A weekend in

So Ellie and I have spent the last couple of weekends away and decided that we should stick around Durban this past weekend to enjoy some of the great things going on here. We were also invited out to a colleague's place for Friday night. Willene is an attorney at LRC and is the person I do the majority of my work with. She has some super interesting cases and has very much taken me along since I arrived a month and a half ago. Willene and her husband Dave live in Kloof, a town on the edge of the eThekwini municipiality. It is technically in the Valley of 1000 Hills and is a pretty spectacular part of the region.

Their home is just beautiful and in particular takes great advantage of a spectacular view over one of the gorgeous valleys with a beautiful deck. It truly is a little escape from the busy side of Durban. The primary hazards of living out in Kloof are (1) never wanting to come back into Durban and (2) the monkeys. Apparently sometimes they get inside the house and cause some havoc.

Unfortunately Dave was sick on Friday, but that left us to have an impromptu girls nights - wine, food and lots of chatting. Willene introduced us to some of the wonderful foods of South Africa. We helped make Bobotie, a meat dish with lots of lovely spices, and milk tart for dessert (yum yum). It was a lovely evening and I was very thankful to Willene for inviting us out.

The other real treat of heading out to Kloof was getting to head for a little walk in one of the many little nature reserves in the Valley of 1000 Hills. The area is spectacular, with rolling hills and dramatic gorges. I didn't have my camera with me - sorry. But, really, the very best part of our morning walk was the zebras, particularly the little baby zebra. She was clearly still not super stable on her legs. At one point she was trying to scratch, and lifted one foot off the ground (Robin - picture Peggy trying to scratch), that did bad things for balance and she tipped right over. It was just too cute. And you all know how much I love baby animals (side note - for those of you that I have not introduced to zooborns...go check out zooborns.com, it will make your day better no matter what is going on in your life).

(Picture courtesy of Dave).

After our walk, Dave and Willene took us back into Durban where Emma (one of our candidate attorneys or in Canadian "articling students") and her dad picked us up to go to the Natal Sharks game. It was Currie Cup semi-finals against the Bloemfontein Cheetahs. Now, if you don't know, this is rugby. I was pretty excited to get to the game and I have to say, they did not disappoint.

At first things didn't look good. The Sharks kicking was terrible, but everything ended great and the Sharks are on to the Currie Cup final this coming weekend. Unfortunately, the final will not be here in Durban, so that is the end of the season until Super League starts in the new year. This would be a Sharks try...

By the way - this is Sharkey.

And, one of Ellie's favourite parts of the game (ok, maybe mine too), was the little truck that brings the kicking tee or sand out to the kicker.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet and involved a lot of reading and watching more rugby (yeah All Blacks!!!!). But it was a good weekend and I definitely am quite lucky work with some fabulous people who have helped me and Ellie to take advantage of some of the great parts of Durban.

And by the way - happy Diwali!!!