Ellis Family Blog

Shopping, Constantia Glen and tuna braai at homeCape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa Although some of us had sore heads this morning we were all up bright and early and we sent the men to buy fresh fish at Fish 4 Africa down on Hout Bay harbour. We hadn’t realised that the high winds would have a massive impact on the types and quantities of fresh fish available as it was too rough for the smaller fishing boats to go out to sea. Despite this the boys bought a fantastic piece of tuna, plenty for 10 (with left overs) for R400 – justRead More →

Lazy day around Hout BayCape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa Everyone has now got a better idea of the geography of the area so some couples decided to venture off on their own today, either down into Hout Bay or to explore the Camps Bay Area, while we opted for a quiet relaxing day at home. All was going really well until about 4pm when a crew of tree fellers turned up to take down the dead conifer tree from the verge on Broughton Close, just by our deck and garden. The total absence of health and safety precautions was unbelievable, the treeRead More →

Ladies Spa Afernoon and Lads Wine TastingCape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa One of the ‘main events’ for the lads holiday was to be a day out at sea, fishing for tuna. Unfortunately so far the weather hasn’t been suitable as it has been incredibly windy – not what you want when you’re 50k out at sea. A period of 5 days was allocated in the hope that one day the wind would be calm enough for them to go – this made it difficult for us to plan other things, so to make sure we ladies didn’t miss out we booked aRead More →

KirstenboschCape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa We woke to another fine day, still a bit windy, but a good temperature for a group of us to visit Kirstenbosch, which was high on Jenny and Phil, and Richard and Martha’s list of ‘must do while in Cape Town’. We left Karen and Geoff to have some peace and quiet and set off for the short drive. We stayed together at first and walked on the Tree Canopy Walkway, a wooden bridge which sways through the tree tops and gives fantastic views of the gardens and Cape Town itself. After walking round for an hourRead More →

Skye Ways and the V&ACape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa After a more leisurely start the team split up a bit today. Karen and Geoff took Richard and Martha, with Jenny and Phil following on behind, to the V&A. This gave them their first glimpse of the beautiful drive down the sea front from Llandudno to Sea Point, and also showed them the Clocktower where the boat leaves for Robben Island as their trip is booked for next week, weather permitting as it is still very windy! Grant and Karol had arranged to meet Lawrence and Amanda for lunch at Mano’s on SomersetRead More →

It's Richard's birthday!Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa This has to be the best planned birthday surprise ever! Richard ostensibly knows nothing about the arrangements, other than we’ve made some but he doesn’t know what. The rest of us are of course in the know. I apparently promised yesterday to be nice to Richard for the duration of his birthday but I forgot pretty early, only to be reprimanded by him and reminded of my promise. I feel this may be a bit of a long day now! We’re all up and about ready for our 9.30 start. We’ve booked our old friendRead More →

Our first full dayCape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa Needless to say we all slept like logs our first night – a combination of no sleep, alcohol and spent adrenaline. The house is very familiar to four of us, and completely unfamiliar to the other four, so breakfast, such as it was, was a combination of patient tutoring of those who had yet to understand where anything was! Fortunately they’re all pretty quick learners so they soon got the hang of things! The plan for the day was pretty straight forward – the ladies were going to drop in at the local outdoorRead More →

Off we go!Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town, South Africa It’s 10 o’clock and we’re all packed and due to meet Karen and Geoff at 10.30 to drive down to Heathrow. We don’t fly until seven tonight but as its a Friday we thought we’d leave plenty of time to get there. The others are meeting us at the airport as Phil and Jenny have been to see Sophie, Richard and Jake, so are driving in from Banbury and Richard and Martha have been staying with Richard’s brother and are getting the train in. I’m just fiddling with the lock on my case – IRead More →