Photographing and Scrapping at Cathedral Peak

Well, we are back from a fantastic 4 day photographing and scrapping extravaganza at Cathedral Peak, organised by Desire Fourie (the teacha). We (Dereck and I) arrived on Thursday morning and met Shelley & Rayna on the terrace for morning tea. We sat around chatting until everyone else arrived - Sheila, Carolynn, Desire, Conroy, Denise, Henry, Bev, Graham (who only arrived much later), Retha, JC, Karen and Riaan. We had a buffet lunch and thereafter started with our photography lecture. This was to enlighten us on how to compose the "perfect picture". We were all given a worksheet of what photos to take, with hints and tips to assist us. We had a buffet supper, sat around chatting and had an earliesh night, ready for the morning!

Friday morning, we all met for our buffet breakfast at 7am and then met again afterwards for our hike to "Neptune's Pool". This was a 5km walk (as advised by Desire!) but it was actually about 9.5km. We had a fantastic guide - Moses - who always made sure we knew where we were going and waiting patiently for us as we stopped to take our "required" photos. Here are a few of the view on the way to the pool.

At the pool we sat and ate our picnic lunch, took some more photos and then headed back to the hotel. A few more adventurous people took a slight detour and saw some cavemen paintings - Dereck was one of them!

After tea, the next serious part of the getaway began - a new scrapping layout. This is my end result - it was when I went to a scrapping week-end in March at the Bundu Safari Lodge. I flew there and this layout is of the airport which had a very rustic feel to it.

Everyone was quiet tired after the looong walk and fresh mountain air, so after our buffet supper, beds were calling.

Saturday morning after breakfast, Dereck went to play a game of golf, and the scrapping ladies went to a spot at the bottom of the hill to take portrait pictures. We had loads of fun. Once this task was complete, we had tea and then started on our second layout. Mine was of Grant and Lauren at her Matric Dance. This was the end result.

Met the guys for our buffet lunch and then went back to scrapping our third layout. Mine was of the makeover we had at the Bundu week-end away. We had a complete makeover and photo shoot, which was a lot of fun and certainly a new experience. This was the end result.




At 4pm we met the guys to go to the golf course to take photos of reflections. But before we got there we had a group photoshoot outside the little church and then in the dip of leaves - this really was fun as we started throwing leaves in the air and of course they landed over everyone!!

After another buffet dinner, the ladies went back to finish off their scrapping projects.

Sunday morning was a sad one as it was time to go home. After breakfast, we all packed and then checked out of our rooms and met in the conference room to finish off any scrapping and then to crit our photos that we had taken over the last 4 days. This was good fun as we could see where we had gone wrong in creating that perfect picture!

We arrived home at about 4pm to lots of licks from the dogs - Zippa, Jemma and Izzy.

Happy Cathedral Peaker signing off .......

Leanne goes to London

Well Tuesday was a very sad day for me, but a very happy one for Leanne as she left to go and live and work in London for 5 years. For a few years she has been saying that she wanted to go and work in London and she was able to get an Ancestral visa due to her gran (my mom) having been borne in Scotland. We had to arrange vault copies of birth certificates and marriage certificates and then apply for the visa and we were very lucky all came through with not too many hiccups.

Last Saturday, we had all the family around for her choice of a meal - home made lasagne and lemon meringue pie. It was really yummy, if I must say so myself.

Her bags were all packed and Dereck was a bit concerned with the weight. Anyway it turned out that as she was taking sporting equipment, that on its own could weigh 35kg, so when she came to weight in at the airport she was well within the limit. Problem was she had to carry all this plus her hand luggage and laptop bag once in London!!!

It was sad to see her leave and it really hit me hard when I was tidying up once we had got home and I saw her 21st collage that I had made for her - her whole life was in front of me and I just had a HUGE cry. I miss having her around as she always had so much to tell me and sometime during the evening we would always have a good laugh.

On the other hand, I am so pleased for Leanne that she has this opportunity and I know that whatever she does, she will do well. At least now, I will have another bigger reason to go to London - best start making some plans!!!

Anyway, she has settled in nicely and played softball for the "Mighty Muppets" last night and they won their game.

She has created a blog spot, so if you would like to read up on how she is doing - nuttylee16.blogspot.com

Sad mom signing off ...

Extension of Birthday

Well this has really been slack, but to fill you in - here goes:

On Saturday, 16 June, I had a few of my walking friends around for a braai. It was great fun and I received a scrapping voucher from Rayna, Louie and Shelley, a treatment voucher for a spa place in Heritage Market from Sharon, John, Jeanine, Warren, Kathy, Dave, Ant, Oom (Reg) & Louisa, some chocolates (my favourite Belgian ones) and foot treatments from George and Jeanette, some bath goodies from Kathy and a lovely plant from Darryl and Bev. Sharon & John couldn't join us as Sharon needed all the sleep she could get in preparation for her first comrades the next day.

When Dereck sent out the notice he put a "sad" face next to the comment - music supplied by Michelle. I don't enjoy his taste in music and as this was my party the music was to be my choice. I think everyone enjoyed the selection, but Warren had a few comments and everytime something lively came on he would refer to Dave and anyone sitting next to him as "Dave and the Doughnuts". It really was so funny as when you looked at Dave, he would be bopping to the music and only made us laugh even more.

A great evening was had by all and quite a bit of drinking was done.

Recovered birthday girl signing off ...