Quiet Fireworks

It's been a good week. Although we still havn't got the 'eating early/going to bed early' routine quite right yet (the children have learnt that we dine like Mediterranean Families i.e late) there is a semblance of some new order kicking in.

The bakery is going like a rocket and we are hoping to have our new patissier starting very shortly.   We are hunting for an outlet as we need something bigger and our poor customers have to endure the bakery oven temperatures which climb to over 45C somedays. The cupcakes melt, the icing slides out of the cakes and one feels close to self-combusting. September is the hottest month of the year on the island, but the hotter it is the more it keeps the hurricanes away - so I'll live with the heat, thanks.

On the domestic front, Saint Claudette of Jamaica did take mercy on us and return, and we now have a sparkling clean house. This makes me indescribably happy. Wo betide any man, beast or child who does anything now to upset this apple cart. I have pointed out, at great length and volume, that life would not be worth living.

This week is our wedding anniversary. I've had a blissfully quiet Sunday morning looking through our wedding album and I just can't stop smiling. What struck me was what an incredibly happy day it was. In every photo everyone is smiling and laughing their heads off, despite the fact that it was feezing cold (there was snow on the mountains in Cape Town in Spring).

I realised pretty quickly that I had married someone extra special when Tyler managed to persuade the hotel to allow fireworks at midnight (they are banned in Franschoek as it's a valley bowl and noise reverberates) as he promised they were "quiet ones". I think we woke up every dog between Franschoek and Stellenbosch and half the poulation (who thought the revolution may have just started after all) and Tyler had quite a bit of fast talking to do the next morning!

Here's to you Liefie. You've never stopped charming me (and everyone else) after all these years.