The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mbewe, Sunday Life Correspondent
WE have been to a couple of places in the city with my girlfriends and this time around, we thought we needed a change of environment and people around us as we celebrated the birthday of our friend. Another girls day out happened this past weekend and before I proceed, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ROBIN NYEMBEZI.
As the girls, we had been planning these birthday celebrations for some time and we needed something unique for it. The birthday girl followed the hash tag craze and said her day was to be called #30788 which is the day she was born.
Like always we have themed outings and this time around everyone was supposed to wear a t-shirt with their name printed on the front and blue jeans as per the wishes of the birthday girl.
On Saturday a few things were bought for the party and everyone was given their t-shirt which was printed courtesy of young entrepreneur Tererai Ziwenga. Each person was given a task as usual who is bringing what and who is cooking what for the day. The excitement was getting real as we had been waiting for this day for a long time and it had been a couple of weeks since we hanged out as the girls due to the chilly weather.
Sunday morning, the birthday girl woke us up early in the morning to remind us of our duties and to keep time as well.
Girls will always be girls and we discovered that she was doing so just to ask us what else to buy and we were sure that we were going to be late because of the last minute shopping.
Finally, 11am strikes the clock, which was the time we agreed to meet in town. Only two people Chele and Nqoe were in town by that time and “surprise surprise” the usual late-comer was the first one to arrive on that day. At that time I had just left home carrying my picnic basket and a jersey just in case it gets cold later in the evening.
At around 12 noon almost everyone had gathered except for one person Roberta and as we waited for her, we bought a few things. We purchased our drinks from a faraway land. The other lot Pamela, Ethel, Roberta and Nqo had to proceed to Windermere without us including the birthday girl.
Fast forward, we arrived at the Windermere Hotel at 2pm. It’s just 15 minutes’ drive from the city centre. When we got there the other guys were already warmed up and were in the party mood. There was one thing I didn’t like when we got there is that the ladies at the reception were not welcoming at all but they could tell that we were not sure of which direction to go till we called the other guys to come fetch us.
Ladies, you really need to improve on that.
The atmosphere at Windermere is so refreshing, the blending together of the nature there just gets you relaxed. The place has so many gazebos to choose from which give you a nice view of the Umguza River. While you relax there you get to see the cows and goats passing by, so parents you can take your kids there to see those animals. I am quite sure that some kids have seen cows and goats on television only.
As we were settling down, the patrons at the place came to collect their fees. It is quite a reasonable price; each person pays $2 and for those who want to do boat cruising you add $3. We were then given ice to cool our drinks while we waited for them to braai our meat. We could not let the birthday girl aka ‘‘braai master’’ to slave in the heat on her special day but she makes good braai!
As the meat was getting ready, we took the opportunity to create memories by taking as many pictures as we could. After some time the meat was ready and we started dishing out the food. The salads were to die for, everything was nice and delicious, girls you really outdid yourself, that was finger-licking good!!
This is the part I enjoyed the most and I was waiting eagerly for it all day, the BOAT CRUISE!! The guys got us ready for the cruise and off we jumped into the boat with life jackets on. Ethel and Robin were getting cold feet and they were refusing to come for the cruise, but little did they know that they were going to miss out on this wonderful experience. After some convincing they got into the boat and we left the shore.
The view of the river in the boat was amazing, the green grass, the trees and the birds on the trees and the sparkling shine of the water. As we proceeded some of the girls were getting uneasy and wanted to go back but it was too late for that. On our way back we captured the priceless moment of the sunset. The boat cruise was amazing. One of the trees there had its roots on rocks which I found fascinating.
After the boat cruise it was time for us to shake our bodies so we moved to another gazebo which was closer to the radio. Another thing that Windermere need to work on is the issue of lights. I noticed that some of the gazebos had no lights and that can be a bit dangerous. People could fall from the steps or crawling insects can terrorise them there.
At 9pm after some serious dancing, we packed our stuff back into the cars and it was time to go home. If you are a chilled person and you don’t like crowded places then Windermere is the ideal place for you.
@rumbie_mbewe
