The Crazy Ones

Ah the first day of the Year 2015 and what better time to spend it chilling with friends and family. The day started with rain and more rain, so much so that I was wondering how we all going to fit into Anika and Gary’s lounge. It wasn’t just the 10 adults shown above as there were another 3 teenagers and a child. But thankfully the sun got brave and dried up all the rain as suns are supposed to do.

As South Africans, the meat was on the braai, with the young ones all occupied playing either in the pool or on the game consoles, the adults aka the Crazy Ones could chill in peace under the lapa next to the pool. Okay from left to right are the Crazy Ones, Sandy and Derrick, Lynda and Jerome, Megan and Bruce, Necia and Craig, Anika and Gary.

As always everything that exciting happened in the year came up in topic, Dr Who; ostrich meat; X-Box games; Ingress; programming; work; bandwidth; beer bread; merits of school and school fees; The Resistance; being splashed by the young ones in the pool and Craig that needed to be thrown in; some muscle car that Bruce owned in the states that he left his iPod in; Dropping DVDs of the film The Interview over North Korea via helium balloons, Apple vs Android; so called home made Turkish delight; various re-modelling projects from bathrooms to this very lapa; some movie about a women who has a sex change, goes back in time, marries herself and has a child, very confusing even to me; and not to forget the chat about cats and more cats. If I did leave anything out, other than the cats, I am so sorry but I can't remember everything. Oh yes talking about remembering we also chatted about how we get round remembering a face but not a name.It looks like this might be a usual problem with us Crazy Ones.

This blog also did an appearance in the discussion. Gary still likes the longer posts whereas Craig wants shorter more factual posts. Oh and I mustn’t forget we found out that Bruce is a fan of my blog and could be a serial blog stalker.

One of the suggestions, Gary’s I think, was maybe add more photos which will get the blog to feel longer. So let me give it a bash, here is the cat Robbie all bored and had enough of this small talk. He had this thing where he sucked his paw and when he had finished with his paw while sitting on his mommy’s lap, he put his head down on the table, relaxed.

Jo and Bruce

After a morning of rushing around, it finally ended at Jo and Bruce’s home in Dainfern for lunch. No, it was not KFC but better chicken burgers with the chicken breasts cooked on a typical South African braai.

I have known Bruce since we were knee high on one of those Brethren Youth Camps, most likely the Margate one. Now Bruce works for Yum Foods therefore the play on words earlier. Anyway it was good to spend a wonderful afternoon with friends to get my mind off all that was happening in my life.

Vespa Scoots

Scoots, waar ons suip tot die donker verdwyn. Well after a hard day, mostly coding, it was a pleasure getting on the Vespa and riding across to Scoots, the Italian scooter place in Fourways. Arriving at Scoots, a beer was thrust into my hand, welcome. Scoots has become the place to pop in on a Friday on the way home. If you need any Vespa or Lambretta repaired, serviced, restored or even buy then there is only one place, and that is Scoots.

Bruce, shown above in the bright orange t-shirt is one of the partners of Scoots. He owns this Vespa P200e that has been instead of painted, been copper plated by a copper smith. There are some photos of it in one or two of my Facebook albums. Anyway, enjoy your weekend, 'cause I will.

Scooter Rally at Hartbeespoort Dam

It all started this morning with coffee at Scoots in Fourways and a phone call to get Bruce out of bed at 08:30. Five intrepid riders set out to join SA Scooters' 4th Scooter Rally through the small town of Hartebeespoort which is situated next to the dam wall of Hartebeespoort Dam. From left to right in the above photo is myself representing the Posers SC on the black Vespa ET4, Bruce from Aces SC on the copper plated Vespa P200E, Shawn from Vesparados SC on black Vespa Sprint, John on a silver LML Star Deluxe and Joe from Aces SC on a cream Lambretta TV175.

We set out on a leisurely ride north, had breakfast at a bikers dive then joined about 300 other scooters for the ride through Harties which ended up at a resort just outside the town. Here the SA Scooters had organized scooter soccer, a barrel race, a slowest race, a longest wheelie, an oval race and the most beautiful scooter competition. Two other Posers from Pretoria, Charlie on a Vespa GT250 and her husband Dudley on a Vespa P200E, joined us at Harties just before the mass ride. There weren’t as many scooters as last year but there were many more Vespas this time with our numbers boosted by about 10 Vespas from Roodepoort.

The funniest yet scariest part of our ride into the country side was right at the beginning when we stopped at a fuelling station Broadaces Shopping Centre and the attendant started filling Bruce's P200E not into the tank but into a hole in the frame. With about approximately three litres of fuel flowing over the engine and hot exhaust onto the floor before the attendant realized his mistake.

After the scooter rally Bruce, Shawn and Joe headed for a B&B near Skeerpoort while Charlie and Dudley returned to Pretoria and John and I back to Johannesburg. I'll post some images onto a Facebook album soon.

Dinner with Friends

Our good Belgium friend Jackie invited us and some other friends over for dinner while our children were off at Kid’s Camp for the weekend. As usual we had a lovely time at Jackie's. From left to right are Jo, Carol, Clay, Rachael, Jackie, Bruce and Anne.

Boaz

Today was the last of the series of Ruth at BBC. Ross concluded with the differences of Religion and Redemption. His very last point was to find joy in all circumstances. This is not easy. How is the question which keeps playing in my mind? Well I have a long way to go to understand this fully. Anyway here is Graham and Bruce having a discussion afterwards.

BBC Chat

Here is just a general snap of some of the BBC congregants chatting after church.

The boys from Durbs

David and Bruce have moved up with their families from Durban. BBC is getting overrun by Natalians. David lives in Benoni while Bruce in Dainfern.