december | Keeping up with the Walkers…

I know it’s only the end of August, but there are certain cues that alert me that Summer (and the end of the year) is fast approaching.

Spring has arrived. Yes, I’m stating the obvious but I can smell that the season has changed. I can smell rain in the air. I can smell freshly cut grass and braai’s.
I’m able to run much later in the afternoons because the sun now sets after 6pm. Huge bonus.
The smell of jasmine is everywhere! This is one of my favourite smells.
KK and I have planned our annual weekend getaway to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
Santa Shoebox entries open this week and before you know, it’ll be the drop-off weekend.
I received a meeting invite to a work conference happening in February 2016. What?
We’ve started having casual conversations as to which family member will host Christmas.
KK has already put in his December annual leave dates at work. Yikes!
I have this sudden urge to go to the nursery and buy plants and do some gardening.
I’ve started seeing pictures posted on Facebook of kids in swimming pools. When we were young, there was a silly rule about waiting for the first Summer rains?

This is my favourite time of the year! People come out of that gloomy Winter slump. It’s so wonderful to be outdoors and in the sun. Everywhere I hear people saying, “Shew, it’s going to be a long hot Summer!”

I’m not complaining. Bring it!

As colleagues return to work, the first thing they do is ask one another how their December break was. My reply has generally been “great!” and I really do mean it. For a change KK and I weren’t rushing around planning for Christmas eve, we had loads of time to ourselves and each and every day we did well… pretty much nothing but lie at the pool, watch TV and veg. The perfect holiday in my mind!

I flicked through some of the photos I took during my time off and it’s a great reminder of the fun we had…

Lots of braai’ingLying next to the pool and swimming (and yes, even I swam with my head fully dunked!). This was the view most days of the sun beating down on us. I’m not as pale as I was last year. 😉Jo’burg is so quite over December, we managed to eat out at some of our favourite restaurants, including the Mexican restaurant in Illovo, Peron. The food is superb!Talking about food, a Domino’s Pizza opened up around the corner from us so we decided to try it out. Not bad, but I don’t think we’ll be back. I much prefer Andiccio’s.Christmas came around so quickly and we celebrated with KK’s family on Christmas eve and with my family on Christmas day. But it’s our own Christmas tradition of putting up trimmings in our home which I look forward to the most. We dedicate an entire evening where we have a kickass supper and then have fun placing all our ornaments all over the house with carols playing in the background. Speaking of Christmas, this year we also visited the Bryanston Organic Food Market at night. There were carol singers and the most divine food on sale. The market is just down the road from us and I’m ashamed to say that we’ve never been before. We promised to return after a really relaxed evening out.For New Year’s eve, we slipped away to Mount Grace for a few days of pampering. We entered the new year with massages, food and snoozes.It wasn’t all relaxing. During December, we both managed to get great training under the belt attending as many track sessions as we could. I clocked up over 120km’s of running during the month which really prepared me for the races I’ve just completed now in January. Kicking the year off with some wonderful memories is just such a great way to start a new year!