Check out the size of my cock!

Apologies Mum but it had to be done. Yes this was one of my many birthday presents  - an jumbo set of badminton and tennis. 

Well what a birthday weekend it turned out to be. To be fair it was more of a birthday week as it started on Thursday- cos that was my birthday. I had the choice of breakfasts of bacon, eggs, pancakes or any
combination of the three. With maple syrup. Well I went a little old school and had bacon and egg sandwich. Tasty! 

I also received presents from my lovely wife, one is a map of Malawi from 1885. 

The other a bottle of wine and a piece of wood to hold it in, although I must admit I did let go of the wine with some nervousness. I have seen the quality of carpentry out here!

Check out the JCB birthday card from my four year old neighbour!

Work was work. Boring, we poured concrete and messed about pretending to be builders. Actually we did do something quite interesting. I have some seats for the netball court I am building and well the excavator we were using was taken off us as we don’t pay any rent for it (same company) so now it is
saving Africa somewhere in the north of the country. I have two pits about the size of a transit van each (end on) to fill. I thought right we will get some boys and some barrows and they can use the ramp, already built mind you, and barrow the soil, already bought to the bottom by a dumper, to the top for a
little bit of money. These two fellas came in to offer us a quote for the works. Well my QS is quite a straight kind of guy. Doesn't mess around, gets on with work. Not like the QSs I have had to work with in the UK (Vaughny Armitage Fallon), oh no! Well you can imagine my surprise when I see him burst out laughing. Laughing so hard he is literally crying. When he managed to get himself under control he took one more look at these two and was off again. Their quote was so astronomically high, and I concur they wanted half the value of the whole contract to wheel barrow some dirt, that they had sent my QS into fits of giggles.
But we had a problem. No excavator and no sub contractor and pits that needed to be filled. Well with a little bit of ingenuity and clever thinking, and I have to be honest here my foreman came up with the idea, we built a giant dirt ramp and drove a JCB 4DX half way up our seating to dump soil over the
top. What I thought would cost us a fair bit of money and take about a week took us a morning. So I was happy with that – you have to take the small victories out here, they don’t come often. 

Thursday night. In my wisdom I decided to keep quiet about my birthday when I went to rugby. We played touch in the fading light and finished as we normally do, under flood lights at about 6.30 maybe 7. Quick shower and change then I thought I would treat myself to the T-bone steak.

Top nomage!

 By the way I didn’t forget to photo breakfast this week, but there is still no picture as I didn’t have breakfast this week.
The T-bone, which to be fair is a bit hit and miss, came up trumps and was cooked to a nice medium. Now before you all cry foul and call me a big girls blouse for having a medium. I would normally have it rare, but one the meat is not always the best and well I was happy it didn't look like it came from the charcoal bag rather than the top of the braai.
I worked my way through the steak, washed down with a beer or two when a young lady came round offering a birthday cake. It was delicious and I quietly asked if it was her birthday that day, when she replied yes I said we share the same birthday.
Well I was not expecting the big ‘oh happy birthday!’ and of course they all heard. Someone decided it would be a good idea to buy a bottle of brandy for us all!

I was not much use on Friday. 

But, in the words of the great Sean Bean, when Saturday comes.....(feel free to correct me if that isn't the title of his SUFC film) I was ready. I had been thinking about what to do for my birthday, bbq, pool party, out to a restaurant. Then it struck me. There is only one thing us British folk should do when we find ourselves with spare time in the Colonies. And that is enjoy a spot of cricket with a darn good tea afterwards. 

Fine figure of a man!

And so we did. Fred Truman, Shane Warne and Graeme Smith would have been proud. There was wickets, and fours and sixes. Jaffas and Yorkers. Pulls, pushes, cuts and more!

Dawson vs Dawson

Then after such excitement we all got too tired and sat down for the tea break. Pam’s now world famous carrot cake is centre front, with salads, chicken, potatoes and pasta we stuffed ourselves for most of the afternoon.

Our tasty spread

Birthday boy with the birthday cake

With a few games of bananagrams (Simon I tried to fight your corner but apparently Zoonose is a word. It is some kind of medical disease – cha right!), beans, uno, badminton and tennis. 

They only thing that took a slight shine off the day was the amount of abuse our ankles took from a particularly viscous strain of mosquito. They were likely the SAS, you didn’t see them, you didn’t feel them, you just felt the aftermath of what they had done.Then the tired little teddy bears all went home cos they were bloody knackered! Well one car did. The other braved Chez Maky where a beer can take anything upto an hour to be served!

Sunday was another tough day were we ate leftovers, swam by the pool, then went and watched the rugby......sorry Mum. Another win for England. We just need the French to do us a favour!

And then today I have started the fifth and hopefully final draft of my novel. Maybe this one will get published....who knows. Next week I am not sure if I will have internet as we are away on holiday with Pam’s mum but I will try and post something at some point. 

Can’t say fairer than that!

Price of the T-Bone Steak - about 5 pounds
Time it took to eat - about 8 minutes
Number of Branta's* drank - too many
Cricketers - 5
Runs scored - four half centuries and an unbeaten 128 NO (Honest!)
Wickets taken - 23 (falling like nine pins)
Best bowling figures - 9-45-39-0-12 (you can tell I follow cricket eh eh!)
Number of Birthday cakes I had - 3
Number of mossie bites - 12 on one foot, 7 on the other.
Number of layers in the cake - four! get in
Number of callories in the cake - 1.264 zillion (taking into account the exchange rate!)

*See early posts for explanation