Steekgrass and Spanish wine

"Hello hello hello - what is it to be - food or a gentle stroll for an old dog?" Sorry Dawn, you can't come because we are going to Daisy for the weekend. But the Food Lady has a juicy bone for you.

Our favourite breakfast spot at the Red Windmill - but there is a change of management and our best breakfast is no longer on the menu. No more brie and poached eggs with salmon. And some new dogs - Jack Russels all, who were quite polite to us.

A roostery theme. And a very clean plate!

OMG. What is this! (The Food Lady thinks an Alpaca.) Looks a bit like a bleached bouvier with a long neck.

Then we arrived at our most favourite beach place in all the world - Daisy cottage!

We got a bit of a shock when we jumped out of the car joyfully - into a monstrous patch of Steekgras. Dougal jumped straight back into the car. (We spent some time removing all the needle-sharp grasses from me later.)

The Alph did a lot of fixing in the bathroom and repaired the taps and replaced the washers. They also repaired the blinds which are looking a little bit tatty.

We were confined to barracks because of the steekgras but I didn't mind as my favourite thing to do is shoot the breeze from my eyrie. 

When all the repairing was done, we repaired to the beach and the Alph had a swim at Papkuil,

while the Food Lady botanised and entemologised (this is a Lunate Ladybird) in the dunes,

and Dougal and I got stuck into some serious molerat hunting.

That evening we had a gentle walk along the beach of Suiderstrand,

the Food Lady likes to do a bit of beachcombing and botanising - this is the large egg case of the endangered Spearnose Skate   

and these are some Silene crassifolia flowers that had all opened in the evening light.

The Food Lady and the Alph enjoyed some wine from Jane from Spain.

Getting the braai going while we tried to avoid picking up ticks and steekgras!

The Alph decided to burn some of the steekgras that the Food Lady had pulled up. Jolly good too.

The next day we went for an early morning walk in the misty dunes behind the house. We found a new path marked out with sticks that we followed,

past flowers like this Crassula dichotoma in the sea sand, 

and this totally weird plant is Galium tomentosum which is related to the weed that sticks to our long Scotty beards in the garden called Goosegrass.There were some good rodent smells and the odd thrilling siting of a fat little mouse skittering into the bushes too.

Tea time on a misty beach.

Then back to business!

A pyjama shark all snagged up in nylon. Poor beast. There are lots and lots of these sharks that fisherman pull out and don't put back but leave them on the beach to die because they think they are bad biting sharks but in fact they are completely harmless.