Brad’s Bulls And Wedding

The month of August continued with its awesomeness. After a one day work week Sharon and I were on a plane (hopefully one that wouldn’t fall out of the sky) to Cape Town. Just to get us off to a rocky start it turned out I had a pocket knife in my camera bag. This meant heading back to check in, sealing it into a box, and checking it in separately. Amazingly it popped out the other end on the conveyor belt, although the tiny box did get a lot of sniggers amongst the rest of the luggage.

My old man picked us up from the airport and we headed straight to Paddocks for a quick bite of sushi, before heading back to his place. We settled ourselves in, caught up a bit, and then headed out for dinner at Primmi Blue with my dad and Cassia. Its a great restaurant overlooking Table Bay and Table Mountain. The food was good, especially since they had my new favourite pizza – Palma ham and rocket. Oh ye!

Thursday was an exciting day! My old man had a bad fever and had decided to quarantine himself in his bedroom. This wasn’t the reason it was exciting though; the actual reason was Brad Preston’s bulls which started at 12. Sharon drove me to Forries, and on-route we stopped off to show her my old res. My word its changed!

We started the bulls with just myself, Brad, Ian (Spoony) and Steve (Brad’s brother). After a quick burger and a few beers we were back in the car and on our way to Grabou for some quad biking in the mountains. We met a few more guys there and were soon on the bikes in the bush (Congrats to Spoony for some great organising). It was a fantastic trail of about an hour to an hour and a half, with some good climbs and descents, a deep river crossing and even a motor cross track with some good jumps.

After the quad biking we got Brad into his bee outfit with matching G-string, and dropped him off at the robots in Somerset-West for a bit of begging. After a slow start he got on a roll and soon had over R50 in about 10 minutes.

From there it was back to Brad’s place for a quick shower, and then on to the Mobray Bowls Club for a braai, some drinks and more embarrassment. It started off mildly with a few beers, a couple tequilas, and some meat. We got Brad to practice his drunk sailor dance, and Steve and Spoony did a few embarrassing speeches. And then, once the parents had left, the real fun began. Out came the inflatable cow, complete with an anal hole that, when poked, made the cow moo.

Brad was given a kama sutra and made to practice several of the positions with the cow. Spoony also dropped his pants and…wait…anybody can read this page…SNVL…

Ok, on with the story. After this we left the bowling club and headed for Claremont to do a bit of clubbing. A lot of hand-grenades were had, as were many other drinks. Lets just say I don’t remember much more of the evening. At about 2am I gave Sharon a call, and after not being able to direct her to where I was, got Matt to drop me back at the bowls club. It was a good evening.

Friday arrived, and I was feeling KAK! When I woke up the room was spinning and I was feeling rather nauseous. I spent most of the morning recovering before heading to the Waterfront to have lunch with Graham and Robyn. After the lunch we had a game of cave golf which was great fun as always. Briggsy, the bastard, got a hole in one on the 18th to tie it with me. Grrr…

From there Sharon and I headed to Canal Walk to buy the wedding present. There was an accident on the N1, so we opted to go out on the N2 and then cut across. Kak idea!! We got stuck in traffic and only made it to Canal Walk 2 hours later. I still wasn’t feeling 100%, so we got the present, grabbed a take away, and headed home for an early night.

I woke up on Saturday feeling great, so Sharon and I headed out for breakfast and then did a bit of clothes shopping to find Sharon an outfit for the wedding. Thankfully it didn’t take too long, and to even things out we headed from there to Stream X, a new fly fishing shop based in Milnerton. It was great to be in an exclusive fly fishing shop, even if it was small, since we don’t have any of them in Natal. The owners seem like a good bunch of guys, and I ended up buying some fly tying materials.

Then it was time for the wedding. Sharon and I had a shower, got ready, and then headed for Stellenbosch. We got there an hour early and killed the time by browsing through a local street market, which was amazingly more expensive than the curio stores in Clarens.

Anyway, the ceremony was held in the NG Kerk in Stellendbosch which was a beautiful church. Candy’s father married them, and a close family friend (I think), Rusty, ran the worship on his guitar. What a fantastic voice.

From there we headed to Neethlingshof for the reception. Its a beautiful wine farm just 6kms outside of Stellenbosh. The photos were short, which meant I didn’t even have enough time to watch the Sharks game. Grrr. Although I’m glad to say the Sharks did win.

The reception was great fun. Candy comes from a Greek heritage, with a Greek father, so in amongst the fantastic food we got to watch Brad having a Greek dance off with his father in law. And this was followed by some Greek dancing for the rest of us.

While I’m on the food it too was fantastic. We had a butternut soup as a starter, and then a buffet for mains. After filling my plate with lamb, steak, chicken and gammon I had no space for vegetables. So all I ended up sticking on was a few olives, feta cheese and a bit of potato salad. It was brilliant. Pudding consisted of chocolate mouse, cheesecake, a few other cakes, ice cream, etc, etc. Awesome!
The boys then had some fun by sorting out Brad’s car. He got the normal treatment, with the added benefit of a few well placed anchovies. Good luck Brad. (Oh, and Brad, please remember that this was Steve and Spoony, so don’t take it out on me…)

The bridal couple left at around 11:30, and the party ended there due to the venue. Seeing as I hadn’t seen Matt, Wazzy, etc in so long, a few of us headed out to Tollies in Stellenbosch for a few more beers. Another great evening.

I woke up on Sunday feeling fairly tired. Partying two nights out of three is getting a bit much for me. Damn it! I’m turning into a ballie. Anyway, Sharon and I headed for the airport at 9:30, and had a relaxing breakfast there, before flying home. Just in keeping with the holiday theme I left my book on the plane, which became a mission to get back since they wouldn’t let me back onto the runway.

All it all it was a great few days…except maybe for Sharon who spent most of it by driving me around. Thanks sexy…