Weekly Winners : 26 July - 1 August

Our extremely dry winter weather ... usually !! ... means we have to water our gardens regularly. Had I known we were going to have a day of rain - and extremely cold weather - yesterday, I would not have turned the sprinkler ...

... creating a magical rainbow ...

.. and forming little upside-down worlds ...

Early morning ice of the sprinkler ...

....needs to thaw in the warm winter sunshine ... so I can once again water my plants ... like this tiny white flowered indigenous ground cover (name escapes me and looking it up in my gardening books hasn't helped either!) ... note to self - need to buy a new up-to-date book! ..

... but I do know this one ... the dainty lilacs of the Virginia Stocks which seed themselves and pop up in odd places around the garden ...

... and the Gerbera (Barbeton Daisy) ...

Now ... a Weekly Winners post would not be the same without a child or two !!!

Soooo .... here is Connor showing me his Ben 10 t-shirt. I made him point to the figures on the shirt as I only needed his hand to be still for a moment so that I could take a photo of his smiley face given to him by his teacher for being such a good and clever boy !!!!

Well done, Connor!

Bradley ended his term with a fantastic report!! Looking through his work book, which was tucked in his bag, I was amazed at his work! For a six year old and in Grade 0 the work he is producing is fantastic .... like this page .. which he explained to me - is a bird about to eat a baby worm and the mummy worm in the hole is saying "don't eat my baby!"

You make my heart sing, too, Bradley ... we are very proud of you!!

For those who don't know - when Jeanette went back to work after 4 months of maternity leave, I offered to look after Bradley on a full-time basis - all day and every working day. It was like being a new mommy again ... nappies, bottles, burping ... snippets of free time when baby slept ... etc. Because of that, I think we have a special bond which I hope will be there forever ...

And now .... trumpets blazing a fanfare .... WINE !!!!

This is the wine I have been having this week. Only bought it because my Somerset West lucky- 'fishes'-who-live-down-the-road-and-round-the-corner-from-the-Cape-winelands family went to Stellekaya for wine tasting recently. What a find! It's yummy!!! The Merlot was the only Stellekaya on the shelf at the bottle store nearby so thought I would try it/had to try it!!

The label at the back of the bottle reads "Hand-crafted wine from a family-owned specialist red wine boutique cellar. The elegant nuances of plum, black current and spice combined with soft full ripe tannis create a complex and unique Merlot for 2003.

Delicious now, (oh yes!!) can age further." Too late ... it's finished!!

Ntsiki Biyela has been awarded SA Woman Winemaker of the Year 2009. "She beat 64 wine entries from 28 woman winemakers across South Africa in this year's competition.

"Ntsiki wowed the judges with her 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon."

Something to look for when next I cast my eyes over the bottles on the wine shelves .... !!!!

For more Weekly Winners go to Lotus' sarcasticmom.com