DONIMATOR...

Back to the awesome weekend then....Friday night. Climbed ino bed with my latest acquisition, This Charming man, and settled down for an enjoyable hour.....okay okay yes it is the latest book by Marian Keyes, but hubby was downstairs watching TV - I thought that this was a much more exciting start to my latest post...

So I here my man's voice booming on the phone -I am not sure he actually knows HOW to talk quietly...I deduce from the conversation that his brother Donovan - Dono - is on his way for a visit...cool. I fall asleep before he comes upstairs and so am not able to interrogate him about said conversation.

Saturday morning first words out of my mouth..."So, when is Dono arriving?"

Malc's tries to tell me that Dono is not popping in for a visit but I explain my UNINTENTIONAL eavesdropping of the night before. Sadly it was meant to be a surprise for me and the girls - I explained to Malcolm that in order to keep a surprise, talking quietly on the phone is a prerequisite...luckily the girls were fast asleep so at least for them it our Monday morning visitor would be a surprise.

On Sunday there was a gathering at Wanderers in Ballsbridge for all Southern African folk in Ireland. We had heard bad reviews about the previous years fiasco but safety in numbers (10 0f us) made us all brave and we decided to give it a try. Mmmmm an hour later after trying to shout above the distorted music, watching an extraordinary amount of lighter fluid being added to the bbq's and very dodgy looking braai packs, 10 people were jumping into cars and heading off to the nearest shop to buy meat and drink - rendezvous - our place, as quick as possible. I got stuck in the kitchen making salads but of course I had all the women folk in the kitchen with me, chatting away while I showed them all what a messy cook I am! To make matters worse I buckled under the pleas for milk tart and had to make that too!!!

The day was glorious, the sun was shining, the temperature was ALMOST at 20....in JHB we would all have been wearing sweaters, here in Dublin we were running around in our summer finest! We wrapped things up at around 23h00, it really had been a great day.

Monday and I was trying to clean up from the night before, hung around in my pj's and waved Malc's off, the kids thought he was off to a cricket match but he was actually going to fetch Don from the airport. I managed to get the house half way respectable, no way I was spending the whole day cleaning, we had a VISITOR and fabulous weather AGAIN!!!

Dono snuck in the back door and surprised the girls, they were absolutely thrilled to see the one and only Uncle Don!

Malcolm did actually have a cricket match so he left us to go and "throw" balls and hopefully hit a few too. Jess had arranged to meet some of her school friends at the fun fair in Leopardstown at 15h00 so we decided to go off to REAL Gourmet Burger in Dun Loaghrie for the best burger in Dublin that we have found so far before dropping Jess off. Sadly it was closed - some air conditioning problem so we headed over to Gastro Pub instead. We spotted a table which was in the sun and then discovered that they do not serve food outside!!! I found this mind boggling, to have to sit inside on such a sunny day when there was such an awesome table begging to be occupied was sacrilege.

After lunch we headed over to the fair and Jess met up with her friends and Don, Kirstin and I decided to attempt throwing balls into milk urns to win a stuffed toy. €6 and 12 balls later we abandoned the stupid milk urns for a darts game. Then we shuffled from the dart board...still empty handed to a horse racing, ball throwing game, once again we left sans toy. After all that the Ferris wheel looked like a bit of fun so we hopped into a swinging basket and off we went. Sadly the views were not as spectacular as I thought they would be, I guess having a fun fair next to the M50 ain't going to be too inspiring but we did get a good look at the racetrack. Kirstin desperately wanted to have a go at a roller coaster type ride so we found a Mickey mouse one and her and I clambered aboard. Donovan wisely stayed on Terra firma, it was a silly looking ride and he had already had his fair share of proper rides in Vegas! The ride was a laugh until we got spun around in a horrible jerky manner and I started feeling a little queasy, Kirstin told me she wanted to throw up and I ordered her not to. She thought that this was my clever way of controlling her heaving stomach...it was really a desperate attempt to avoid getting messy. Being the obedient (ha ha) child that she is she did manage to retain her lunch and I rewarded her by buying a photograph taken of us on the ride. She looks suitably horrified and I am calmly sitting there smiling, in reality I was trying to ensure my skirt did not provide any unnecessary distractions for anyone!

Donovan was determined to win a fluffy toy and so we returned to the milk urns, then we made a turn at the darts. He finally gave up and we all piled into the car and headed for home. We went down to the cricket grounds in Rathmines and watched the last few overs of Malcolms game and then had a drink in the bar. After that it was home to braai/bbq a few steaks and make a salad. we ended up eating at 22h00 - this light until 21h00 throws us a bit sometimes!!!

On tuesday Jess had school, shame Kirstin scored - she was still on her half term break! Jess desperately wanted to miss school but they are doing revision for exams and she ahs missed so much work so we had to deny the poor girl.

In the evening we caught the bus into Dublin and walked around St Stephen's Green, while standing on the bridge a swan came running across the water and Donovan managed to snap a fantastic shot...what a picture to wrap up the end of a LONG post!!!