July 2006 - Mom's Birthday & The Croquet

The Birthday girl..and if it is blurry, don't adjust your set...this camera and I have a rather shaky relationship (ha ha). We made Mom rest in preparation for her international sporting debut the following day.

The day of the Croquet tournament dawned. Luckily the weather was perfect once again.

The Oelofses and Atkinsons between them have hosted a SA vs England croquet tournament for the last few years. The English won the inaugural one and since then the trophy has rested firmly in SA' s hands. We might have been hammered at cricket, rugby and foofie-sliding-on-the-pinkie competitions but boy we are still hot at croquet. I was too scared to tell Mom and Karin that they were a team in case they boycotted coming with us so we said that they had been invited to a barbie... and then gave them the bad news, but they did bloomin well and Mom showed potential to become a bit of a hustler. Maybe part of her secret was that she did exactly what Graham told her to and I was worried we would be suspended for excessive coaching but considering the fact that they had to play last year's semi-finalists in their first game ever ( and I don' t think that either of them had even seen a game on TV before, except perhaps in a Merchant Ivory production..unless one counts Brakkies Breekers moering each other with mallets in Voortrekker Street a croquet game?), they nearly caused the biggest upset of a major international ever (well since Hansie let the Dutch beat us at cricket fresh off the win at Lords)

Our first game was against Jed and Kate. (and yes you may notice that my finger eventually did find that lens.......)

Donna and Rob were persuaded to be honorary South Africans today seeing that the Homecoming Revolution appears to have depleted our numbers a little. Here Graham watched over them to make sure they aren't taking steroids.

Paul contemplates life, the universe and how to swing that mallet thingie without connecting with the opposition's pips. In one of life's weird co-incidences, Paul was at CBC with Ronald!




Cobus and Wendy with the champions, Jo and Ange - an all SA win!






Brian and Edie telling van der merwe jokes! (or maybe they were laughing at the Bok rugby test results to come a few months later..)

Karin and June looking relieved that it is all over.




Edie showing Graham her fan.

Jenny sucking up to the Judge - Ted didn't mind I hope.