Tails’ Blography

Spent today (and a bit of yesterday by myself) at the Company’s Gardens in the CBD today, feeding the squirrels with the fiance. Of course, we fed the pigeons too (birdseed, not peanuts) and we had some lunch at the restaurant there.

As a child, my parents used to take us here, and its somewhere I hope to be able to take my kids too one day.

The squirrels are so comfortable around humans, they will climb up your legs to get their treats haha. But do be careful, dont tease them and always feed the peanuts with an open palm, not by your fingers, because they (the squirrels) do get a little nippy in the rush. Oh, and they might pee on you

Eating from my hand

They got very ballsy and kept trying to accost the bag of peanuts if we took too long!

Pigeons!

We met a German woman (the one in white) who had never fed squirrels before

Weeeee!!

Omnomnom

Dont you just hate it when you run out of time/energy/steam to blog about stuff that’s happened. And then by the time you’ve got around to blogging about it, it seems like unimportant news. Well I do, but nontheless I shall blog anyway!

For my mom’s birthday last week, aside from treating her to a sushi dinner, we took a trip to Fairview to do some cheese and wine tasting. Earlier in the week I phoned through and upgraded our vouchers from the regular tasting to the Beryl Back Tasting Room (R60pp) which was well worth the money!

Beryl Back Tasting Room

Inside the glass room, we were served our tray of 7 cheeses, and we were each given a menu with our selection of tasting wines inside. We were also served some homemade bread and a selection of three olive oils to eat during our tasting. Our wine guide poured us each a tasting glass of wine, starting with the whites, and then proceeded to explain how it was made, what made the wine special and what we were to try and taste. It was quite complicated so I wont go into it here, but it was very interesting. He then left us to enjoy the wine with our cheese that was paired with that wine. This went on for the next 2 and a half hours until all the wines were tasted (8 of them) and all the cheese was finished.

Our cheese platter

Chees….er, Cheers!

Patrick, our Wine Guide

While we were there, our guide came up to our table and informed us that the girl pacing around outside on her cellphone had just been proposed to, and when her and her fiance came inside could we please all applaud. This made me smile as it brought all the memories back from my engagement…ah the warm fuzzies!

After our tasting, my sister bought some wine she had enjoyed and my mom bought us each some cheese (I loved the Crottin cheese!). We then went off to look at the grounds, poke our fingers at the Koi to nibble on, and then made our way to the restaurant for a quick cuppa before they closed (and I, after craving this for weeks, finally sated myself with Baked Cheesecake…yum!).

This artwork is made of random items made from iron (coat hook, pitchfork, etc)

Koi nibbling…

By that time, it was nearly 5pm and closing time, so we watched the goats in their Goat Tower (pics below) and then made the long (ok, not that long) trip home.

The Goat Tower (yes, they sleep in there!)

Nomnomnom

Goat

Meet Vignette and Iso, my two new rat babies! Their names took forever to choose but eventually these were the two names decided on. Both are photography related as I try go with themes relevant to my life at the current time of aquiring new babies, and I couldnt think of anything Asus related at this time.

So Iso was one of the first names that popped into my head, and I like it because it sounds nothing like a normal name. Iso was taken from ISO which is film speed in relation to photography. She’s a Burmese Self.

Next is Vignette. This is pronounced Vin-yet and relates to the dark (or white, in some gaudy cases) corners that one sees on photos, either done purposefully in post processing or done by a lens adapter or lens hood (usually on a wide angle lens).

Wirenth has not been as horrible to them as Orly was to her and Ramoth, but she’s doing her fair share of nipping and kicking which is difficult to watch, but is natural. Rule of thumb, no blood, no foul. However I do keep the spray bottle well filled and Wormy does get her fair share of spritzes. At the moment, if I have the all on the couch together, they’re fine but if I put the girls in Wormy’s house, she hunts them down and bites them. So now they’re all in the babies’ house together, which is not Wormy’s territory so she’s behaving…for now. At the moment, the worst she’s doing is giving me doe eyes to let her out of this cage thats “not big enough to swing a cat, mom!” Poor thing looks so claustrophobic.

Anyway, without further ado! Tons of pics!

Meet Vignette and Iso!

Iso – this pic rocks in high res!

Fishing for rats! I almost caught one!

Almost caught another!

Wormy showing em who’s Top Rat around here

Peeping over the couch: Vignette, Iso and Wirenth

It’s Iso!

It’s Vignette!

Later, when the girls were all tuckered out, this is where Iso thought was a nice place to sleep…in the food bowl!

And Wormy slept on the couch with me just behind my legs…

And then moved on to my waistline, legs a-danglin’

Behbeh rat feet!!

And finally, I gave em a chicken bone and I thought this was a very cute face to photograph…

I hope everyone had a safe and funfilled New Years Eve. I spent mine at my flat, with my bf, best friend, and J. We had a braai, drank a bit, and just had a good time. After dinner we started making some shooters in the kitchen, Liquid Cocaine was our drink of choice, and on a whim I brought out my black light/UV light and we had some fun with my Neon shot glasses and UV Pen. We drew silly things on our faces and laughed so hard!

Eventually we moved out onto my patio under the Blue Moon and watched the cars go by. After seeing so many security company cars go by, we decided to turn it into a drinking game. Drink a shot for every security car you see.

Needless to say after we had our shots at the ready, no security cars were to be seen! So after waiting for a loooong time, we decided to drink for any car we saw! This helped hehe. We even saw someone get pulled over by a police car (this was worthy of two shots!).

Midnight was counted down and while we wished each other, the sounds of fireworks could be heard in the distance and people were cheering in the street. In fact, some people we couldnt see called out, to no one in particular, “Happy New Year!” and we all called back the same, to which they replied with a “Whoop whoop!” so the cheer was infectuous. Our neighbour brought his kid outside to shout Happy New Year and they blew their whistles and noise makers, so I ran inside and got a noise maker too (one of my Nano toys hehe) and the night was filled with squawking and shweeeee’ing and laughter.

At 3am another family came home and made their way past my flat and we wished them and while most of the group went on to their own flat, a very friendly German man stayed with us to chat so we poured him a shot of Woman’s Revenge and one for ourselves and toasted the New Year.

It was a relaxed party, and spent with people I love which was perfect. And so, 2010 is here, new beginnings, a fresh start, and all that jazz.

May 2010 be YOUR year. The year good things happen and may it be prosperous for you and yours. Happy New Year!

Chillaxing waiting for the braai to be ready

The Vegetarian “drooling” over the meat haha

Me!

Nom nom nom!

Our table ready and waiting (with the rattles in the background hehe)

“Liquid Cocaine” or “Smurfettes” or “Trashy Smurf”

The “tattoo” I gave V haha

Jay’s creepy eyes I drew on his eyelids haha!

Our shots of Woman’s Revenge hehe

So the shoot was today and it was a gorgeous day for it! Too hot in fact, and we all just about melted into a puddle of mush…luckily we managed to get some awesome shots before that happened!

Eskii was awesome, and took the time to explain this whole emo/indie culture of which I’m so unfamiliar with. I was unsure at first, as was he about the modelling, but by working together we soon got the hang of it and we have the photos to prove it!

There were one or two shots I requested for my own creative benefit, like the hand shots (you’ll know which ones when you see ‘em) and there was one where there is a spiderweb in the shot, but its hard to tell so I didnt upload it.

Please do comment since, well, this is a blography after all Good and bad comments, I want to hear what you think!