Cafe Le Paris

Cafe  Le  Paris

On  Saturday,  I  was  up  at  the  crack  of  dawn,  my  mission  was  to  get  everything  ready  for  a  Woman's  Tea  that  we were  organising, it  took  me  a  while  to  get  all the  flowers  and  food,  town  was  much  busier  than  I  had  expected,    and  then  began  the  transformation...........  changing   the  church  hall  into  a  Paris Cafe.....................

We  really  wanted  it  to  be authentic,   so  we "built"  a  road  on  one  side  of  the  hall,   with  black  plastic  sheeting,  I  mean  what  would  a French cafe  be,  without  a  road,  and  pushed  all  the  little  tables  and  chairs  to  one  side,  we  put  up  umbrella's  ,  and  to  make  it  look  French  we  put  bottles  of   grape  juice  on  the  tables with  wine  glasses .................  and  we  named  our  Cafe.......  Cafe Le  Paris...........
We  were  expecting  about  40  ladies.................... and  at  2.00pm  they  slowly  started  to  trickle  in............  I  had  asked  one  of  the  youth  of  the  church  to  "busk"  for  me  and  every now  and  again  he  would  come  through  the  hall  singing  and  playing  his  guitar,  it  really  did  help  to  set the  ambiance, French  music  was  a problem,  I  hate downloading  music,  because those  sites  are  normally  full of  virus's  so  we  went  with  instrumental  music  in  the   back  ground.............

I  put  on  my  best  French  accent  and acted  as  MC  for the  afternoon.........  it  was  such  fun  we  started  off with  a  talk  about  the  inner  woman............  and  how  beauty  really  does  come  from  the inside.......   how  when  we  look  in  the  mirror,  we  need  to recognise  the  fact  that  we  are  "fearfully  made  by  God  in  his  image".................... and  he  loves  us  just  the  way  we  are........ WOW............ We  then  had  lunch  a  platter  of different  cheeses with  French  bread,  to  be  broken  off and  eaten  in  the  true  French  Style................  it  was  a  blessing  to  see the  ladies  really  enjoying  one  another's  company,  how  often  is  it  that  we take  time  for  ourselves,  take  time  to  enjoy  some  piece  and  quiet from  our  children and  take  time  to sit  and  have  coffee   enjoy  each  others  company ............  and  at the  same  time  be  motivated  and  inspired............
Then  we  had  a stylist  called  Sandra Taljaard,  who  came  to  do a  talk  about  the  outer  woman,  well  it  was  amazing,  I  don't  think  I  have  laughed  so  much  in  ages,  in  fact  I  laughed  so  much  that  when she  was  finished  I  could  not  get  my French  accent  back..........

We  got  some  amazing  fashion  tips................  not  expensive  ones  that  cost  a  fortune  to execute...  she  spoke  about  only  buying  clothes  in  3  or  4  colours  so  that  every  item  can  mix  and  match,  she  spoke  about  layering,  shirts  over shirts  to  get  completely  different  looks,  she  spoke  about  the  use  of  scarfs  and  handbags  and  shoes,  some  of  which  were  really  not  designed  for  walking  in,  and  should  only  be  used  for sitting in.................  she  spoke  about  no  matter  what  you  wear  you  must  have  on  or  carry  something  with  a WOW   factor................  she  spoke  about  how  starting  underneath  the  clothes  is  the  best  way  to  ensure  that  clothes  fit  properly................  so  throw  away  all  that  holey underwear...........  and  those  stretched  bras.....................
Her  fashion   "NO NO's",  were ...................  getting  out  of the  car,  and  removing  underwear  from your "crack".....  bending  over  and  seeing  underwear  or  having a  top  to  low  that  your  "endowment"  slips  out when  you  bend  forward ,  she spoke  about our  "panic buttons",  (nipples)  and  how  you  should  never  see  them  and  if  it  is   a  like  of  yours  to  show  them  off,  all least  make  sure  they  are  both  pointing  in  the  same  direction........  and  her  favorite  one,  you  always  dress.....  even  if  you are  at  home,  throw  away  the bleach  stained  shirts  you  wear  for  around  the  house,  throw  away  the  tracksuit  pants  held  up  with  pins...........  and  throw  away  or fix...........  anything  with  a hole  in................  she  then  showed us  how  to  make  26  outfits  out  of  8  items  of  clothing  and  a  few  scarfs.............

And  for  me  her  big  tip  of the day..........  when  you  go  outside  of  your  house..............  you  are  making  a  public appearance....................  never  be ashamed  of  what  you  are  wearing  and  never  apologise  for  what  you  are  wearing...........  or  you  should  not  be  wearing  it  anyway...............
We  ending  the  afternoon  with  tea  and  cake  ............  we  had  some  giveaways.............    and  then  when  everyone  was  gone............  we  were left  with  the  dishes  and the  tidying  up...........  again............  and I  find  myself  asking...........  why  exactly  do  I  do  this..............  and  then  the  theme  for  the  next  tea  starts  to  take  shape...................  "Musical Chairs"............  mmmmmmmmm....  lots  of  posibilities what  can  I  say  I  am  an  events  organising  junkie.............

The Great Debate

I am not sure, what "mad" moment fills me with the need to organise a ladies tea, i am not sure if it is the power of getting everyone together, or the organising everything so it works like clockwork, or the fact that it completely takes me out of my comfort zone, i have never been a tupperware and tea party lady, but Christ has other ideas for me, he just keeps on pushing and pushing until i am not sure anymore what my comfort zone is, and he just lays these mad ideas across my heart and i just know that it will succeed.
Today was The Great Debate Tea, it was all based on a newspaper theme, everyone had a newspaper, a note pad and a pencil, we started off the day with a quizz, just to break the ice and get everyone to relax, i gave everyone a list of questions to answer, all answers were to be found in the newspaper, some times in the adds, in the classifieds and sometimes in the headlines of stories, in the beginning it was very quiet as people were taken out of their comfort zones, but as the minutes passed the "buzz" increased, the talking and laughter began, when i called that it was almost time, what a pleasure to hear that they wanted to continue, they wanted to find all the answers, they were having FUN, they were bonding getting to know one another, helping one another.
Then we started the Debate, i made it quite clear in the beginning, that although my friend and I were debating the worlds side, it was not what we believed, it was just to debate to get the conversations and arguments going....................
And so the first question came up, and we did our world thing..................... we really went to town, in fact one of the ladies said we should have had the TV cameras there our acting was so good............ in fact our acting was too good, one little old lady was horrified at our answers, she just could not understand................. eventually we got through to her that our side was the game, and the bible side was the one that she needed to listen to, she still however kept looking at me as though i had grown horns, and was definately going to a much warmer place than heaven........................
We had the bible table, set up in white, with crosses and religious books, bibles, and wreaths, and bookmarks with deep meanings ................................................
The world table om the other hand, we had set up in black, with Heat magazines, with bottles of wine, with ashtrays ( which had ash in we had to get the car guard to have a smoke because none of us smoked, he also did not understand) with bottles of tablets, with masks and witches hats................................
We took questions from the ladies, and boy did we get some difficult questions, some of the questions were really deep, and it was amazing how because no one would know who asked the questions how people opened up, how they asked things that they have been harbouring inside for some time, ask questions that were relevant to a lot of people.
It was really hard to be on the world table, we kept wanting to be the good guys, we kept wanting to give the right answers, we kept wanting to give the "white table" replies,, we were blessed by having two really amazing ladies on our white table, two amazing woman who know there bibles, but also were able to read beneath the messages and answer those questions as well........
What an amazing afternoon............................. next tea, Adopt a Granny tea................... see you there............................

Afternoon tea

Today my friend and i took her mother out for the day, the weather was cold and windy, so we needed to go somewhere where we could be inside, so we decided on the coffee shop at the nursery. In our wisdom we decided to use my car, which is a double cab, and so we hit our first snag. Getting her in the car was an engineering master piece, for some reason her body does not work like a normal person, who would put the one side in and the the turn around and bring the other side in the car. She climbed on the foot rest, held on to the roof rack, then put her one side in, followed by the other side, my fear was that when she let go off that roof rack, she would lose her balance and being of somewhat bigger stature would turn me into a pancake, her daughter, my friend............... was already in the car leaving me to do all the work.
Ma then informed us that she was not going to wear her seat belt as it was uncomfortable, no problem i told her the fine was R 1000 and as long as she paid it, she did not have to wear a seat belt, needless to say the seatbelt was put on with some haste.
The drive was nice and chatty Ma likes riding around, when we arrived at the nursery Ma informed us again that she would stay in the car and wait for us, now you need to understand that we were doing this FOR Ma............... well we told her that was not an option, so out of the car she got. And although she would never admit she enjoyed her walk amoungst the flowers, i became her personnel assistance, telling her the names of all the flowers, and the prices of the various flowers, listening to where she has seen them grow, and how one of her friends would not part with some of her bulbs, her daughter, my friend............................... was already in the coffee shop.
The coffee shop had deteriorated some what from the last time i was there, we had to return Ma's tea 3 times before she got a hot cup, but the food was good, and the company was great, so we had a great lunch.
Ma needed the toilet, and it was about 50 paces off the path we needed to take, it took some convincing that it would be a while before we were home, so eventually she conceded and off to the toilet she went, the cubicles being quite small and Ma being of a bigger stature, proved to be the next problem, Ma and her stick and her handbag could not all fit into the loo at the same time....................... after about 10 minutes, we began to think that she had got stuck in there, and were just about to call the marines, when we heard the flush and we were on our way. It was a really good afternoon................. and again i come back to how important relationships are, they can turn, cold windy days into a memory........................