childhood friends and birthday delights

Childhood friends, ah! how I treasure them.

Last week Nancy and I were delighted to welcome two dear old friends to our little home for a couple days.

 Picnics, walks on the beach, antique shops, singing together in front of the piano…laughing till our cheeks hurt and watching The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society…just a few of the wonderful things we got up to during Miss J and Miss M’s visit. 

 One of the main reasons for this long overdue visit (it had been three years since they last came to stay) was to celebrate Nancy’s nineteenth birthday on October 14th. 

 ^ The lovely birthday girl... 

Sunday morning saw rain clouds on the horizon and not long after, a thunder storm of note broke out.   

All our hopes for a picnic and walk in the Botanical Gardens went out the window…

However, by the time we had finished baking our carrot cake and mini quiches and everyone had gotten dressed and done their hair and make up, the sky had cleared and it began warm up.

Off we went in high spirits to enjoy a delicious celebratory picnic under the trees...

 

 

Nancy had a music lesson in Sedgefield on Monday morning, so on the way home we stopped for a long, refreshing walk on Wilderness beach.  

 

Some of us (ahem, yours truly) had forgotten a warm top, so by the time we got back to the car we were chilled to the bone.   

We had planned on picnicking on the beach, but ended up cosying up in the car to enjoy our lunch.  What a sight the four of us must have been as we giggled and munched away ever so happily.

Tuesday was the day I had been eagerly anticipating...  For months I had wanted to drive to Mossel Bay (about an hour away from George) and browse the antique stores, stop in at a quaint coffee shop and have a simple picnic on the beach front.  

We enjoyed our drive through, laughing and singing along to Josh Groban’s Bridges all the way…

We decided to go for coffee at Fynbos Café first, and seeing as it was a fairly warm day, we opted for coffee milkshakes.

 

After looking around the gift shop, we walked to the first antique store where Nancy fell in love…with a typewriter.  After watching Guernsey, we all agreed that a typewriter would be perfectly delightful.  

 

 I came across a gorgeous vintage Singer sewing machine.  I am still dreaming about it…

And Miss M’s mind constantly wanders to the beautiful teacups she found.

Afterwards we headed to a big second hand store where I found two more books for my growing book collection and we lost track of time as we wandered down rows and rows of every second hand items you could ever imagine.

We then decided it was high time we had lunch, so we made our way to the beachfront where we had a wonderful picnic while watching the waves. 

It was a perfect day.

All too soon the visit came to an end.  We were grateful to catch up on some much needed sleep seeing as we had laughed and chatted to the small hours every night…