Ryan's Kitchen, Franschhoek

Wandering down Franschhoek’s main street, I am stunned by the number of restaurants that line both sides of the street, clamouring for attention and elbow to elbow with craft shops, gift shops, art galleries, and the very occasional useful port of call like the post office and a supermarket. In the fifteen years since I last visited, the village has polished, preened and laid  on as many tourist attractions as it possibly can, taking advantage of its picturesque setting and strategic position in the Cape Winelands.

Luckily I don’t have to choose a place for lunch, as I am meeting up with blog friends Jeanne and Johanna and their families. Jeanne has done the research and booked a table at Ryan’s Kitchen, so after a quick dip into two of the tempting chocolate shops,  I head back to the leafy end of the street, where oak trees bombard us with autumn leaves and acorns, and an unseasonably hot and sunny day has us sitting outside on the terrace under the shade of big red umbrellas.

Much as I’d love to be a lady who lunches, it’s an extremely rare occasion that sees me anywhere but at the kitchen table, so I feel like a kid skipping off school as we finally tear our attention to the lunch menu. It’s succinct, with three choices per course, dinner being the main event here, but they are all tempting.

But before our starters arrived, the chef’s appetiser from the lab was brought (in the picture above) – a complementary selection of light as air wisps of flavour dramatically presented in test tubes. The green one bubbled frantically with ‘dry ice’ smoke pouring forth. We left that one till last... when it turned out to be a basil essence with a salty tang. The butternut and ginger soup was one slurp of intense flavour and the tomato foam had plenty of chilli heat. That just left a slightly more substantial cheese puff with a dab of tomato sauce for emphasis.

Palates tickled into action now, the starters arrived to start dealing with the serious issue of hunger. Mine was a generously portioned tuna carpaccio served with a mixture of variously textured salads and vegetables. There was plenty of crunch and bit of horseradish heat  contrasting nicely with  the tenderness of the thinly sliced tuna and the delicate roulade of leek and apple on the side.

Fish again for the next course, as it was unseasonably hot and red meat seemed too heavy... until the springbok shank arrived further down the table to a pang of menu envy from us all! However our sea bass with smoked mash, pancetta and fennel arrived in theatrical style once more, whisky barrel smoke swirling under a glass dome which, when released, engages the sense immediately with warm mellow sweetly perfumed bonfire aroma. Sadly the smokiness was only a background flavour in the mash, but perhaps just as well or it could have overwhelmed the deliciously moist and tender fish. I raved over the fennel too, stewed to tender perfection.

After all this I declined dessert, slightly regretfully as the beautifully plated compositions arrived. But then my restraint was rewarded by a complimentary platter of little mini desserts that came with coffee. A loaf of malva pudding with a beetroot caramel topping, a rooibos jelly with lavender custard ( I ate two) and a square of carrot Turkish delight (take it or leave it).

I loved the touches of theatre that had a certain tongue in cheek grandeur about them, but which were carried off beautifully. I may be too easily impressed these days, (poor little farm-girl that I am!!) but Jeanne and Johanna, as non-jaded veterans of a gourmet whirl around the best of the Western Cape were equally wowed, so I can safely wax lyrical!

Edited to add: Jeanne has posted her review of our lunch at Ryan's Kitchen with wonderful pictures and descriptions of the whole meal, so go there for more drooling!

Foodie Bliss

Living out on a farm as we do, I occasionally suffer from foodie pangs of blog envy. So many gourmet delights are within easy reach of city gourmets -  the latest chic eaterie, Parisian patisserie or artisan chocolatier. Cape Town is close enough that I could theoretically nip in and indulge myself on gourmet delights once in a while, but life is busy, times are tight and it rarely happens.

So this weekend I was in foodie heaven when not one but two treats I’ve drooled over virtually winged their way in real life out to our farm.

The first was some small but perfectly formed bars of artisan chocolate from Honest chocolate that my lovely sister-in-law brought me from Cape Town. I’d discovered them online and written about them but never actually tasted it.

Their ethos is totally ethical – pure organic raw chocolate hand-crafted without any additives, dairy or processed sugar – single origin Aribba Nacional beans from Ecuador sweetened with agave. I was sure just looking at the website that this would result in chocoholic heaven and I wasn’t disappointed when I broached the first bar: a 72% bittersweet orange.

The chocolate had an amazing creamy texture that melted in the mouth like a truffle, smooth very chocolatey and rich – the orange wasn’t overpowering but just gave citrussey overtones that lasted and left a pleasant aftertaste. I’m looking forward to opening the 88% dark bar but am going to hide in a dark corner so I don’t have to share this one!! I also love their wrappings.

The second treat was a beautiful box of macaroons from Cassis, Cape Town's own touch of Paris. I can’t count the times I’ve seen gorgeous looking macarons on other blogs and read the ecstatic ravings without really knowing what all the fuss was about. Now I know...! These were perfectly moist and chewy inside and the fillings raised them to a level of decadent gorgeousness that I hadn’t expected. They were brought by a friend for a family gathering so they disappeared before I could photograph them, but I luckily did manage to taste several different flavours by scooping up and sampling any halves discarded by unappreciative children. The chocolate caramel one pictured was stunning but I was even more wowed by the raspberry, which surprised me as I don’t usually go for pink! However they got just the right level of sweet/tart balance. I am now an official macaroon fan!

And here is a last foodie discovery, that I failed to notice was posted on April 1st on the Fairview blog Inspired by the Indonesian Kopi Luwak, Fairview proclaimed that they have produced a new coffee made from coffee berries that have been eaten and partially digested by their goats, I was getting all excited by this possibly new taste sensation and even composing a whole post in its honour when at last I noticed the tag at the bottom. April Fools... aaagh!

Easy Peasy Pear Cake

Easy peasy lemon squeezy just about sums up this pear cake recipe. It comes from my favourite Jane Grigson's Fruit Book (At Table) and she collected the recipe in France.

Youngest was looking for something new to bake and since my sister-in-law had just harvested an abundance of pears from her tree, all of which were begging to be used up quickly, I turned to the pear section of the book. Two recipes for pear cakes sat side-by-side, both French, both very similar. Youngest chose this one because the pears were mixed into the batter rather than placed on top.

There is no creaming or rubbing in. The dry ingredients are stirred together, the butter melted and mixed in along with the eggs, then the pears and lemon juice folded in and that’s it. Perfect for a child just beginning to bake all by herself.

It’s not the lightest of sponges, perhaps best served warm with cream as a dessert, but the pears are cooked in it to meltingly soft perfection, the lemon juice adding just enough spritz, and the cake disappeared very rapidly both warm and cold the next day.

Jane Grigson’s Anjou Pear Cake Recipe
500g / 1lb firm ripe pears (we used one that was still very crunchy and it turned out still crunchy in the cake!)
Juice of 1 lemon
½ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
75g / 1/3 cup castor sugar
2 large eggs
60g / 2oz / ¼ cup melted butter
1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to180C / 350F
Prepare a greased and lined 20cm/8inch cake tin.
Squeeze the lemon into a bowl.
Peel, core and chop the pears into chunks, then turn them in the lemon juice to keep them from going brown.
Stir together the dry ingredients.
Beat the eggs then add to the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter and the water.
At this stage the mixture will still feel rather thick and lumpy.
Add the pears with all the lemon juice and it should adjust to the right soft consistency.
Pour the mixture into the lined tin, level it off and bake for about an hour until a skewer comes out clean.
The cake can be glazed with an apricot jam glaze, but we ate it just as it was.

Just When You Thought Everything Had Been Harvested...

I guess it's leek and potato soup for our Autumn festival this weekend!

Just hoping that this little guy, who hangs out in my herb garden, won't eat all those little parsley seedlings before they get established. The beautiful row of healthy plants that I had last year all went to seed at the same time, so I'm really looking forward to an abundant supply of plants again, as long as there is enough time for them to grow before we run out of sunny weather!

In the meantime, I'm all out of parsley which is a terrible fix for a herb garden to be in. it will have to be marjoram and thyme in the soup this weekend instead!

Beach Art

When summer makes a come-back and a Sunday afternoon is too hot to handle, heading for the beach seems a good idea. There the breeze is cool, the water numbingly chilly, sun warm but not uncomfortable. This time we hear the surf rumbling from the dunes before we even reach the beach. The tranquil mood of our birthday beach party is forgotten, an edgy restlessness takes its place. The waves are frothy and hurry in on each others' heels, pushing each other at an angle down the beach, with a fierce rip.

The kids play in the water for a while and then get creative on the sand... with a horse theme of course.

His name is of course Blaze.

And then a sneaky wave rushes in, blurring sharp edges.

A circle in the sand defining a territory. The power of a line on the sand is enough to deflect walkers –  two ladies power walking headed directly for the centre on their line down the beach, but took not one step into the circle, slowing and stepping around the perimeter, as if a magic wall repels all invaders.

The girls retire up the beach to begin another horse artwork.

And then it’s home again to find the heat still engulfing our farm, the early promise of Autumn beaten back by a summer that still has some reserves up its sleeve.

First Solo Chocolate Cake

Early this morning just as the sun was rising....

At the stables where the girls ride, there is a tradition that any time you fall off you have to bring chocolate cake to the next lesson. This tends to make falling off an event to be celebrated, albeit with a sideways grin to it. Two weeks ago Youngest was deposited on the ground after the recalcitrant Peanuts decided to go through a fence rather than over the jump in front of him. As it is rare for her to come completely unstuck from the saddle, this is only her second chocolate cake event and she was determined to bake it herself.

Wednesday afternoons are busy. I collect the girls from school, pick up two of their friends for a play date, drop them all home, then head straight off to retrieve our son from cricket practice. I left them to their baking solo. Middle Daughter is a fairly accomplished baker already, but Youngest, though she helps a lot, hasn’t yet tackled a recipe start to finish completely on her own.

While I waited for cricket to finish my phone rang.

“How much is 10ml?” my husband asked. So he’d been roped into proceedings. He’s well used to the mechanics of bread baking by now and is taking turns with the daily loaves several times a week now, but I don’t know when if ever he’s made a cake, so the girls were probably more experienced than him, except when it comes to reading my hand-written recipes of course.

I enlightened him and went back to watching cricket.

The older girls ran out to meet me as I drove into the garage forty minutes later.

“The cake’s all sticky and it tastes of cream of tartar” was my chorused greeting from them.

I went in and examined the mixture. Sure enough it had a kind off rubbery texture that bounced back on itself, resisting spreading, nothing like the recommended soft dropping consistency of the recipe.

After a lengthy interrogation I managed to establish that almost all the right ingredients had gone in, and pretty much in the right quantities. All that was missing was the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). The big difference seemed to be in the order things had gone in. Instead of mixing together the dry ingredients, they had put in the flour on its own and then added the cream of tartar, without the bicarb, at the end after the liquids had gone in. It was an interesting chemical experiment to see how much difference this simple alteration made to the consistency.

Anyway by adding the bicarb and a bit more milk we managed to loosen up the mixture a bit, though it still tasted a bit odd. It was duly baked, rising like a volcano in the centre but perfectly acceptably cake-like.

This morning Youngest got dressed quickly, a rare occurrence as she usually lingers and gets abstracted in thought, to leave enough time to ice the cake. She mixed the chocolate butter icing and then lovingly spread it over the volcanic slopes, finally adorning it with a horse’s head outlined in blue sugar balls with a silver ball star on its forehead.

She was rightly very pleased with her achievement and proudly bore it off with her to school. She’s promised to bring some back for us to taste after riding today. We'll see if there's anything left!

Birthday at the Beach

A summer late afternoon at the beach, one of those rare evenings when the weather is perfect, the lightest breeze, warm but not blistering sunshine, blue skies and Table Mountain keeping an eye on everything. It’s a late birthday celebration for one of our girls’ friends, who has the misfortune of a January birthday: too soon after Christmas to get in party mode, still the summer holidays so often away camping, yet she yearns for a proper birthday party with her friends. Her birthday pressies were given weeks ago, so this outing to the beach is by the way of a late birthday picnic – six girls plus a few random brothers.

We’ve been checking the weather forecast all week to catch the right day – for a place that is all about beaches and sunshine, Cape Town summer offers comparatively few perfect beach evenings – the wind blows too often and too hard, putting the sand into sandwiches, sometimes offering a free exfoliating treatment as the South-Easter whips the sand along the beach surface blasting your legs in painful abandon. This time windguru came up trumps – light breeze and perfect temperatures forecast  for Sunday, a small window amid the winds of the rest of the week.

Photo by Patrick Heathcock

From jumping in the waves to jumping down dunes, the girls were constantly in motion, stopping only occasionally to delve into the picnic.

Photo by Patrick Heathcock

With half of the day to prepare I’d decided to go beyond sandwiches and made some mini-quiches. I love the crisp pastry and creamy filling of quiches and mini ones get more crisp pastry to savour. I often don’t bother with them, because they are a bit fiddly, especially if you blind bake them. This time I googled for a bit and found plenty of people who don’t bother to blind bake – one recommended putting the rolled and cut pastry in the freezer for ten minutes before filling and baking. It worked perfectly, the pastry turning out light and crisp. My food photograph leaves a lot to be desired, being taken in situ on the beach, but it gives an idea! The quantities for one 23cm quiche recipe were just right for making 12 mini quiches in a muffin tin, with the pastry rolled out as thin as possible. These ones had onions, spinach, feta and a touch of nutmeg in.

The rest of our picnic was thrown together – the loaf of bread was still hot from the oven – too hot for sandwiches, so I just chucked the butter, jam and cheese into the cool box along with the bread board and bread knife. There were some leftover potatoes from last night’s braai which became potato salad and that was it. Perfect food for the beach.

Photo by Patrick Heathcock

And then there was the birthday cake.

The icing on the cake was a visit from two horses who happening to be taking their riders for an evening trek along the beach and stopped to greet the girls – they learned the names of the horses but not their riders....!

As the sun dipped close to setting, the air grew chill, the sand lost its heat and, to much protest, we packed up before the official moment of sunset – the only trouble with a Sunday evening outing is that grown-ups suddenly start remembering about school on Monday before it’s over!

Valentine's Day Memories

When I was at school, Valentine’s Day was when you yearned to get anonymous cards in the post from secret admirers. In reality, if you were lucky, you got an anonymous card with a fabricated postmark sent as a spoof by one of your friends. Unless you had the kind of mum who sent you a Valentine’s card just to make you look good in front of your friends... this was boarding school after all, with post given out by the form teacher before school started for the day.... the anticipation, the suspense, the let down if your name wasn't called, those tell-tale red envelopes the envy of the unlucky no-post-today girls.

At university Valentine’s Day continued to be a non-event. Forget about secret admirers – if you were lucky enough to have a boyfriend when the fatal day came round, you discovered he wasn’t the romantic sort, or else got it completely wrong with pink carnations from the petrol station, instead of the single red rose he gave to the other girl in the student house we shared – true...how dare he! That one didn’t last more than a few weeks more!

When I finally met my husband, it turned out he wasn’t much of a fan of conventional and artificial celebrations of romance either; but he made up for it in hugs and ‘I love you' s all year round, so Valentines’ day swiftly passed out of my range of vision as a major event. We invented a fun little tradition of drawing red hearts on each others hand for the day and left it at that.

Except now our girls are picking up on Valentines’ Day as a special day – Middle Daughter in particular who loves any kind of occasion. She spent yesterday making cards for all the family and her best friends, made heart biscuits with each person’s initial iced in pink. She made sure to wear red and white to school – seems to be the South African way of celebrating Valentine’s Day at school and at work. Both girls joined in with our red hearts on hands again, though our son declined the offer. They get to wear civvies at his school today, but I don’t think a 13 year old's credibility stretches to red hearts drawn on hands!

So I feel a bit of a humbug when it comes to my Red Velvet Heart collection of gorgeous hearts... I spend all year looking for my favourite heart products; Valentine’s Day is the big day for people to give heart gifts and here I am neither giving or receiving a heart myself except in DIY form... still I reckon that hearts are for all year round, not just for February 14th, so I'm not too distressed about it! Middle Daughter's heart biscuits were delicious by the way, as well as beautiful and made with love.

What about you? Are you a big fan of Valentine's or does the day go by unnoticed?

Tomatoes in the Kitchen

Last weekend I had a blog post brewing all about summer, heat, tomatoes, sweltering heat and cricket. Due to the aforementioned heat it never got written, as I languished in front of the fan completely absorbed in the The Hunger Games Trilogy. This weekend it is pretending to be autumn. Cool almost chilly winds almost persuade us into socks and warm tops. It rained in the night giving my carelessly forgotten laundry an extra rinse. But there are still the tomatoes.

Heaps of tomatoes arrive in my kitchen from the veggie garden every week, shrieking to be processed. Pasta sauce, pizza sauce, peeled and chopped and stashed in the freezer to save me buying tins of tomatoes for months. Last year with the help of my mother we got enough stashed away to last me till July.

This year I’ve made two huge batches of Jane- Anne's Tomato and Onion soup; one batch of pasta/pizza sauce that I wasn’t happy with but froze anyway. But I haven’t yet got any plain tomatoes processed. So that is today’s task. Blanching them in hot water to loosen the skins, peeling and chopping and parcelling away in bags to be frozen. Wrinkled fingers guaranteed.

I have worked through quite a few tomatoes during the week, inflicting this fresh tomato pasta sauce on our son far too often, but in last week’s heat the tomatoes aren’t lasting as long as they might. Every few days I have to check through the trays to discover the source of the penetrating smell that at first I blame on the dogs. Then there is the laborious business of tracking down the individual tomatoes responsible, removing them and their neighbours from the puddle of their demise, wiping and re-arranging the rest of the tray... the joys of fresh farm produce!

Even though this year we have quantities of tomatoes far in excess of our wants or needs, we haven’t managed to recapture the exquisite flavour of the self seeded tomatoes of two years ago, or even of last year’s crop. I guess there are good years and bad years for flavour, or perhaps our methods are rather too haphazard, leaving a lot to chance. Anyway it’s off to process tomatoes I go.

The pictures are from last weekend, when I made the soup and sauce. The big red cooler box on the table is also full of tomatoes.

A Celebration of Life

There is a thread of continuity running through our lives, that all of the major events in our lives are celebrated at home – two of our children were born at home, we were married in my parents-in-law’s home, we had a naming ceremony at home for our children, and now the final ceremony of life, a funeral service, took place in our home this weekend, which feels like it has brought our celebrations of life full circle.

My mother in law died peacefully in her home last Wednesday morning. It was her time and we were all relieved for her to be free, however sad for ourselves for losing her. While we all knew that her ashes would come home to be planted under a tree on our farm, we weren’t quite sure about what sort of service we’d be able to hold for her. She was a Catholic, but at 89 hadn’t been to a church for many years. She would have wanted a ceremony presided over by a Catholic priest, but we wanted more than just the official form of a traditional service. The priest who visited in her last days was wonderful and warm and we were prepared for a formal ceremony in his church even though none of us had ever attended it. However he came to our rescue and himself suggested a ceremony at home for her as more meaningful and appropriate in the circumstances.

After that it all fell into place. He would officiate and select appropriate prayers and blessings, we would be able to put in all our own contributions, memories and the rest. Our house, spacious as it is with its ever-stretching main room and used to festivals and enfolding gatherings of people, was the perfect venue. We cleaned and de-cluttered as never before, somehow feeling that it needed to be cleaner for this than even for our festivals.  Friday was spent baking rock buns, crunchies, banana bread, tea loaf and heart biscuits interspersed with more cleaning.

The service went beautifully on the day. There was a wonderful energy, more of celebration of her life than mourning her death. We had a table with pictures of her, candles, crystals and shells, her signature walking stick and so on.  Somehow seats were found for everyone. And the service itself went from formal prayers to informal remembering of her and tributes to her. Everyone had so much to say, from moving eulogy to funny stories and informal remembrances, that the priest had to leave before we were all done, so he did his final blessing before taking his leave.

Our children then played a couple of recorder pieces they’d chosen, which bridged the gap and restored the contemplative mood, before we carried on with the memories, so that everyone who wanted to had a chance to say or sing their bit. Our wonderful farm employees, who have been with us for years, sang Amazing Grace in harmony for her.

All in all it felt right, in keeping with her spirit and her life to have held this celebration for her here in a familiar place. There was joy as well as sadness and an energy filled with spirit, created by all the people who loved her, coming together. The overall message was of love, even the priest's sermon was on love and he chose a few prayers centered around the message of love, excusing himself for having to leaf madly around his book between the wedding section and funeral section to find all the right readings!.

We’ll have another more informal memorial service later in the year to plant her ashes and a tree for her, so that family from farther afield who weren’t able to attend can also have their chance to be part of a ceremony for her.

Death and Life

My mother-in-law on her 88th birthday two years ago

Death is just a part of the cycle of life. But it’s a part that we hide from, push away, avoid like an unfortunate, socially inept relative. In books the baddies die, but never the main characters, at least hardly ever. If they did there wouldn’t be a follow on, we wouldn’t buy the book in the first place. So it’s hard when death becomes part of everyday life for a while.

At the moment my mother-in-law is slowly dying. She’s 89, has been getting frailer for years, but we think this is the final stage. She’s at her home on our farm with a nurse and two of my sisters-in-law taking care of her. My husband and I take turns sitting with her when she’s calm, but can’t really help with the nursing. Our kids are just going on with their usual routine of school and play, even though there is an atmosphere of limbo and holding of breath in our lives.

We wish she could go quickly and have a release from the distress and discomfort that she’s experiencing, but dying happens in its own time; strength of spirit fights frailty of body and the letting go process is hard.

My kids asked questions about death when they were younger. They know our beliefs. But this is the first time it has been so close to them. When my father died it was a distant thing, cut and dried news from the other side of the world. They attended his memorial service but I flew over alone for the funeral. Now they are on the fringe of a gradual, drawn-out dying.

Co-incidentally the story book I’ve been reading to them over the last couple of months Roller Skates (Newbery Library, Puffin) is one of those old-fashioned children’s stories that isn’t afraid to confront death in one of the good characters. We reached one of the later chapters where a little 4 year old girl, befriended by the heroine loses a battle with pneumonia and the doctor she brings to her arrives too late to save her. I’d forgotten about this and it came right in the middle of this week of nursing their old grandmother. We started talking about the old days – this is set in New York in the late nineteenth century, before antibiotics and when poverty meant that young children often did die of diseases that can be cured easily today.

At one point Middle Daughter said she didn’t want to talk about death any more, so we stopped. It made me wonder if we should be talking to them more about what is happening around them, or let them insulate themselves with their regular lives and let it flow over their heads. It’s all part of life and growing up, so I don’t believe we should protect them too much by not telling them anything, but I don’t want to force them to confront more than they can deal with emotionally. I’m a great believer in answering questions when they come up, at whatever age and letting things unfold in their own time, so hopefully we’ll hit the right balance.

Anyway I’m glad it turned out that we were reading Roller Skates just at this time, and have lingered over it longer than usual what with the distraction  of holiday time, and forgetting the book when we went away to the river for our holiday. It turned out to be entirely the right thing to be reading, giving enough room for discussion and putting feelings into words and images.

Looking at the reviews on Amazon, most of the adults had fond memories of it being read to them as children and re-read it regularly, while the kids who reviewed it universally found it boring. So definitely better to read aloud to your kids – mine all enjoyed it.

I don't know how many more days my mother-in-law has left but I hope she finds the right time and slips away peacefully. I hope my children learn and grow from the experience of death happening within the family, rather than removed and sanitized by distance. It is all part of life after all.

25th Jan Edited to add: Juju died peacefully in the night with three of her six children around her. She was compos mentis and full of humour to the end. Go well Juju on your next adventure, with all our love.

Summer Holiday Ingredients

The essential ingredients of a summer holiday – water, water, water, sand, mud, water, sunshine, food ,family, friends and more water...

There’s something about being able to get up straight into a costume, paddle up the river in a canoe, drift back down with the tide and then swim in soft brown river water, all before breakfast, that makes you feel relaxed and healthy, living only for the day, letting the stresses of real life fade.

We had a lovely week away at the river swimming every day. Friends were staying just upriver from us for the first few days, so the kids were able to taste a new sense of independence – setting off together in the canoes to go and visit, unaccompanied by any adults.

This house was far enough upriver to have only a very gentle tidal flow, so it was safe enough for the kids to play about in the water for hours in their life jackets. The grass sloped into a sandy/muddy beach slightly sheltered by reeds. Much play with mud and messing about with boats can turn a teenager back into a child in moments.

Of course the horses came too and had a water jump built for them as part of a cross country course.

Only at the river do you set off for a sleepover by boat.

Heading off upriver to their friends' house, with the full moon peeking enviously over the cliffs.

And now it’s back to reality – school, 44C hot summer weather, my mother's visit ending as she heads to Australia to see her other two grandchildren, work to kickstart for the year... time to work on extending the positive, relaxed vibe of our river holiday to cover everyday life. Anyone know how that's done?!