Tag: braai

Poor Allan

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We headed out to Joostenbergvlakte (halfway to Paarl) this afternoon for a braai with friends on their smallholding. Having arrived in the area a little early, we went for a quick drive up to an old haunt, Mrs 6000 had a quick vote (the queues near us being laughable, if not worse) and then we headed to our friends’ place, where we sank beers, ate meat and played cricket on a decidedly soft surface.
It was on the way there that we passed another smallholding, which houses the ‘Cape Wildflower Show’ (CLOSED UNTIL WINTER) – that smallholding was attratively named: Geenbuffelsmetgeenskootgeskietgeenfontein.

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This is presumably (if not definitely) a play on… er… word of Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein – a farm in NorthWest Province, whose literal meaning is “Two Buffaloes Shot Dead With A Single Shot… Fountain”, presumably marking the site of some awesome feat of marksmanship… and a water source.
Farm Owner Allan Hill has evidently been less successful, the word ‘geen” which crops up thrice in his farm name, means “none”, thus “No Buffaloes Shot With No Shots And No Fountain”.
Disappointing stuff, although he does still have his VegTech Greenhouses, although he wouldn’t advise you to get one…

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Oh dear. Poor Allan.

Anyway – his woes aside, we had a lovely time way up North and the kids saw dogs, sheep, horses, pigs, geese, chickens, cats and a puppy. Dad saw some Amstel and had to double check the car for stowaways and smuggled goods (especially the puppy) before we left.

Last Of The Summer Braaiin’?

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That is a legendary title for a post. And yes, I recognise that I announced the onset of winter a couple of weeks ago, but after that dreadful day, apparently summer sobered up, had a bit of a sit down,  realised it missed us all and popped back to prolong itself a bit.
That’s why last week we had this:

While today we were treated to an absolute cracker, with cloudless blue skies, not a breath of wind and temperatures of 30°C.

Perfection.

Mindful that these meteorological conditions have other places to be and can’t stick around forever, we used the time wisely to get in a nice early evening braai:

And while, to the untrained observer, it may appear that there is some sort of breeze blowing, this is Cape Town: our smoke is so used to being moved rapidly in a northwesterly direction that even in flat calm conditions it just comes out of the stack and heads that way automatically.
It is Pavlovian smoke, but you don’t even have to ring a bell to influence its behaviour. This is good because I don’t actually own a bell.

With dwindling supplies of braai wood, now comes a tricky seasonal decision. One must balance the amount of wood one owns, because while on the one hand, you don’t want stacks of wood getting wet and being useless during the winter month, on the other, there will be days when you just need to braai and you just need to have the requisite materials to hand.

It’s a fine line, generally best trodden, I find, by sticking two bags of rooikrans in your garage and having some briquettes on standby.

I shall arrange this tomorrow.

Dafternoon

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Dafternoon (noun): The period immediately before an early evening braai during which you engage in foolish behaviour, play football in ridiculous heat, come home and drink far too much Black Label and chat with friends under the trees.

It was a great day. The football was fun, the beer was cold and the company was, as ever, entertaining.

Given the physical demands of today, tomorrow morning will almost certainly bring a world of pain. But it was worth it.