Long Weekend

Friday=Freedom Day and Tuesday=1st of May --> Which leads to a nice 5 day weekend by just taking Monday off! What I always liked about South Africa is the "unexpected": We woke up quite early this morning because of some funny water-noise. And - surprise - we had a nice little fountain outside due to a burst waterpipe. Only 5 hours later the emergency plumbers arrived and fixed the whole thing (Der Gesamtpreis war billiger als in Österreich allein die Wegkosten!). After getting cracy with the dogs because of them deciding to rearrange the new instant lawn we layed the day before, I also tried to figure out what´s wrong with the pool filter. It was a dead mouse I had to pull out there. So far to this Saturday. And it´s freaking cold here now as autumn gives it a full go.
Speaking of "unexpected" - found this nice little video on Youtube:

Smile

2 wonderful people - Alison and Clynton enjoying a peaceful moment on our patio.

Loch Vaal and Kenny Rogers

MVI_0524
Uploaded by gmandl

Party and Boat Weekend

Ian and Pats from London are in town! We had a sensible little party on Saturday and spent a stunning Sunday recovering at Loch Vaal with Alison, Dan, Mercedes and all their lovely kids:

Snoring Labrador

Blake kriegt manchmal nachts einen Tritt in die Seite, begleitet mit den liebevollen Worten "Verdammt noch mal, hör auf zu schnarchen! I ko net schlofn!". Er hats ja oft frech abgestritten, dass ER schnarcht. Seit allerdings die Köter einen Platz im Schlafzimmer haben, hat er auch ne gute Ausrede. Beweisführung:

snoring labrador
Uploaded by gmandl

carwash

opening the doors of a car to perform some vacuum cleaning always leads to serious discussions with the big dog trying to get the message across that this time we are not going anywhere. on the other side: in the meanwhile she likes the vacuum cleaner and gets gestaubsauged regularily!

Bronkhorstspruit Dam

Easter Sunday we spent with Blake's Parents at Bronkhorstspruit Dam, about 90 km North-East of Johannesburg (Google Maps). This was the first time we actually tested the waterskiing capabilities of the boat and as you can see - and apart of Guenters chicken legs at the beginning - it worked perfectly fine!

Schweinereien

Schweinereien, originally uploaded by gmandl.

I don't explain what the little one is doing here...

Uli

Die eine Uli schreibt man nur mit einem "L" musste ich gerade lernen. Hier das live Bild aus dem Neudorf suedlich von Vienna:

Sketch Pad Art

Während einer threesome-skype-telco mit den beiden Ullis aus Wien gezeichnet.
Eindeutiger Boot Bezug... und irgendwie mach ich mir Gedanken, ob man mir immer nur Gutes will...

das boot

yesterday we had our first test drive with the boat on vaal river. blake called it "the fact finding mission" and in fact: it´s a bloody nice boat!!!

das schiff

nach langem herumsudern durfte sich blake endlich einen wunsch erfüllen...

rearranged study

letztes wochenende haben wir uns an die wilde abstellkammer rangemacht, die wir bis jetzt "study" (buero) nannten. uebergrosser tisch raus und special construction vom weltbesten tischler aus duesseldorf rein (http://www.tischlerei-peter-schmitt.de). jetzt sieht man weder pc's und kaum noch kabel, alles ist schoen per lan und wlan vernetzt und wir haben richtig gemuetlich platz in dem kleinen kammerl!

cool panorama

two panoramapics (shot with SE K800i) combined with autostitch (great software to create panorama pictures, independent of source).
scene: lunch at chris & nialls on the 21st of march - public holiday here in za.