June 6th, 2010 
siviwe So I somehow managed to crack the nod for a weekend away with Brendan, Craig and Guy. I’d been part of the initial facebook invite, but then it was all quiet. So naturally, I made other plans. Brendan impressed on me that I should come, and change my plans when all was confirmed. I am glad he did!
After 5pm or so, I was picked up from my place and sat in the back with Brendan. That led to the next hour and a bit with me showing him just how great his BlackBerry is. He wasn’t enjoying it as much as he should have, and I hope that in some small way I have helped to better his experience.
The house in Kasouga was awesome, and could pretty much sleep 10 people. So each of the 4 of us got our own bedrooms with own bathrooms. Sweet ass house. I had taken 4 bottles of wine for the weekend: 2 x Alto Rouge, 1 x Backsberg Merlot and 1 x Glen Carlou Tortoise Hill. We had a braai on the first night, and I probably polished around 3 of these bottles (excluding other people’s) on my own. It’s wine I really like, and I like wine, and holidays are for drinking 
Saturday afternoon Guy and Craig wanted to go canoeing. I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to do that; I have some problems with expanses of water. Brendan didn’t seem all that excited about the idea either. Trying to be a smartass, I said I would only go if Brendan went. He immediately agreed to go and I was now committed (not to mention a bit scared). I decided I would MAN UP for as long as I could.
We got down to the river, and Brendan and I discovered that Guy and Craig were planning for us to “borrow” a few canoes. That certainly added some excitement to the whole experience, and not good excitement. They decided on a small boat, and off all of us went. The boat had a leak, so we started taking on water. I tried to hide how terrified I actually was. We finally took the boat back and we “borrowed” two two-man canoes. I was on the back, with the bottle of wine, and Brendan in front.
When I was satisfied that we didn’t have a leak, and I got the hang of it, I really started to enjoy it. I opened the bottle of wine and had a little and passed the other guys some. At this point, I was LOVING the experience. Me, in a canoe, drinking WHITE wine, on expanses of water and having the time of my life. I would never have thought it possible!
The point of the exercise was that Craig really wanted to go fishing. He made a fishing rod with a bottle of coke and he and Guy were hard at fishing. Brendan and I were just having a great time and drinking wine. Eventually we were starting to get cold, and Guy and Craig weren’t catching any fish. So we decided we’d head back. As we went along, we’d stop to look at the view and as the fish jumped on the surface of the river. Incredible to watch. Then one jumped clean into the canoe, between my legs in fact. I practically shat myself, but was amused that we’d caught something without even going fishing. I asked Brendan that we keep it to show the other guys, but he put it back in. We went back to the guys to gloat.
We would pay for this on our walk home, cold. We didn’t really know the path well, so got lost. We ended up taking a MUCH more scenic route back and freezing.
This morning Guy wanted to go climb the highest sand dune, so we did that. It was bloody hard, but quite a lot of fun. While out there, Craig came to fish in the sea this time. We walked back to the house for brunch. Guy makes a crazy breakfast on a skottel. Insane. I actually want one now.
Now am sitting at the back again as Craig drives us back to town. An AMAZING weekend away, loads of fun. I certainly hope I crack the nod for an invite to the next one. Still amused that the only fish that was caught was the one that scared the shit out of me by jumping into my canoe.
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