew where it was until the party to a restaurant called Chakalaka. A really nice South African restaurant with some excellent food. We had boerewors, potjie and a lovely piece of fillet !! I indulged in some KWV 10 year Brandy - with Coke Cola of course and Wanda enjoyed some really good red wine and a Savannah or two.

I think a really great time was had by all and we certainly enjoyed it very much. We are going to miss Yolanda and Burger and we wish them all the best for the future and a wonderful wedding!!!

South African High Commission... London

It's been a hectic few weeks.....

I must admit this is the first chance that I have gotten to update the blog with all the latest happenings.


So where do I start... oh yes as our passports are due to run out Wand and I made an appointment at the South African Embassy to apply for our replacement passports. The first date that we could get was on the 27th September and we booked our time slot for 11:30 in the morning.


With the kids of to school Wanda and I set off to London with all the documents in hand. I must say that they wanted to know everything. Apart from all of our details and certificates they also wanted to know everything about our parents. So after a couple of weeks of filling in forms we were ready.

It was a pleasant trip on the train and we arrived at Trafalgar Square at around 11:00. This was my first visit to the square and Wanda had only gone past it in one of those open bus tours.


We ventured down Whitehall street to find the offices and ended up standing in front of this building that had some construction being done to it. Going through the building site we entered "The Offices". Although we were early we decided to go and take a seat and just wait for our 11:30 appointment. We were pleasantly surprised when we were attended to at around 11:15. Now I must confess, having been to the Home affairs offices in both Johannesburg and Kempton Park, I was expecting long queues and a load of unproductive individuals. Boy was I wrong....


The gentlemen that assisted us, check the forms and found almost everything in order (I forgot to mention what sex I was), he proceeded to take our finger prints and we paid or £26. This all happened before 11:45.... Success!!! Now we just have to wait the 4 months for them to issue our new passport.


I took a couple of snaps at Trafalgar square and Wanda and I had a bit to eat. We were really enjoying our day out alone. We took to the streets next, walked to Covent Garden Market, which in my book is an upmarket car boot sale. then took a stroll all the way to Buckingham Palace... what beautiful gardens.... again took some snaps there...

Now it was time to head off home, got St James tube station and so began the journey back to Wokingham. I really enjoyed the day out with Wanda.... soooo romantic just the two of us!

Durdle door and the Dorset Coast

After reading so much about Durdle door and the Jurassic coast in Dorset we decided to make the 2 hour trip there. We were very happy that our good friend Margie decided to join us on the adventure, as we set of to Dorset yesterday morning.

Arriving at the Durdle Door Holiday park we had this amazing view over the ocean and cliffs of Lulworth.

It turned out be a lovely day with loads of sunshine, and loads and loads of exercises. Boy, what a walk to get to the beach down at the Durdle door, it's a long pathway leading down the cliffs and then you reach the steps. I would guess more that a hundred steep steps to get down to the beach, but at the end really worth it. The views were breathtaking. Waldo and Kayla had the opportunity to get their clothes wet in water and roll around on the pebble beach, while I was running around taking photos of almost everything. Oh yes did I mention I am busy working on my second module of the Photo Class.......

When we eventually got back to the car we took a short drive to Lulworth Cove and found this quaint little village on the edge of the cove. Again some breathtaking views all around.

Time Flies....

Wow, how time flies when you are having fun. I have been meaning to update the blog but have not had a chance.

A couple of things have happened in this last few weeks and I thought I would tell you about them in one post.

I had to arrange Paediatric First Aid training for the guys at Hatch Ride After School Club, and decided to join the course. So for 4 evenings we learnt all about the ins and outs of Paediatric first aid. I must admit that it was loads of fun and I am now really glad I decided to go. I have to tell you that on the second evening when I got home Wanda said that she needed a first aider. Would you believe that I was at the first aid course and while there, Wanda took a tumble down the stairs. She was OK, but had some serious bruises and aching muscles.

I also joined a on-line photography course. Wanda told me about the class as a lot of her UK Scrapper friends have attended and everybody had such good feedback on the class. I will tell you more in the next later as the photos are kinda secret....

I WON THE LOTTERY........ well almost

Wow did I get a surprise this morning. I played the UK Lottery on Wednesday evening - which was a whopping £2.5 million, and as always thought my money will go towards paying out some lucky winner. When I opened my e-mail this morning I found a message from the UK Lottery site (as I play on-line) that there was some exciting news waiting for me regarding the ticket I bought.

I tried getting into the site from work, but this site is restricted. I called Wanda at home and asked her to log onto the Lottery site to see what was happening. I was getting ready to jump on my desk and scream "I AM A MILLIONAIRE" - but alas I had won an almost unbelievable amount of £10 !

Well.... this was the first time I had won anything with the lottery and trust me I have already gotten a ticket for Saturdays draw as it will be for £4.5 million, and maybe my luck will hold !!!

I will keep you updated ... :-)

Dusting off the Annual Passes....... Legoland

Seeing as it is Bank Holiday weekend we decided to go to Legoland yesterday. We put in the order for the weather and boy did it turn out great. It was probably the only sunny day we have had in weeks. The only drawback was that thousands of other people had the same idea.

When we arrived we decide to go straight for the NEW ride... The Viking River Splash... more like the GET SOAKED Viking River Splash if you ask me. Fortunately the queue wasn't too long when we got there and it only took us 40 minutes (hahahaha) to get to the ride...... Although the ride looked impressive... it wasn't really, the only thing it did do was get us soaked. The photo above shows one of the Lego dragons on the ride as well as part of the "river" that you go on.

We had a very precise plan for the day, go and do all the major rides first and then it time permits to do the rest. Well we did 6 rides in all, and it took us the whole day. At one point they announced that there was a 2 hour wait for the Viking ride, so glad we did it first.

We went on to do another wet ride, crazy I know... but it was so nice and warm that we just had too. This time we did the Pirate Falls... with screams from both Kayla and Waldo, we flew down the falls in our wooden boat, and guess what, we got soaked AGAIN. Wanda was looking after Waldo's cap at this point and we went down so fast that the cap flew off her head and was lost to the river!!!

The last 3 rides where dedicated to the traditional roller coasters, starting with the small Baby Dragon Coaster (pictured left) , moving up a notch to the DRAGON COASTER and finishing it off with the Jungle Coaster. We waited the longest at the Jungle Coaster, a whopping 1,5 hours!! But well worth it.

This was the end of our day, and what a long day it was. We all had nicely tanned faces and wet bums!!

Now, when you visit Legoland Windsor, you cannot go home without stopping at the Cinnabon kiosk! Oh boy are those Cinnabons delicious. For those of you that don't know what a cinnabon is, they take dough covered in sugar and Cinnamon, make a little roll with it and bake it. When it comes out of the oven they cover it with a white chocolate sauce. WOW incredible.

Oh, I almost forgot, they had a competition with the new Mr Bean movie where you had to take the funniest photo with the poster, and here are our entries...

Avon Beach Bums....

A little more than a week ago we decided to take a drive down to Avon Beach near Bournemouth. It was a predicted to be the perfect day, and believe me it was. Blue skies, sun shining and the temperature a whopping 27 degrees.

Our plan was to leave home around 7am to try avoid the crowds, but as we all know this never happens and we left at 7:20am. It still only took us 90 minutes to get there and we were on the beach with our toes in the sand......... ehhh well almost in the sand as there seemed to be a lot of stones too.

I must admit the drive down to Avon Beach was awesome. The highlight must have been the bit we drove through the New Forrest. It takes your breath away to see the unspoilt nature.

On our arrival we were so glad to see that our earlier departure had paid off. Almost no people on the beach and a few cars in the car park. We managed to park in a nice spot that would ensure that the car would be in the shade upon our return.

We grabbed all our kit and set off to find a nice spot on the beach. That being done we pitched out little beach tent, changed into our swimming suites and got ready to enjoy a beautiful day at the seaside.

We had absolutely fabulous views to either side looking down the long beaches and in front of us the ocean and a glorious view of Isle of Wight.

Unfortunately our view of the ocean was soon obstructed by a family that came and dumped all there stuff almost right on our doorstep. The granny of the family it seemed was a very posh lady, all dressed up with a pair of huge sunglasses. To make matters worse she was not looking at the ocean but was focusing all her attention in our direction. Wanda and I commented about this "Tannie" who was looking our direction and how the ocean was the other way !!

After bossing her husband, children and others around they eventually moved further down the beach. But wait this gets better....... later the afternoon they all got up and were getting ready to leave and we noticed that she was walking towards us.... she bent down at our tent and said........ "don't' you think our beaches in South Africa are a lot better...?" As she walked away Wanda and I looked at each other and said... "of sh&t I hope she didn't hear us earlier" and we had a really good laugh.

The rest of the day was spent just being sooo lazy on the beach the kids were running to and from the water , playing in the sand, building castles and just have an awesome time. Just a note about the water..... it was freeezing!!! it felt like someone took the water from the fridge and filled the ocean.

Wanda and I ended up getting a lovely RED suntan and around 4:00pm we tackled the trip back home.

Overall we had a great day, saw stunning scenery, played on the beach, almost swam in the ocean (must admit I got in as far as my middle), had delicious ice cream and just enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Winning is not he main thing..... its the ONLY Thing !!

This is the overall message at the Coachmark Tag Rugby week that Waldo and Kayla attended last week.

A couple of months ago Waldo brought home the advert for the camp and told us he wanted to go and to our surprise Kayla said she wanted to go too. Reluctantly we enrolled her with Waldo, not knowing how she will find playing tag rugby with the boys.

Both of them were extremely excited to go on the camp and and the end of it all we were very pleased that we sent both of them.

During the week we got hear about all the how to pass the ball "hip to hip" and how to dodge a defender with "the 3 point principle" which is space face space. The 2 of them came home every night with dirty knees and clothes, but very satisfied with what they accomplished during the day.

Friday all the parents were invited to the training as this would be their last day and we would get to see them perform all the skills they have learned. This turned out to be a gorgeous day sunny day and the tag-rugby was good too. The kids played in their respective teams, Kayla being a Highlander and Waldo a Brumbee.

Boy was it cute to see the little Highlanders running with the ball and playing bulldog with the coaches.
On Waldo's Brumbee team you could see that these kids had been exposed to a rugby ball and had a little more skill. They could run, pass and score tries.

At the end of the day both of them got certificates for attending the week and I am sure that when the next event comes around both of them will be there ready to learn more about tag-rugby.

Rain, floods and no way home.....

If ever I wanted to own an amphibian vehicle, Friday 20 July 2007 would have been the day. On my way to work it started raining, first a drizzle then the heavens opened. I must admit I have never seen rain come down as hard as it did on Friday. And it seemed that there was no end in sight. I finished work at around 12:30 hoping to make it back home in time to go and see Waldo and Kayla in their end of term Assembly. I was also a bit concerned that our garage would be flooding.

What should have taken me 20 minutes to get home turned out to be a long 2.5 hours. It seemed as if every road leading into our suburb had been flooded. I would turn a corner just to be met with another flooded road. Eventually I spoke to a soldier doing traffic duty outside the Arborfield Garrison and he suggested that I take a detour through Eversley to get home.

It seemed as if everyone took this option as there were extremely long queues on the roads. I wasn't surprised at all when I got to Eversley to find that the road there too had been flooded, but at this stage I was so fed up I thought, what the hell...... I held my breath and drove through the water, which now looked more like a lake.

Good old Mazda just kept going and got me through just as I hoped it would. This meant that I was now well on my way home.

I missed the assembly but at least I was able to get home without being to water logged.

The reports said we received the equivalent of a month's rain in one day. A lot of areas were really badly hit by flooding and a lot of people had to be evacuated. As it is still raining they have issued another flood warning for this evening.... we will have to wait and see what happens ....

Seeing Rod Stewart LIVE at Twickenham....

Wanda and I went to see Rod Stewart on Saturday the 30th June at Twickenham stadium. We had booked the tickets some time ago and finally the time had come to make the trip to the stadium. As we weren't up to the traffic and finding parking we decided to take the train. This decision we would later regret, but more about that later on.

As we got to Twickenham station it poured down with rain and we made our way through the streets, with Wanda under her brolly and me cruising along with my jacket's hoodie on.

Turning one of the corners we both could smell a very familiar aroma in the air..... it was boerewors..!!!!! A group of South Africans had put up a stall in someones front yard, and they were selling delicious boerewors rolls and playing South African music. Made us think back to the days in SA.

After our stomachs had been tamed, we headed into the stadium and we were met by the huge queue of people trying to get into Twickenham, but because of the bags being searched and the few bag searching stations this seemed to take forever. Once inside we found our seats and boy were we glad that we were sitting under the roof and not in the rain. There were a lot of people who had bought tickets and probably paid more than we did, to have the luxury of sitting closer to the stage. Only thing was that they were the ones getting soaked.

We had a beer and a vodka&coke (no guessing as to who the vodka was for as they don't sell Klippies here) and enjoyed the Pretenders as they were the supporting act for Rod.

And then he started the show and boy what a show it was. He must be one of the best performers I have ever seen on stage. And the atmosphere was electrifying, with the crowd singing their hearts out with him. What an amazing show.

At one point we drove him to his knees with our singing and all he could say ..... "You guys are f&*ing great......".

After the show we put our rain coats back on and made our way out of the stadium, just to be greeted by thousands and thousands of people all making their way to the Twickenham station. About a block away from the station the split the crowds into two groups, one going to London and the other making their way to Reading..... as luck would have it there must have been 10 trains going into London for every 1 going to Reading. We were herded like cattle towards the station entrance and then stopped from entering as no train was available. We were standing so close together that Wanda couldn't even get her backpack off. After about 2.5 hours we were let into the station, just to find that they were still not sure if were going to have a train to get home.

Boy was it frustrating.... on the platform they had one guy telling us to move down the platform and another telling us to stay behind the yellow, which if you are trying to move down the platform is not entirely possible.

Eventually a train stopped 2 platforms down from where we were and someone shouted that it was the train to Reading. The "Reading train" sprint was born .... we had to run over the bridge to the other platforms and made it just in time. We were on the train and on our way home.....

All in all a good evening out - stunning show - really crap train service!!!

Welcome to our Blog !!

Hi everybody,

This is our first attempt at a blog and we would like to welcome you to the Grobler family. We have been living in the UK for 18 months and now call it home.

We would really like to hear from our friends and family and we will also be showing you some of our photos and sharing stories of our adventures in the UK.

Thanks for visiting and have a great day.