Glad to be a Girl

Fallen by Karin Slaughter

2012-02-17T07:42:00.003+02:00

On an ordinary spring day, Special Agent Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation returns home to a nightmare. Expecting to find her mother minding Faith's new baby daughter Emma, she is horrified to discover Emma locked in the shed, her mother's safe open, her gun missing and a trail of blood to the front door. Without waiting for back-up, Faith enters the house to a scene of carnage. It has been torn apart and a man lies dead in a pool of blood. She stumbles across two more intruders, and within minutes they too are shot dead. And when the Atlanta police force turns up, Faith has some difficult questions to answer. But she has some desperate questions of her own. What were the killers searching for? Ex-Atlanta police chief Evelyn Mitchell was once under investigation by Faith's partner Will Trent. Is her mother directly involved this time, and where is she now? With Faith suspended from duty, Will, together with the help of Dr Sara Linton, must piece together the fragments of a brutal and complicated case - and catch a deeply troubled and vicious murderer with only one thing on his mind. To keep on killing until the truth is finally revealed...

I kind of enjoyed this one ... I think all Crime stories will fall a little flat after The Whisperer for a while. Haha. There was an okay twist in this one. But I wasn't exactly gripped.

Be My Valentine

2012-02-16T07:04:00.000+02:00

Well, I started this post by reading thru all the past Valentines posts (or lack thereof) on my blog ... It certainly highlights the truth of the matter that Valentines Day is really not right up there on my list of things to do. It is not a major event for me, by any stretch of the imagination. And as I said last year, the only really vivid one that sticks with me is a picnic I'd had with Bean ... perhaps it's because I have photos from that evening?

Anyway, this year, I'm with The Trucker. And I wanted to do something special for us. He made it clear upfront he doesn't "do" Valentines Day. Which I'm totally okay with (I'm not big on the card & gift bit either, flowers would've been nice tho ;) ) as long as he agreed to dinner with me. He seemed a little nervous it might actually be out at a restaurant, but I do NOT want that sort of chaos or pressure. Besides, we eat out plenty the rest of the time. That wouldn't make it special.

I had lots of really simple plans that came together absolutely perfectly and the evening was pure bliss. Seriously, things are going so well at the moment and life is so awesome (aside from the fact that I'm still not feeling 100%), that I'm a little nervous for the down that might be coming ... but that aside, I am loving life right now <3

So I pictured a picnic dinner in my little garden with candles in brown-paper bags and red lindt balls and chocolate hearts strung from the trees. It worked so well. And the weather was perfect :)

We drank champagne (and the ciders we'd bought at the neighbourhood goods market on Saturday) and ate heart-shaped watermelon for starters (an awesome idea I saw on Pinterest!). Dinner was simple: Tuna Salad with some ciabatta (I even got him olive ciabatta, which shows how much I care because I despise the stuff! Haha). And then dessert was Berry Sorbet on Wafer biscuits. Dessert didn't quite turn out how I'd planned (was supposed to demo it on Monday night for @louisabouwer, but that never happened :( ).

We sat and chatted outside all evening. Spending some time planning our Vietnam holiday (hopefully Aug/Sept) and discussing the last little details for our April/May River Rafting, Namibia & Kgalagadi trip :)

I won't lie, it was about as perfect as it gets *gush*

A Little Bit Sick

2012-02-14T07:48:00.002+02:00

Thursday was quiet, just what I needed. Cause on Friday The Trucker and I got all dressed up and went to watch The Phantom of the Opera at Monte. It is one of my all-time favourite musicals, I saw it in London back in January 1998 and I own the cd. Of course, I know the songs by heart. Strangely it's one of only 2 musicals The Trucker will agree to watching (luckily the other is Rocky Horror, but I have my heart set on forcing him to watch Moulin Rouge too - haha).

Anyway, I wore my Sass Designs dress and off we went. I was ready to be awed, and I think that was a problem. Don't misunderstand, I did enjoy it, but I wasn't blown away. The niggly things: Carlotta's voice was far too high-pitched for me and during the medleys she drowned everyone else out (I think we had Hanlee Louw) and Christine, although her voice was amazing, she looked too awkward, gangly and pointy for me (we had Magdalene Minnaar) ... I can't explain it exactly. The highlights: The set for the boat scene was spectacular, I thought. And no one could fault the guy playing The Phantom, he was spot-on, perfect.

All in all a good night out and I'd recommend it :)

On Saturday we decided to go try out the Neighbourhood Goods market for the first time. Wow, it is truly an awesome little spot. Initially it's all a little overwhelming, crowded with so many stalls with so many options of things to try. We did an initial wander around looking at everything, trying to decide what to settle on for breakfast. We also took a wander upstairs but that is more clothing / craft stuff which I find less appealing. Downstairs we decided on these Seasonal Breakfast pancake type things. They were amazing!! It'll be hard not to have them again, but there are so many other things to try :) We bought some Spanish chorizo and pesto to make pasta for dinner (we had it on Sunday eve with some avo and it was delish!). We bought some flavoured chips, some samoosas (not great) and some cider to take home too. And we ended our wanderings with a yummy waffle to share (and I took home a divine pumpkin & feta mini-quiche for lunch - yumyum). Couldn't believe we were there for only an hour ... and we left with only R5 left in our wallets - no wonder they make you pay for parking upfront! We'll be back.

In the afternoon, The Trucker had to go work so I faffed around at home. I bought some new plants for the garden and started designing my new kitchen :) Later we were supposed to go to a movie, but he was a bit exhausted so we stayed in and watched series. Saturday was a perfect and superb day <3

He was up early on Sunday morning to head back to work and then to cricket. I faffed around and did my grocery shopping and not much of anything, really. He came over after cricket and we had our delish pasta dinner and watched more series.

In other news, here is the update on my MTN saga. So I finally got my 3G activated thru their call-center on Thursday. Should be up and running in 24hrs she said. I left it till Friday when I got home from work to check (more than 24hrs later). Only to discover that although it was now successfully activated, I was apparently not RICA-ed. So it didn't work. Despite the fact that I handed over all my relevant documentation over to the delivery guy as requested. On Sunday morning I popped into an actual branch and got myself RICA-ed (with the exact same documentation I'd already given them) within 5 minutes. The sales guy was very nice and helpful. And yes, this has all been a spectacular advertisement to actually go into a branch and get things done immediately. It would've saved me so much hassle.

Well, let me tell you, after I got home from all my shopping and I finally tried to use my internet, that I'd been assured would now be working, I was in for yet another surprise. Instead of the 2Gb I'd signed up for, I had a mere 850Mb available. Oh. My. Gawd. Seriously. Could they have got not a single thing right the first time during this entire process? I raced off to my nearest MTN store (not the one I went to this morning), where I found their 2 employees standing outside locking up the store. I explained my frustration with this more-than-a-week long process but it fell on less than interested ears. They couldn't help me. Right. Of course not. More than ever I was seething with the incompetence and sheer lack of service from this company.

I had to phone their call center yet again yesterday morning, only to be told that my 2Gb will only kick in on the 21st of the month. Thanks alot. You could've mentioned that upfront :P At least I have internet now. But I am just waiting to see what else they can screw up in the next 24mnths of my contract. Pity they had the best 3G contract, otherwise I would've stuck with Vodacom.

Yesterday I stayed home from work. I woke up with serious sinus, I couldn't stop sneezing or blowing my nose, my throat was sore and scratchy and my ears were blocked. In short I was miserable. I popped into Dischem and the Sinutab, Med-Lemon and Strepsil combo seems to have helped. Am very annoyed because I had to skip gym (okay not that annoyed) and dinner with @louisabouwer (rather annoyed). #sigh

At least I managed to get most of the bookings done for Birthday Holiday 2012 :D And this morning I'm feeling *much* better than yesterday morning ... although still not 100%. Oh, and today is Valentine's Day. And no, I'm generally not into the schmaltzy side of it, I do like any excuse to do something special. No, we won't be going out for dinner, I have something planned for at home. Tell you all about it tomorrow :)

#annoyed

2012-02-09T07:31:00.000+02:00

So, mostly this week is going just fine. On Monday I had a mad crazy busy evening driving around. Gym to Home, cleaned the bunny hutch, showered, made dinner, inhaled dinner, drove off to J9-double0blonde's place to collect some very old books from our previous bookclub. And then on the way back I popped past DJMike's to deliver my empty hard drive for refilling.

Got home after 9. I was exhausted. On Tuesday I went to SCM Dinner, always good :) And The Trucker surprised me by coming over after :) Saw him last night for take-out and a movie as well. We watched True Grit. It was a surprising movie. I'm not really sure what the point of it was, but it had some great dialog. Seriously, watch it just for that. The actress is really funny-looking tho.

And then, in other news ... I can't figure out where my pillow cases currently are. They use one of those US tracking websites ... but the last entry is from Grand Rapids on the 3rd. It's now the 9th. Are they sending it to SA by boat, do you think? (Is that what they do with post? I just assumed they'd fly everything over). They did say 9-10days for delivery ... so maybe I won't worry just yet. The annoying part is they won't just give you an email address to contact them for queries, you have to select all these things, I assume to direct your query properly, but there is nothing labeled "Where is my freaking parcel?!". and I certainly don't plan on calling them :P I'm not even sure their tracking site would update from SA, would it? Anyway, that is the least of my annoyances currently.

MTN. So annoying. So last week I applied thru MTN Direct for a 3G, so that I can finally have internet at home again (I was borrowing one from my mom since Nov, but had to send that back). Wow, I was so impressed with the MTN Direct sales process when placing my order. It was smooth and efficient and apparently my 3G would be delivered within 3 days, but the sales lady said I should have it on Tuesday this week.

So fast-forward to Tuesday when I have an hour left of my working day (and my delivery address is the office) ... I call them to find out what is potting. MTN puts me thru to their Delivery company, RTT, with my tracking code. All fine so far. RTT has no record of my tracking code on their system, could I please contact MTN again. Tell me how there is a tracking code if the delivery company doesn't have the item ... ? But anyway. So I phone MTN again. Nope I must go back to the sales dept because they can only give me my tracking number at this dept. Right.

So I speak to the 4th person of this hunt, in the Sales dept, and he was actually very helpful. For some reason my 3G has been sitting in the warehouse since Friday, no idea why it hasn't gone to the Delivery company yet. Great. So they sort that out and later in the afternoon, I get a call from RTT asking if they can deliver it the next day (yesterday). Definitely.

And hour before I left work yesterday, I start the same process, because it hasn't arrived yet and no one has phoned me (they said they'd call an hour before they came to deliver it). At this point I ask MTN very specific questions about this delivery company, their name, their number (so I can call them directly). And I get transferred thru to them. But they don't answer. So I try calling directly. Wrong dept get transferred to switchboard. Get transferred to the tracking people, they check and apparently it's with the driver. They'll transfer me to the driver to see when it'll be delivered. Disconnect.

I try calling the 2 numbers for RTT that MTN gave me ... no answer. I phone MTN again. I ask them again to give me the numbers, I get two new different numbers from the first two! They transfer me again. It never answers. I try again, I think about 3 times. I finally get thru. They finally successfully put me thru to the driver. Who was fantastic. He managed to get my 3G here before I left for the day.

Later, after gym, when I was home, I tried to call MTN to activate my 3G & sim. Do you think that worked? No, apparently there are no records for my id number & sim card combination. And then every time they were going to transfer me to an operator for help the call just disconnected. Completely. Useless. I've just tried again this morning and the call crashed while they were repeating my sim card number back to me. #sigh

And what really blows me away is that I've been complaining about this dreadful service on twitter and no one has responded at all. Does MTN not have someone managing their social media? How very naive of them. Although I guess we already know that most of these big corporates don't really care about our business or service delivery :P

The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi

2012-02-07T07:29:00.000+02:00

Six severed arms are discovered buried in a forest clearing. They are arranged in a mysterious circle, and appear to belong to missing girls between the ages of eight and thirteen. But the rest of the bodies are nowhere to be found. Criminologist Goran Gavila is given the case. A dishevelled, instinctively rebellious man, he is forced to work with young female police officer Mila Vasquez. Lithe, boyish, answering to no one, Mila has a reputation as a specialist in missing children. She also has a tragic history of her own that has left her damaged, unable to feel or to relate to others. Theirs is a fiery but strangely affecting working relationship - and as they uncover more secrets about the dark secrets in the forest, their lives are increasingly in each other's hands...A gripping literary thriller that has taken Italy by storm, The Whisperer has been as sensational a bestseller in Europe as the Stieg Larsson novels. It is that rare creation: a thought-provoking, intelligent literary novel that is also utterly unputdownable.

This may just be the best crime/mystery book I've read in a long while. Seriously. It was un-put-down-able. I devoured it. And it has twists and turns. I highly recommend this book. Wow.

Full of Awesomeness

2012-02-06T08:01:00.001+02:00

Shoo. It was a good weekend. Am still feeling all loved up :) Which I'll take to be an awesome sign.

I collected my photo frames from The Frame Shack on Friday and when I got home from work I got the brown paper markers out and stuck them all back on the wall. That's them all laid out on my floor, planning the layout, half with their brown paper markers in place. I am so excited to get my photo wall hung before Mom & The Peeb get here :)

Later, The Trucker came over with pizza and we watched Drive because we were both pretty exhausted from the week. Hmmm. The movie was kinda weird. Way more graphically violent than I was expecting. I dunno if I liked it really or not ...

On Saturday The Trucker was supposed to be working, but that got postponed to a night this week instead. So we headed off to The Salvation Cafe for breakfast with @Toxic_Mouse and his lovely lady. Yum. I forgot how truly awesome their breakfasts are :) And then it was off to get lots of admin done. I got a mattress for the spare-room day-bed. And a fitted sheet. So everything is now ready for Mom & Peeb's visit. Excellent :)

In other very awesome news, I've been looking for a new linen set for my bed and on Friday I saw these adorable pillow cases on Pinterest. And I bought them :) They've been shipped already, not sure when they'll be arriving. But I also got myself a new plain white duvet cover & 2 pillow cases to go with them. Once they've arrived I'll decide on either a black or red sheet to match :) I am completely thrilled. I have honestly been looking for something I like for ages now!

We also hit Builder's Warehouse for a multitude of nails and whatnot to get all my photo-wall pictures hung (along with a bunch of other stuff that needed re-attaching to walls).

And then we had a pretty relaxing afternoon ... with some re-planning of our April/May river rafting trip :) In the evening, we decided to go for dinner at Cranks (has been ages!) and I dragged him along to watch We Need To Talk About Kevin. I didn't think the movie was bad ... I was worried that The Trucker was bored during it tho ... it is a bit sloooooow. I would vote you skip the movie and read the book (isn't that always the way?).

On Sunday we stayed in bed surprisingly late (The Trucker slept while I read my book and dozed - I'm usually up at 6:30 on weekends! On Saturday I went and read outside on my bench while the bunnies ran and he slept - it's why I prefer staying at my house :) ) and then headed to breakfast with his sister and niece before getting some grocery shopping done. I also collected our Phantom tickets. We're going this Friday and I can't wait :)

After that we headed off to The Trucker's LMS cricket match ... which ended up being rained out before the first innings was over. Sheesh it was quite the storm. But I can't complain because the fact that we got home early meant my photo wall got hung. Seriously, I can't stop staring at it. It looks so awesome :) (way more awesome than that awful photo taken with my BB shows, I promise ... but you can sort of get an idea) I am more than thrilled with it! And this morning the photos were all still on the wall too - haha. Wow, I adore this boy, he spoils me so with handy-man tasks!

After that, we got some sushi for dinner and watched Margin Call. Hmmm. I saw the trailer for this and was quite keen to watch it, what with it's star-studded cast. But what a *yawn*. Seriously. Usually you can't go wrong with a Kevin Spacey movie ... but this one. It was so boring. I do not recommend you bother with it at all.

The Busiest

2012-02-03T07:39:00.000+02:00

Well it has been quite a busy week! I am ready for a very quiet weekend.

On Monday night, CollegeInstructor came over for dinner. This involved a mad rush last minute visit to the shops because I changed my mind about what I should make for dinner after I got home from gym. I made my Thai Butternut Soup with Prawns. This time I added in some 2 minute noodles as well, which worked quite well ... but I was really looking more for those glass-noodle type things. Anyway. It was a success and we had a lovely evening catching up :)

On Tuesday I was going to go the SCM, but then I wasn't feeling very sociable and I just crawled into bed for what was supposed to be an early night ... well, I was in bed early. I finished reading my book but then couldn't fall asleep ... typical :P *yawn*

On Wednesday I saw The Trucker. We ended up going to a friend of his bday at Schwabing. It's kinda weird that after dating for 8months there are friends of his I've never met ... and then I realised there are loads of my friends he hasn't met either. But I put that down to me doing lots of girl's nights with my girl-friends. See, so I'm not so bad, he may not have met them, but I have seen them in the last 8 months, these are friends of his that even he hasn't seen since we started dating! Anyhoo ...

Last night was another mad dinner rush. But more so because I got home from gym at about 6pm and had 6 people coming for dinner at 7pm. Excellent planning, I know. It went off quite well although I had to enlist some help as guests arrived and we only ate around 8pm (and it only ended up being 4 of us). I made those Smoked Snoek Babotie in Poppadum cups ... except with smoked chicken instead of fish, a salad with avo, mozzarella and tomatoes and then for dessert the Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries.

Shoo. I'm exhausted. But I still have something more to look forward to today (there are so many little awesome things to look forward to this year! It's amazing so far :) ) ... I'm going to fetch my mounted photo frames! Yay. I can NOT wait. Although I doubt The Trucker will have time to hang them this weekend :( (he's working tomor :( ) I will re-do the brown-paper configuration on the wall and go and buy the nails and what not. I will have them all hanging before Mom and The Peeb come up to visit (in 2 weeks!)

The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert

2012-02-01T07:47:00.000+02:00

How did a 19 year-old, middle-class, Catholic girl from Munich become Hitler's mistress and what kept him faithful until the end of their lives? Was her appeal sexual, domestic, political - or did he really love her? This biography of Eva Braun is the first in English for 40 years. Angela Lambert has dug deep into Eva's background and brought into sharp focus a fascinating and unexpected relationship, hitherto neglected by male historians. There are more than 700 biographies of Hitler, yet this is the first thorough study of Eva Braun, his secret mistress. Using never before seen family papers and interviews with her surviving cousin, this book will cause a considerable stir. Illustrated throughout with little-known black and white photographs of life at the Berghof, it sheds new light on the man, the woman and the past.

Okay, so I'll warn you upfront, this is very long at 602 pages. It was perhaps a little ambitious for me so soon after the 900+ page Shantaram. But I waded thru. And wade thru you must. It is very interesting and jam-packed with foot notes (which generally I find make book-reading more tedious than enjoyable). I'm glad I read it. I think it could've been helped with some sort of historical timeline in the front because (since I didn't do history for matric) I am not so up-to-date on all the dates that everything happened or the individual details of the war (obviously tho, I do have a general knowledge of it, but it would've been handy to be able to just know at a glance where in the order of things we were while reading).

I'd definitely recommend it if you have any interest in World War 2. It's quite fascinating.

Still Good

2012-01-30T07:39:00.001+02:00

Wow, can I reiterate again what a difference 7 days makes :) Still in an awesome mood after a lovely weekend.

On Friday night I took The Trucker on a date night ... all secret and stuff like he does for me. Haha. It is less exciting because he puts up less of a fuss about having no idea where we're going ;) But he loved the new little restaurant we tried. I took him to Dukes Burgers in Greenside. I'd never been either.

Well, the service was non-existant. Seriously, thruout the evening and the place was busy, but I hardly think that's an excuse based on how many staff they had working. We waited around at the entrance for a while to be seated and eventually gave up and just went to find the table reserved with my name. Then we had to eventually stop a passing waitress to ask for menus (after watching all of them congregating around the bar area for the entire time we'd been waiting). At one point in the evening, after having ordered a 2nd round of drinks from our waitress when she brought our meals, The Trucker just went to the bar and got our drinks himself because they just never arrived ... and when she brought our bill she couldn't remember how many drinks we'd had.

So, aside from their horrendous service ( and on your busiest evenings, it should be jacked up, really, I feel), the food was good and their menu is quite amazing, it was hard to choose from so many options :) I had an ostrich burger (with brie and something, I forget) and The Trucker stuck with a beef burger with 3 cheeses. I think we'd go back ... during the week.

On Saturday we had a quick breakfast and then headed out to Reitz for the night to visit The Trucker's mom ... who's birthday is today. Highlight of the day was that we finally got to visit the wolves! Basically there is a farm there that looks after wolves and wolf-hybrids. We got to go into the enclosures and pet them and even played with 2 cubs they had that were a few months old. So so cute!

On Sunday we went for breakfast at a little restaurant run by the same guy and then after a nap we drove home. It was a very relaxing weekend :) And in very exciting news, planning for my birthday-holiday is coming together really nicely! Yay.

Loved Up

2012-01-26T07:48:00.001+02:00

Well, in a total reversal of last week, this week I have been in an awesome mood and having a fabulous week! Haha. Happens like that, I guess.

The Trucker & I are definitely still riding the high of our get-back-together :) *gush* I do rather adore this boy, he can be so sweet to me. Am feeling very loved up right now. And so excited planning Mom & Peeb's weekend up here in Feb and a week in CT with The Trucker in March for The Peeb's wedding.

On Tuesday afternoon I went and got my eye-test done. I haven't had an eye test in probably at least 4 years ... And apparently I'm about as close to 20/20 as I can get (without actually still having 100% perfect vision). Basically my one eye is a 0.125 (or something) and their measurements only start from 0.25 ... so I could barely notice the difference between the two. So there is no need for any prescriptions or anything yet. All good news, as far as I'm concerned. But it was 16h30 and I think my eyes were tired after a day in front of the computer screen ... the best time of day for an eye test, according to the optometrist. Anyhoo, will have to remember to add that to my annual list of things to get done.

I also got a few photo's printed ... because on Wednesday I carted off my giant Microwave box of 34 frames to the guy who is going to be doing all the mountings. I am so so so excited. I can't wait to get the photo's all mounted in their frames and get them all hung on my wall. Can. Not. Wait. Should be getting them back next Friday :) This has been such a long time coming ... sheesh, two & a half years!

On Tuesday evening I went to Simply Asia for dinner with @nadia_ass. Less impressive that I was hoping for ... I forget that their normal food is not my favourite sort of Thai (wow, must go back to Cranks soon!) - usually I go for their spicy prawn soup, which I *love*. So the food was a mere distraction for the evening which was spent in deep conversation catching up on each others lives :)

Last night I was tired and spent a quiet evening in front of the tv. But, the Trucker came over after dinner with @Toxic_Mouse :)

*yawn*

A Second Attempt

2012-01-24T07:40:00.000+02:00

Righto, and life continues along it's bizarre path ... last night The Trucker did, in fact, come over. I know, weirdest break up ever, right?

The truth is we're no longer broken up.

He came over, I made dinner, we chatted some more without the TV on ... I think this is actually an awesome new trick I plan to employ. Somehow you'd think that surely when you go out for dinner you'd talk and chat and catch-up face-to-face properly ... and I guess sometimes you do and sometimes you've spent so much time with someone recently that it's nice to just sit quietly (or you can just make up new stuff to chat about, but that can go either way, honestly). But I think what we skipped was the sitting around at home chatting. It's nice to have found it again because I don't think we've done much other than that since Friday evening.

We discussed our days, we've always been very good at that. And actually there is some very promising news on his work-front. Not that I think it'll free up much of his time necessarily, but rather that it'll put him in less of a blue mood. So fingers crossed about all that :) And then I said to him, it's almost like we didn't actually break up.

And so started the discussion around where to from here. Honestly his time isn't that much of a problem for me ... I'm quite used to boys who work late (anyone know one who doesn't?) and are pretty single-mindedly focused on work. All I need is to know what's going on, really. I like to be organised and know what's planned and what to expect. I don't think it's going to be easy. I'm hoping we can keep the upfront honesty going about how we feel and what we want and what works and what doesn't. Who knows.

It was remarkably easy to switch right back (and that's not to say we didn't both think this break-up was for real, we returned all our stuff, we made other plans), although I think we're both a little tentative to see how things go and to take it easy and not put any undue pressure on the situation. But it was really nice and my heart is much lighter this morning :)

Confusion

2012-01-23T07:55:00.003+02:00

So last week was a quiet one on the blog, I know. I just didn't feel up for writing about things when I had no idea what was going on. The Trucker and I didn't speak for 4 days. I think it started out as a little space after annoying each other on Monday evening. Sometimes that's what one needs. But it spiraled out of control and we didn't speak again properly till Friday evening, when we broke up.

Yes, we broke up. I knew from Wednesday that things could go either way. Obviously I was hoping they wouldn't go that way, but I think I had prepared myself for the possibility. I'm sad but calm and matter-of-fact, honestly.

In fact so much has happened since then on Friday I actually no longer have any idea what is going on anymore. We had the most amazing and openly honest conversation I think we've ever had since we started dating ... The one thing I have learnt is that you are a lot more honest with someone when they're your friend than when you're dating them because you can hurt them ... it's a problem, I think.

So, with nothing left to lose, I asked all the questions that had been knawing in my brain and driving me crazy .. like all about the ex-girlf who works across the corridor from him, who lives 4 doors away and who's house keys he has. I got answers that I honestly didn't expect (I thought she was still a part of his life because of that, but she's not and he returned her house keys, which he still had to feed the dogs, months ago). After hours of talking, I actually thought things could've gone either way. But we're still broken up.

He just simply doesn't seem to have the time for a relationship. Well, for the sort I want. He's in a situation in his life where even if he wanted me to be a priority, I can't be ... because he has so many inescapable obligations and responsibilities (3 companies and supporting his sister & 9yr old niece) that can't be the things to give when they start making demands ... but I can. Because of those things, he has a lot less control over his life and his time than he wants, which often puts him in grumpy and miserable moods ... in fact the days that went well are so few and far between I can barely remember them. Things were quite awesome in November & December when work quietened down. But that is far from the majority of the time.

So that is how we left things on Friday evening. But I saw him for lunch on Saturday (was supposed to be breakfast but he was on the road at 06:30 dealing with Truck issues both weekend mornings ... kinda highlighting the point above). He came over on Sunday evening, bringing me dinner because I had no power and we sat in candle light eating and talking more. Eventually the power came back on and he mounted my elephant coat rack to the wall (which was why he was originally coming over). He left when one of his other obligations (software they've written that went down on Sunday afternoon) needed his attention. We've returned all the stuff we had at each other's houses. And when he left last night he talked about seeing me again this evening ...

It's very weird, I won't lie. It's like it's almost the same, but not. I don't have any idea where to from here. I like him. No, I adore him. I even think after all our honest chatting this weekend that he likes me more than I gave him credit for or could believe before this. We just seem to need different things right now. I am the person with space and time, who can keep myself busy if I need to, but I will shuffle my life around to accommodate my relationship. I suspect he is the sort of busy person who needs someone who is equally busy with their own life where you catch up in the quiet time. Unfortunately he has no quiet time these days ...

I did keep myself busy this weekend tho ... it's hard for me tho, cause obviously if we were still dating I would've wanted to be seeing him. But since we'd broken up, it made it easier for me to have no expectations of that. But I worry that'll mean we end up seeing each other again but on his terms, in a way that suits him but isn't what I want from a relationship. I don't know, it's early days, but that's definitely something I'm acutely aware of. More of a problem seems to be that he doesn't know what he wants. From life or me or an relationship in general or really anything at the moment.

So, the other weekend stuff included a fair amount of retail therapy. I bought that piece of furniture I found online last weekend. And I love it. It's a wine rack from River Woods (I got the wide individual) and it is absolutely perfect for the area it's in (on a diagonal wall, under my newly mounted elephant coat rack). Seriously it is perfect. Then next item on my list was the Scroll Day Bed from Mr Price Home. I've been eyeing it for a while for my spare room - I didn't want a plain old single bed in there because I didn't want it to feel like a guest bedroom, since it'll probably only get used about 6 nights of a year (and that'd be a lot!). So I thought this would be more practical for future potential. I plan to get a high-density foam mattress for it and pile it high with cushions :)

Sheesh, but what a hassle. I had originally seen it at the window at Mr Price Northgate. But they didn't have stock when I asked, but Clearwater did. So on Saturday morning I phoned them, to discover they had no stock. But I could place an order, which should arrive in 2-3weeks. In which case, I figured I'd rather not schlep all the way there but order it straight from Northgate. Who, it turned out, magically actually had stock :)

So, after checking if it would fit in my little c2 (omw it did, sticking out the boot, but still!), I bought it and took it home. I managed to get it out of my car and into my house. I cleared out tall the clutter in the spare room and went about opening the day bed. Only to discover 2 sides were bent. So I tried to get it back into it's packaging, I managed to get it out side again, but I could NOT get it back into my car on my own. Queue total single-girl meltdown including tears. This, this is what I hate about being single. There are simply some things you can't do on your own and you need another person for. Yes, you can ask a friend, but I hate doing that. But I had no choice. The Trucker, who I know would still help if I needed it, was busy off dealing with Trucks and I was determined to do this without him. So I phoned TheBrad, who lives really nearby now, and even tho I woke him, he came over and helped me with it all. We took it back to Northgate and they (again, magically), had another item in stock, so we checked it in store and took it back home again and got it all assembled in my spare room (yes, assembly even required 2 people ... #sigh). Success.

In the evening, I went for sushi with @samanthaperry and on Sunday I headed to the Chinese New Year thing at the Nanhua Buddhist Temple in Bronkhorstspruit with @jarredcinman and some other friends. It was pretty cool, absolute chaos of crowds tho. Some yummy food :) I didn't stay that long, I wasn't really in the right frame of mind for it. Afterwards I popped in at Rosebank to get the name of a guy who can apparently do my photo mountings for my photo wall - I really want that done before Mom & The Peeb come visit in February :)

Another Surprise Date Night

2012-01-16T07:47:00.001+02:00

Wow, I really seem to have lost my blogging mojo. Just so not interested right now ...

The weekend was pretty good. Surprise Date Night on Friday was the Planetarium. The Trucker took his 9yr old niece and I and it was awesome. I probably last went back in primary school in Cape Town. Such a fun offbeat idea for an evening out :) Although I do kinda wish they'd kept the lights out and just let us sit and watch the stars moving over time for about 15mins at the end. That would've been awesome. I'm not that interested in the astronomy stuff. And I really do struggle to see how on earth they made up the constellations!! But I am now very keen for the clouds to clear in the evening so that we can use the star chart to spot the stars & planets (Jupiter is in our sky at the moment) that were mentioned. Probably the most entertaining part of the evening for me tho was listening to The Trucker's niece telling her mom the stories when we got home.

On Saturday morning we woke up late and The Trucker made breakfast. He's been promising me his Orange Juice French Toast for months now ... I was skeptical, and I doubt it'll become a favourite, but it wasn't too bad ;) Haha. And then we went to do some shopping ... and I figured out exactly what I need for the one wall in my lounge ... and even better, on Sunday I found the perfect thing online :) Going to go check it out in real life next weekend! Sigh, since I organised my lounge, it seems like I just need more furniture. Haha.

Anyway, the weather was weird on Saturday and we just spent the rest of the afternoon & evening relaxing. We tried to watch a movie, but Thor crashed about half an hour in :P Then we struggled to find something else we wanted to watch and ended up watching Scre4m. Which was a waste of time, but that's sometimes the way it goes with what you leave to watch on small screen :P

On Sunday I had @tfrayne and @zoosev coming over for brunch which was awesome :) After that, The Trucker got his Buell working and he came to pick me up and we went to a friend of his for a birthday braai and the most delish burgers I've had in a while! We went for a walk at Golden Harvest after that.

Back to the Normal

2012-01-12T07:18:00.000+02:00

Haven't been in the mood for blogging ... my blue mood only drifted off yesterday. But now things are sun-shiney again :)

Monday I went for my personal trainer assessment. Yes, I am finally in the right mindset to do something about the fact that I don't have a clue about what to do at gym to actually be useful to me. It's expensive (i won't lie), which is why I think the mindset is so important. I'm in this now for 3months, I've decided. And based on the results we'll see what happens after that. The assessment wasn't too bad, since I had no measurements to compare things with. It was hard trying to find a trainer tho who had free time at my available slots (I am very particular about when I'm available), I ended up actually having to relocate my gym membership to a different club.

So anyway, I had my first session last night. I'm a little stiff this morn, and I didn't die ;) haha. I did get quite light-headed tho, which should be solved by eating something closer to when I train. So I am kitted out at work today with all sorts of little snacks to keep my metabolism up between meals.

I suspect this is going to be an interesting experiment ....

In other news, SCM started back up on Tuesday evening and even that is heading towards the healthy. We're going to try eating as close to 7pm as possible (to give us longer to digest before bed) and then do our sitting around chatting after. At the moment we usually end up eating anytime between 8 & 8:30pm.

The Trucker, luckily, also has a personal trainer (he has for about a year now I think) and he is back in the "be more active, eat healthier" frame of mind :) So I think I've got it covered ... Mom wants to do a 5kg challenge before The Peeb's wedding at the end of March. That would be awesome!

So The Trucker came over last night and cooked me dinner (such a lovely boy this, I adore him). And he hung my new paraffin lanterns, I got fire-engine red ones to hang on either side of the fireplace on the verandah (will take a daylight photo later for you). So we sat outside on my bench, chatting by lantern-light last night after dinner. Lovely.

And I have even come up with a potential idea for my bday. Now if you've been reading a while, I usually pretty much ignore my bday because it is around those April/May public holidays so people are usually away, enjoying a long weekend. So actually having a plan in January is super unlike me - haha. What I'm thinking of doing is a 4-day Orange River Trip with Felix Unite and just telling all my friends to come along if they want to. See, this is something I've been wanting to do since before I even moved up to Joburg! So yeah. The Trucker & I are keen, so at very least I think it could be just the 2 of us ... and then I'm sure one or two other people might be keen to join us :)

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

2012-01-10T07:28:00.000+02:00

In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from a maximum- security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia's most wanted man. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum- dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry and served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler, and fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. His debut novel, SHANTARAM, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. The result is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films. A gripping adventure story, SHANTARAM is also a superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life.

Yes, I finally read it ... and I finally finished it. Although since I took less than a month, I think I read it faster than most people I know. Haha. I figured it was the perfect book to tide me over lazy holiday reading and flights to Cape Town. I was right. I'll admit I wasn't all that interested in reading this initially. But slowly everyone I knew had read it and everyone raved about it. So why not. No matter how daunting the 933 pages may seem. Well, I won't say they flew past, but it didn't feel as tho the story ever dragged. In fact it was rather an epic whirlwind of storytelling ... after I got past my initial impression of it's Lord-of-the-Rings descriptive style (I couldn't read any of the LOTR books because I can't sit around still reading while you take 4 pages to describe one tree :P).

I've now looked the author up on Wikipedia, because I am sort of fascinated with what exactly happened to him after this ... I mean here's a book where he confesses to an awful lot of criminal activity, and there is his escape from Australian prison ... so how is it he is a free man now? Sadly it's not especially well explained. Anyhoo. Take the time, read this book.

Offish

2012-01-09T07:28:00.000+02:00

Wow. So not in the mood for blogging this morning. Actually, it's been a bit of a weird mood weekend, generally. And I had serious Sunday Blues last night :( I know I've been back at work for 4 days already ... so it wasn't really a back-to-work thing, but it kinda was. I dunno, I just felt terrified for the future. Do you ever have that. Where you think, damn, I'm an adult and I'm responsible for all this stuff and it's just scary and you wonder how on earth everyone does this. I'm guessing the general weird mood weekend was to blame. But it still hasn't worn off yet this morning ... I kinda just want to go hide somewhere.

So, last week was pretty quiet, The Trucker worked late most nights but we always saw each other. On Friday evening we went to Cafe Mexicho with some friends and it was awesome, love that place!

On Saturday we went and had breakfast at the new Vovo Telo in Cresta and did some browsing around the shops. He's in need of a new cell phone and I need some new books ... and a bunch of new furniture now that I have rearranged my lounge into the configuration I expect it'll stay. #sigh this is going to be an expensive year and it's kinda terrifying me in the background ...

So after a longer than expected stop and a bunch of shops where we were just browsing around, we headed home for a bit. I wanted to do something cool in the afternoon. I dunno, I feel like all we do is watch Series, go out for dinner and go to movies. I want to do other stuff. I don't exactly know what, but offbeat things. Any ideas for things to do on Joburg weekend afternoons?

What ended up happening was we were both in weird moods (this in-sync weird mood behaviour has only happened once before, but it is not good :( ). We napped and snapped at each other and so watched more tv because neither of us knew what we felt like doing and talking to each other was just not constructive in these moods. It was not a great afternoon really. And it has kinda stuck with me. Although I think we woke up in better moods on Sunday, I don't really feel settled and back to normal again ... I'm weird like that. It takes me a while.

On Sunday we headed to Golden Harvest for a walk before breakfast and then I had my great-aunt & -uncle coming over for lunch. It was lovely to see them again :)

And that was about my entire day. As I said, it was a weird weekend. Hopefully things get back to normal over the course of today.

Inside Coca Cola by Neville Isdell

2012-01-05T07:15:00.000+02:00

Neville Isdell was a key player at Coca-Cola for more than 30 years, retiring in 2009 as CEO after regilding the tarnished brand image of the world's leading soft-drink company. This first book by a Coca-Cola CEO tells an extraordinary personal and professional worldwide story, ranging from Northern Ireland to South Africa to Australia, the Philippines, Russia, Germany, India, South Africa, and Turkey. Isdell helped put out huge public relations fires (India and Turkey), opened markets(Russia, Eastern Europe, Philippines and Africa), championed Muhtar Kent, the current Turkish-American CEO, all while living the ideal of corporate responsibility. Isdell's, and Coke's, story is newsy without being gossipy, principled without being preachy. It is filled with stories and lessons appealing to anybody who has ever taken "the pause that refreshes." It is also a readable and important look at how companies can market and govern themselves more-ethically and to great success.

I really enjoyed this book. I'm sure it had plenty to do with the time spent in South Africa, making it quite fascinating, I thought. I mean I never really considered that a business man working here could end up playing on such a global stage for such a well-known brand (although he is not actually a South African, but still). If you like non-fiction life-stories, I'd highly recommend this one.

Hello New Year

2012-01-03T08:29:00.000+02:00

Sheesh, the Xmas break just flew by. And here I am sitting back at work. Not too many people here with me yet tho. Smart people. Or not, I definitely prefer to save my leave days for other times of the year (speaking of which, The Trucker and I are discussing Vietnam for this year!).

So, what have I been up to? I flew down to CT on Friday 23rd.We got to leave work pretty early and I managed to squeeze in a lunch with The Trucker and his sister before I had to pack and fly too :)

Spent Friday night at Dad's, catching up and watching the Russell Peter's Green Card Tour. On Saturday morning I headed to Mom's and entertained Finny&Jax (the kittens - who are too lovely) while she got things ready for our trip to the Beach Cottage. And then it was off down to the sea! The Peeb and Doc were already there and we all stayed till Monday. The weather was pretty awesome and we swam about twice a day (unheard of usually! But the water was wonderful).

Xmas was a day-long celebration with the extended family, lots of gifts and more than enough food! Everyone loved the Macaroon calendars I'd had printed ;) Monday was spent mostly just relaxing, and Mom took me back to Dad's in the evening (oh the traffic!!). Dad & I popped out for a quick dinner at Rock and then on Tuesday it was off to Montagu to see some of Dad's side of the family who have just moved out there and opened an art gallery :)

We stayed overnight and wandered the town in between plenty of reading and, of course, the cryptic crossword - haha. We ate dinner at Ye Olde Tavern, which was delish :) On Wednesday afternoon we headed home and Dad made us crayfish for dinner!

I'd dedicated Thursday and Friday to catching up with friends but things didn't go quite to plan. The original plan for Thursday was to have breakfast with the Grandgirls (which got moved to Friday), meet up with Jam in the afternoon (she had lots of news having moved up her wedding to Christmas Eve now that she is pregnant! But she wasn't feeling well, so that got postponed as well). And The Divine Miss M and I had intended to go to Beefcakes for their Drag Night ... but we hadn't booked so had to make another plan. So, pretty much none of what was planned for Thursday ended up happening :P

Instead, I had coffee with Interviewing For a Husband (delish Pineapple and Ginger Juice at Tasha's - which I normally hate going to). In a bizarre twist of fate, her life is repeating itself yet again - haha. It's actually quite surreal. Just before she has to leave the country for work (supposed to be for 3 years this time!), she meets a man she actually sees a future with. So, we had lots to catch up on.

After Jam cancelled, I called up @jarredcinman to see what he was up to. He was headed to Silvermine for the afternoon. I hadn't been since before I moved to Joburg - The Lying Pilot and I used to go often. So I met up with them there and we even swam in the Dam ... it looked freezing, but it was awesome! So much swimming this year!

And then I headed to The Divine Miss M's to see what our back up dinner plan was ... We started at Fat Cactus for margarita's and chili poppers and then headed to Miller's Thumb for dinner & dessert. She had a divine chili chocolate steak. I had an acceptable Tuna.

On Friday I had breakfast with the Grandgirls at Lazari's. What delish croissant french toast! And then, I was hoping to see Jam, but she didn't have any time before she was headed off for the long weekend. Such a pity :(

Instead I hung out with Dad for a while and then headed back to the Beach Cottage for the afternoon (was considering one last swim, but the tides were wrong and the wind had come up). Instead I played with the kits and hung out chatting with Mom. We then headed to Satori for dinner. I had some pasta and Mom had a pizza she raved about.

And that was my Cape Town break. I flew back to Joburg, and The Trucker, on Saturday morning. Oh it was so lovely to see him again :) We went shopping first thing and organised our New Years Eve (nothing like last minute - haha). And then headed back to my house so I could unpack and what not. And while I'd been away, he'd put up my lounge curtains, replaced my fan cord (I was worried about it because the bunnies had chewed thru the wiring back when I lived with Varen) and put a switch on my bed lights so I didn't have to keep plugging & unplugging them. On top of that he spent an amazing amount of time spoiling the bunnies with run-around time while I was away. I am still feeling very spoilt :)

And then it was off to The Trucker's house for our New Years Eve braai with his sister, @Toxic_Mouse and @zoosev & her hubby. We had a lovely evening and saw in the New Year quite quietly ... or we would've except for the billion fireworks going off around us! Sheesh. It was madness. Am not a fan.

We had a lovely first day of 2012 too. A lazy morning. Breakfast at Chocolat Cafe. And then a double feature at the movies :)

We started with the new Sherlock Holmes. I quite enjoyed it. But I still dunno why they bothered with the Sherlock Holmes aspect of it. Not that I know the Sherlock Holmes stories well, but it doesn't feel Sherlock Holmes-y to me. And it's not one of my favourite Robert Downey characters either. But yeah, generally good fun.

And then, because there were only about 4 people in the cinema, we followed that up with the new Mission Impossible.

I actually preferred this (The Trucker preferred Sherlock Holmes). It was pure escapism. I didn't really find it twisty & turny either, although I could tell they were going for that. Would kinda like to see the first one again now too tho. Curious to see if Tom Cruise has aged at all :P Haha.

And then it was home for a relaxing evening, with no more TV! Haha. But, we took a nice walk instead :)

Yesterday, The Trucker had some work to do so I only saw him in the evening. But I had plenty of admin to get done. And just generally settle back in at home. I got the last 2 curtains I needed for the lounge (didn't want to buy them till I knew if I need 1 more or 2 more). Did a big grocery shop - The Trucker came over for dinner and I made delish gourmet burgers and berries with frozen yogurt. And then after relaxing over midday (it was too hot to do the gardening I had planned), I did get stuck into my garden. Mowed & trimmed the lawn (can't believe how fast it grows!), cleaned the bunny hutch and went and got some new plants from Lifestyle and got them planted too. Also took out a whole lavendar bush. I was exhausted by the time The Trucker came over.

So yeah, so far it's been a good year :P Sadly that has now been ruined by having to come into work again. At least the traffic was still quiet and there aren't that many people here yet, so it's a slow adjustment.

I don't have any specific wishes for 2012. Just wanna get my house sorted (need a new kitchen!). But yeah, other than that ... more of the same. 2011 ended really well :)

2011 Review

2011-12-23T09:02:00.000+02:00

Wowee. Last working day of 2011. By chance yesterday I happened to read this blog post from the Last Working Week of 2010. Haha, I finished with quite a sense of achievement for 2011, to be honest. The biggest thing I wanted to do this year was to find myself a home. And I did! I mean there were twists and turns and for at least a couple of months I thought I'd be living back in Cape Town by the end of November. But life happens and I'm still up here in Joburg and finishing this year on quite a high.

I have a boyfriend who I absolutely adore. I went on an amazing holiday to Russia & China. I held a baby Panda Bear, I walked on the Great Wall and I saw the Terracotta Army. I traveled a lot more than that this year too. A week in Cape Town in Feb, a week in Botswana in August, and many weekends away :) And most surprisingly of all, I bought and moved into my very own home. See, some amazing highlights right there!

I've seen this on a few blogs and rather like it so am going to adopt it for myself (with a few minor changes) :) I think it'll be quite a nice tradition.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Quite a few things ... Hold a baby Panda Bear, buy my very own home. I'm sure there are loads more!

2. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Um, I don't think so.

3. Did anyone close to you die?
Don't think so either. Wow, it is hard to remember for a whole year!

4. Did anyone close to you get married?
Yes, @zoosev

5. What countries did you visit?
Russia, Mongolia, China and Botswana.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Can't think of anything here, 2011 has been quite an amazing year.

7. What date, from 2011, will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Quite a few, really: 26 April, which was my 31st birthday, spent alone in Moscow. 12 May, when I held a baby Panda Bear. 17 May, the day I got back from my holiday and officially got myself a new boyf ;)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Definitely buying my own home!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Tricky. It was a rough year work-wise with the merger. Apparently I'm initimidating in the office. I just have very high expectations of other people, I think. So probably that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major or memorable. Oh wait, I did get tonsilitis for the very first time!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A whole house, obviously. Haha. The other thing I'm rather crazy about at the moment is my garden bench tho :) Oh, and my giant TV.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The Trucker. Wow, he has had some stellar moments, from taking my car to be panel-beaten to buying me groceries on my return from holiday to organising a long weekend away and so many little things.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Um, hard to say really. No one in particular springs to mind

14. Where did most of your money go?
Holidays & Houses ;)

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Holidays and Houses ... hahaha.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Tricky. Maybe Martin Solvieg's Hello. The whole Florence & the Machine Lungs album?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder? I think probably happier. At very least I have more to be happy about :)
Thinner or fatter? roughly the same, I'd guess
Richer or poorer? Poorer, but Xmas bonuses & gifts are doing a lot to restore the balance of the very expensive house-buying process! At the end of last year, I also had a whole bunch of my savings allocated to my Russia & China trip ...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Nothing really.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Doubted & Questioned myself. This self-confidence thing needs a boost, although it does fluctuate. As I write this I'm still riding a blissful warm & fuzzy high (which does have moments of doubt, but they're easier to ignore when feeling so upbeat about life!)

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
In the traditional way, at our beach cottage in Cape Town, with my awesome extended family.

21. How will you be spending New Year?
Back in Jozi, with The Trucker.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
It looks like I may have ;)

23. How many one-night stands?
None, how impressive am I? Actually I've only kissed 2 boys this year.

24. What was your favourite TV programme ?
Sheesh. This one is tricky, I tend to have a good stable of shows I watch, but some new ones have been added. I like Body of Proof. And was sorry they cancelled the Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour.

25. What did you want and get?
I'm guessing this is an obvious one ... my home :)

26. What did you want and not get?
More leave days? Haha.

27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 31 in Moscow, Russia ... all on my own. Not the smartest move on my part. I thought it'd be fine, but it wasn't great at all. Being away from everyone I know on my birthday is not a mistake I'll make again.

28. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Gotta be the same old favs, Robert Downey Jnr & Eric Dane :) *swoon*

29. Who did you miss?
My mom. Always, being far away all the time is hard.

Nearly there

2011-12-22T07:39:00.000+02:00

Just a day & a half of work to get thru and then it's Xmas break. I can't wait, I'm flying down to CT on Friday evening :) Pity that The Trucker won't be joining me this time :(

On Monday I got so annoyed at work. Last week I ordered part of The Trucker's Xmas pressie online from YuppieChef. And I ordered myself some Springleap shirts. So when they sent me an email saying my order was being dispatched, I emailed the office reception to let them know I was expecting 2 packages, who the were from and the fact that since I'd ordered the YuppieChef one as a gift, it might come addressed to The Trucker, but it was, in fact, for me. And could they please sign for them and keep them for me if they arrived last Thursday while I was on leave. I said all this. I asked them later in the day (last Tuesday) if they'd both (our 2 receptionists) seen my email. Yes, yes.

On Wednesday before I left for the day (having seen that the tracking site said my YuppieChef order had been scanned out for delivery that morning), I checked with them again if anything had arrived. Nope, nothing yet.

So on Monday, when the status on the tracking site is still scanned out for delivery, I'm confused. I call reception. Nope there was nothing there for me. So I called the tracking company. Who eventually called me back to tell me that Receptionist One had signed for it last Wednesday at 9am (while I was actually in the freaking office!!) and they could send me a scan of the waybill to prove it. Mkay, yes, send away. Now, on Monday, Receptionist One is off on leave and not answering her phone ... or sms since I have yet to hear back from her still!! So I spent my morning trying to track down this package.

She'd sent it to our Cape Town office where someone with the same name (although spelt differently) as The Trucker works. OMG I was so angry! Luckily our CT office overnight couriered it back to me unopened (the guy in CT is already on leave and none the wiser). So yes. Annoying!

Anyway, on Monday evening I got take-out Chinese (after 40mins of waiting ... I know there were 3 orders ahead of mine, but seriously! Won't be going back there in a hurry) went over to The Truckers. We started watching Grimm then had a brief work-related excursion to go meet one of the trucks. And then it was pretty much time for bed. A truly uneventful evening, which did not feel like the relaxing-on-the-couch one I had in mind.

On Tuesday evening I went to @jarredcinman's for dinner. Was a lovely evening :) And then last night it was off to Gourmet Garage for dinner with The Trucker, CollegeInstructor and @Toxic_Mouse. Yumyum, have not had chili-cheese fries and a peanut butter burger in ages. We rolled out of there tho (as is tradition). Too much food. But so good :) Was another lovely evening.

Christmas Wish List

2011-12-20T15:36:00.007+02:00

Mkay, it is probably too late, but I feel it is time to do a Gift Wish List (hey, I have a bday in 4 months too! Haha). I'm feeling like a terrible girlf because The Trucker came up with a list a mile long in a brief shopping trip 2 weeks ago which has made him easy as pie to shop for :) Me, I'm being difficult :P I can't think of anything really. I mean there is loads I want but none of it seems Xmas appropriate. It's all stuff I'll eventually (probably) get round to buying for myself. It's practical sort of stuff. It's boring. (Or it's impossible) So anyway, I was browsing thru my lists of previous birthday (surprisingly few) and xmas (none) wish lists and figured I should make another for the next time I get asked. I mean that is one of my favourite things about having a blog ... that there is a record of stuff ;) Haha.

So here it is, in no particular order whatsoever. Some stuff is still from an old list (which I haven't managed to get yet, but I was amazed at how well I've actually done).

1. Lady of Abu Simbel by Christian Jacq
I still need this one book to complete my collection of the Ramses series. But because I'm fussy, it has to be a matching cover to the 4 I already own. So to make things simpler, I've now tracked down the actual ISBN Number of the cover I want (published by Simon & Schuster in 1998): 9780684821221.

2. A gladtobeagirl necklace from Collect Jewellery
Not sure if they still make their custom-text necklaces actually, have mailed them to find out :) But yes, I definitely still want this one!

3. Random Kitchen Paraphenalia
I need oven gloves ... I have since I left Varen's house in January 2010. Clearly this is not urgent. But I still need them. But, again, I'm fussy. And I can't decide about plain old simple material ones (but with a cool material!) or those new fancy silicon ones. I need a new electric beater ... Hand mixing is doable but less than ideal! And I want at least 6 champagne glasses (although I have no space in my current kitchen for them ... but that will come). I'm sure there is more here ... my Blender broke before I moved (or rather I noticed it had broken when I last tried making Nam-Jim Chicken), but that's far less urgent. And I can't decide if the jug one or hand-blender is better. Thoughts?

4. DNA Mapping
Okay, I know this is totally peculiar, but I'll probably never buy it for myself and I've wanted to do it for years now (originally the National Geographic Genographinc project, but now there are so many more options out there so who knows which is best these days!) I'm definitely more into the mitochondrial & y-chromosome ancestor tracking than the health/physical stuff I've also seen, but I think it's all fascinating & interesting. Weird, I know. But I guess if you're looking for that unique niche of something I really want but am unlikely to ever get round to getting for myself, this is the one.

5. New Bedding
Yawn. Boring, I know. But I've been looking since I moved (okay, only 2 months, I know), and I've found nothing that grabs me. I absolutely *adore* the bedding I bought last year when I got my gorgeous 4 poster bed. And I did love my old duvet set when I originally got it (probably about 3 years ago or more), but it is faded and the buttons have popped off and it's time for something new. I am now considering a plain white duvet cover with a bright sheet and then 2 white pillow cases with the other 2 pillow cases matching the mad sheet colour.

6. Bedside Tables
Yup, haven't had these in years! But they do kinda finish a room off ... and it's nice to have a drawer or two to hide things away in or a counter top for a glass of water. I have spotted these that I rather like (from DeraKera, same as my bed) ... but there are no prices on their website. I've mailed them and asked for the prices & if they have stock. Maybe I'll get lucky and get these for myself in Jan :) Am a little worried the wood may not match the bed tho. They will definitely need to be seen in real life first! (Oh, and yes, I'd still absolutely love that big silver cat from DeraKera too ... for my keys ;) )

7. Noise Cancelling Headphones
Okay these are another one I'm unlikely to buy for myself ... not because I don't use my little iPod earphones daily at work, but rather because I am not sure I could justify the expense. And although I do occasionally wish for them in my open-plan office, I'm not sure I'm the head phone sort. I'm definitely much more the teeny hide-away earphone sort. Although my ears do sometimes get tired & sore wearing those iPod ones. Perhaps these B&W C5's would suit my requirements? Can you even get them in SA?

8. New Birkenstocks
No, no, I'm not a hippy. But I do like my Birkenstocks. The current pair I have, I bought, probably, about 6 years ago. I almost bought myself some brand spanking new white ones (which is the colour I currently own) while in China, but I decided not to. Now I wish I had. Mine are starting to separate. And I'd guess nothing is more hippy than owning Birkenstocks in the first place, except maybe owning such old ones that are falling apart ... Hahaha. Another boring one ... and one I'm definitely likely to buy for myself in the next 6 months, I'd guess.

9. iPod Speaker
Oh, and while we're wishing ... This is another one of those things that I'd like but I dunno how much I'd use, but it'd be nice to have, but I'd probably never be able to justify the expense to buy it for myself. The problem here is that the only iPod speaker I've ever seen that I actually like (because I have a love-hate relationship with sound-systems and alien speakers in the lounge anyway) is the tall column one. Of which there is currently only 1 option available in SA that I've seen ... and I don't know how in love with that specific one I am. See, I'm about speaker subtlety and aesthetics (which I know are all matter of opinion anyway).

10. Cowboy Hat
Oh yes. I've been looking for one of these for at least a year now ... probably longer (but I tend to forget to keep on the lookout). A friend of mine has an absolutely awesome one which I adore ... and I can not seem to find one in any shop that I get that gut feel about. There's always something wrong. So yeah, I want a nice straw cowboy hat. But this is another I need to see it to know kinda things. Or, maybe it's a someone buys it and I have no choice and no comparison so I love it anyway kinda things ... who can tell, really.

See, fussy. And most of these things are probably far too expensive anyway ... but at least now I have a list for when I go shopping for myself next year - haha ;)

Them by Jon Ronson

2011-12-20T09:54:00.000+02:00

Them: Adventures with Extremists is a romp into the heart of darkness involving 12-foot lizard-men, PR-conscious Ku Klux Klansmen, Ian Paisley, Hollywood limousines, the legend of Ruby Ridge, Noam Chomsky, a harem of kidnapped sex slaves, David Icke, and Nicolae Ceausescu's shoes. While Jon Ronson attemps to locate the secret room, he is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses CEOs and leading politicians undertake a bizarre pagan owl ritual in the forests of Northern California. He also learns some alarming things about the looking-glass world of them and us. Are the extremists right? Or has he become one of Them? This is a fascinating investigation into extremists of every stripe.

I thought this sounded interesting. It kinda was. I dunno, it's not an easy read. Some bits I found more interesting than others. Needless to say there are some people with some very strange beliefs in the world.

Dive 2011

2011-12-19T09:20:00.002+02:00

So on Wednesday afternoon, around 4pm we were supposed to be heading off to our overnight stop in Pongola. As seems to be tradition with the Pajero, we departed a good 2hrs late. But we were off, The Trucker, me, @Toxic_Mouse and another couple. Which means we only arrived in Pongola at around 01:30 on Thursday morning. The lengthy drive was slowed by some tedious stop-go's and, of course, dinner.

But the Dive Inn was accommodating and opened up for us and we got a good night's sleep (thank goodness for aircon!). We started the morning with a breakfast stop in Pongola's Wimpy and then it was straight thru to Sodwana, with a quick stop for a few snack provisions and booze in Mbazwana.

I won't lie, The Trucker organised us some awesome accommodation at Mseni Lodge. It was inside the reserve / National Park (which was mostly awesome, up until we tried to leave on Sunday, but more on that later). It has a path onto the beach (not the dive-beach, the beach on the other side of the point, which is gorgeous and un-touched and mostly completely private). And we had a lovely little self-catering chalet to ourselves. Was fantastic and I'd highly recommend it :) It made for the perfect base for the weekend.

On Thursday when we arrived we settled in and took a stroll down to the beach (we were literally the only people in sight!) and went for a swim (shoo, the waves & current were pretty rough!). And then a dip in the pool to de-salt ;) The water was all fantastically warm!

We went for a drink at the Lodge Restaurant. Let me just warn you, do not order their Nacho's. We were quite unimpressed with the R50 meal that couldn't have been more than a tiny bag of Doritos with some melted cheese. Barely enough for the 5 of us to share!

After that we headed back to our chalet and had a surreal experience with a baby Bushbaby. The Monkeys came past our chalet stealing a box of biscuits and a bag of sugar (we'd forgotten that we'd left the kitchen window open while we were sitting chatting on the balcony). So we were chasing them away and suddenly I saw something that wasn't a Vervet. It was a Bushbaby. Now I've never really seen more than the eyes of one of these at night (I would guess most people hadn't). But clearly the monkey troop coming thru was bothering this one. Turns out it was a Mommy Bushbaby because very quickly after I spotted her we could hear her babies. And then we could see them (I saw 2 running on the ground). We assume trying desperately to get away from the monkeys. We scared off the monkeys (not very far, they still kept trying their luck). And the Mom disappeared ... but there was one Bushbaby left behind crying it's heart out. Now this was just encouraging the monkeys who were definitely trying to get at it. It was breaking my heart. Obviously it was trying to tell it's Mom where it was and to come get it but with the monkeys around she wasn't coming near (I assume she managed to save at least one of her little ones).

Anyway, the baby came towards us, close enough that it actually bit me (I was trying to pick it up and take it ... where?). It didn't break skin, it's teeth were no where near strong enough. Poor thing was terrified. We watched it in the tree (which it climbed up off the floor) and scared off the monkeys as long as we could. We did hear the mother again but never saw her. We eventually had to go for our dive-briefing at 6pm so have no idea what happened to the poor little guy ... he wasn't there when we got back later. *sob* I'm choosing to believe it's mother came and got him. #sigh at Nature.

Anyway. We had our dive briefing. We dived with Amoray this weekend. The best part of the whole thing: It was just our group (3 of us for the most part) diving all weekend alone with them .. .except for our very last dive on Saturday. How divine is that? It really was :)

And then we decided to have dinner at the Lodge Restaurant (even after our poor Nacho's experience earlier). But we ate well, once you get over the pricing. Good prawns, not so great calamari. Apparently the steak was good too :)

We were up and at the parking lot, ready for our first dive at 7am on Friday morning. The Trucker is definitely the best boyf dive-partner I've had :) And we had awesome dives. Lots of turtles on the first dive (which I love!). No sharks at all (I'm totally okay with that). So serious surge & current in the water tho. But the Sodwana reefs are quite lovely coral-wise. Our last dive was the least impressive fish-wise but the corals were gorgeous. We mostly dived 2mile but on Saturday's first dive we headed out to 5mile and did Ribbon. And we got to see the blue&yellow Ribbon Eel :) The diving was good. It was nice to dive again after so long. But I think I dived as much as I needed. This is never going to be something I could spend a week doing.

Mostly the rest of the weekend was spent napping (sheesh I was exhausted by the diving), walking on the gorgeous dunes at the beach, swimming and relaxing (I read a lot less than I thought I would). And then eating out. On Friday night we went to The Lighthouse which, honestly, made one of the best pizza's I've ever had. It was amazing! The base was so so so thin (imagine a tortilla?). I had the Aubergine and Haloumi one and it was delish. Seriously, eat here.

On Saturday night we were going to braai but it just seemed like too much effort, so instead we went to The Sodwana Bay Lodge Restaurant called Leatherbacks. I wasn't terribly impressed by this place, honestly. I had their sole which was nice enough tho.

And then on Sunday morning we were up and packed and ready to leave our little chalet at 07:30am. We planned to stop and have breakfast at the Wimpy in Pongola again. All plans were thwarted as we arrived at the little area next to the petrol pumps and shop in the Park. The place was gridlocked. No one knew yet what was going on exactly, but slowly the story unfolded.

See, usually (apparently) you can drive your big ol' 4x4 right onto the beach sand here at Sodwana (apparently these people have been doing it for the 16 - 26 years they've been coming here year after year). And this year the government has clamped down and told the Parks Board to limit it and enforce a new system that allows only 200 vehicles onto the beach per day. We made a vague attempt to get one on Thursday afternoon (you have to get one between 16h00 and 18h00 for the following day). But decided that queuing wasn't on our holiday agenda and we didn't really need to take our Pajero right to the Dive Set-up Area. So we gave the permit a skip and enjoyed the rest of our weekend.

Clearly tho, the rest of the arriving holiday crowd was less than impressed by this new system tho and 2 cars decided to blockade the entire Park (since there is only 1 road in and out, this was not as tricky as one might think). And no one was going anywhere.

Sucked for the people stuck on the other side trying to start their holidays. Sucked for those of us trying to leave and get back home. Did not suck for those people here for the next 3 weeks who just took their cars and boats back to their camp sites and walked to the beach instead. I gather the diving was pretty much cancelled too tho (Amoray stores their boats at Mseni so couldn't get them out either, I expect more dive companies were affected similarly).

So anyway, these people just ended up annoying us completely. We had breakfast at Mseni Lodge Restaurant instead ... meh. We waited around some more. We went for a swim in the Pool (much needed). We tried to find alternate routes out of the Park.

It was a big fat giant waste of time. They didn't win. In fact they achieved very little in the grand scheme of things and the way it sounded they were planning on barricading the beach this morning from 4am too. Well, I guess everyone likes to spend their holidays differently :P I won't lie, I've never much understood striking. This was just dumb in my opinion. I mean sure if you want to protest against something you believe in, go right ahead. But I don't care one bit about your beach permits (in fact, if I'm honest, I don't think any of you should be allowed on the beach at all actually - except perhaps people launching boats but who knows?) so why are you forcing me into your protest. You are not making friends here.

The cars who blocked the road were both very distinct (one with company branding even! Yes, you, Gawie Steyn, Manager at http://www.st74x4.co.za/) and we got their license numbers. I gather tho that there was quite a lot of support for their cause ... but I still kinda hope that the Parks Board bans both of them for 10years at least. (UPDATE 21Dec2011: Here's an article from the news yesterday, seems things got even more crazy after we left!)

So yes, a very annoying morning but we finally exited the Park at 13h15 and The Trucker got us home just after 9pm.

And now to survive another week of work ... thank goodness I had a really lovely long weekend :)

We Made It

2011-12-14T07:23:00.000+02:00

Whoohoo, this afternoon we're heading off to Sodwana till Sunday. Yay. Mini-break. Diving. Can't wait :) Just gotta survive today at work. Which will hopefully be easy ... it has been nice and quiet this week so far.

Monday night I had a quiet night at home with Series. Yesterday was our last SCM for 2011. Wow, this year is practically over!

And the best news of all? I managed to get thru yesterday without a break-up. Haha. I wasn't really worried ... ask me again if The Trucker & I are still together in 2013 tho, when 13 December will fall at roughly the 2.5 year mark. Then I will be a little nervous ;)

Feeling the Love

2011-12-12T07:58:00.000+02:00

Another Monday, but this morning I'm still in a good mood. I've been in a good mood since Thursday morning! All filled with the warm & fuzzies inside, it is awesome :) Haha.

So, Thursday evening was quiet, The Trucker came over and we got Luca's salad for dinner (after all the Xmas eating last week). And watched some series and just generally had a relaxed evening :)

On Friday we were supposed to go to drinks with some friends but the weather was all miserable and just made us wanna stay in on the couch and watch tv (which we did). Toasted sarmies for dinner and movies. Sometimes that's exactly what you need ;)

We started with In Time. I'd heard that this was good from a friend, but we were obviously unsure what with JT headlining the cast. But the concept really was very cool :) I'd recommend watching it just for that.

Next up we watched Cowboys and Aliens. I got a little more interested when I saw it had Daniel Craig but jees, it was a total yawn-fest. In fact I think I did actually fall asleep at one point. The Trucker enjoyed it, apparently. So maybe don't take my word for it?

Apparently the fact that Thirteen starred in both of these movies was pure fluke, but I have my doubts ;) Haha.

On Saturday we started with breakfast with the crowd we're off to Sodwana with on Wednesday evening. Can I just say how amazing it is to have a boyfriend who actually organises stuff. Like says "Hey let's go diving on that long weekend" and even tho you never mention it again (seriously, I thought it would just fade into nothingness and be forgotten ...), it all gets organised. I'm still surprised, but very happy :) Breakfast was good and I started to really get excited for the long weekend.

And then it was off to get all our Xmas shopping done. Cause now that we're away for the long weekend, this was our last chance before I head off to Cape Town to get everything bought. I am so pleased that The Trucker is like me about gifts: Tell me what you want and I'll get it for you. Sigh, such relief. I was really worried he would want surprise and intrigue. I am not into that for gifting. I want to buy someone something that I know that they want (which I did because it was something I remembered him mentioning he wanted months ago, but he'd forgotten. But in my book it definitely requires asking to make sure he still wants it!). Also, I want to receive something I want, not something I have to fake a smile at and think to myself now what on earth do I do with this dust-catcher :P Practical all the way ;) Haha. Although I don't think I have been very helpful to him since I have been doing so much of my own shopping for the house lately.

Anyway, we got a lot done, stopped to share a waffle at Milky Lane (love doing that!) and then went home to recover from the mall-chaos. I fell asleep while he watched Team America again. This was a surprise since he's usually the one who naps. Haha.

We had a very similar evening to Friday but with delish home-made pizzas for dinner cause we had to be up and at the dive-pool at 8:30am for a quick refresher. Am so glad we did that. And The Trucker surprised me yet again. I always kinda expect that a more advanced diver will get annoyed when paired with a weaker one (because I dive so seldomly). But he didn't he was amazing and helpful. (Can you tell that I'm feeling quite gushy about this lovely boy at the moment? Haha).

So now I am even more excited about going diving again. Haven't been since Zanzibar in 2009! And before that, I think it was Mozambique in 2007 (which was the last time I actually wore my wet suit!!). Yip, I average one dive trip every 2 years ;)

After some much needed breakfast, it was off to finish the Xmas shopping and then home for a nap. And then some quick baking of my spinach & feta pie (again) for another Xmas dinner, this time at DJMike's. They had 18 people over and the food & decor was amazing. Was a really lovely evening.

And now we really do begin the end-of-year slide ... 3 working days till it's off to Sodwana with The Trucker & friends. And then a mere 7.5 working days till I'm off to CT for Xmas with the family. It's gonna fly past!

Missing & Murdered by Alan G Morris

2011-12-09T12:25:00.000+02:00

What can human bones tell us of a person's life, or even death? How can information from bones solve mysteries both modern and ancient? And what makes the study of skeletonised human remains so imperative in southern Africa? The answers to these and other questions are contained in Missing & murdered, which lays bare the fascinating world of forensic anthropology. As the popularity of TV programmes such as the CSI trilogy and Silent Witness attests, people are fascinated by forensic science as a means of solving crimes, and in this book Alan G. Morris follows the pathway into forensics via the fields of anthropology and anatomy. He makes the practice of forensic anthropology, the skills base of skeletal biology and the study of archaeological skeletons hugely accessible to the layperson in a series of fascinating cases, from muti murders and political killings to the work of the Missing persons task team.

I really quite enjoyed this. Especially after Byleveld and Catch Me a Killer ... I think this is a good read if you are considering studying something like this because it is very clear just how romanticised the TV versions we get exposed to actually are. It is so refreshing to read the true-life versions, and even more so the ones that are happening on our doorstep.

Must Catch-up

2011-12-08T07:35:00.001+02:00

Wow, so much to catch up on. We had absolutely no internet at work for the day yesterday. I eventually left to go home at about 14h30, which was fantastic. Got to gym at 3pm (blissfully empty!) and then did some work from home via 3g a little later.

Work has had some other major annoyances lately, in the form of my computer. I was running Linux, but was having connectivity and speed issues and since our IT department doesn't have any Linux experts, they recommended a move to Windows. So I agreed.

The setup my "new" Windows PC and I switched over about 2 weeks ago. Notice that "new" is in quotes. They don't buy new computers here, they all just get recycled. And so I spent nearly a day installing and getting my Windows environment working. About a week later (last Friday), I complained about how slowly my computer was running again and programs were crashing. I had 3Gb of RAM running Windows 64bit. So we shut down and put in some more RAM. The computer never restarted. Even swapping in the old RAM again wouldn't get it working.

Eventually they did a Windows restore (or something) and basically it went back to "the last known working configuration" which basically wiped all my installed programs. #sigh. They took that computer away and gave me another recycled one. This one still had the previous owners applications & files on it. They apparently couldn't format it yet because of licensing issues.

Anyhoo, toys were thrown and my bosses demanded a new machine. Apparently in the next financial year (March). In the meantime tho, I spent half of Tuesday uninstalling and reinstalling this second 2nd hand computer so that I could actually get some work done. Only to hear that on Tuesday evening it's be formatted again because this one actually was only running Windows 32bit with 3Gb of RAM .... It was about here that I really lost my sense of humour about everything.

Yesterday I arrived to find my computer wiped clean with only Outlook installed. And no internet. I managed to steal installers from other people's downloads folder and am pretty much set up today. But sheesh, if I ever have to install another thing, I may scream! Haha. It has been a long and unproductive couple of days.

But socially life has been busybusybusy! On Monday evening I had some blogging friends over for an end-of-year dinner. One of those collaboration dinners where everyone brings a dish. And I got to show off my new house :) The dining room table in it's spot outside is so awesome, I am so thrilled!

Anyway, Doodles brought starters, which were delish! Parma Ham, Brie, fig and rocket skewers with balsamic reduction drizzle. Seriously, it was so tasty! I made a giant pan of Chili&Garlic Prawns in a Tomato sauce. I hadn't made it before (which always makes me nervous when cooking for lots of people!), but it turned out pretty well :) I'd make it again. Louisa made us an enormous chicken pie, which was so yummy :) And Arkwife brought us some pasta salad ... her daughter came along for the evening and was such a darling. Seriously this child is too gorgeous! Ruby Letters was in charge of dessert and made us peppermint fridge tart. Yummy. And to wash it all down, in blog girls tradition, there was plenty of champagne! Angels Mind & Jackson's Mom ... you two were missed!

We also did Secret Santa, which was great fun. And I got Louisa's gift, which was a lovely hand knitted scarf :) It'll sadly have to wait for winter tho ...

On Tuesday night it was our annual SCM Year End Dinner. Wow and again, another contribution dinner where we were spoilt for choice! I made my spinach & feta free-form pie (which people seemed to really like :) ) and we ate lamb and gammon with roast potatoes, peas & carrots. There was bread and gravy. Starters and dessert with some KFC on the side (and excellent application by @Kath_Forrest who was in charge of "poultry" for the evening - haha!). And plenty of red wine. It was made even more awesome because the Trucker finally came along to an SCM Dinner :)

Last night was our new Book Club's Year End Dinner. @WhizBangLouLou went all out on the food, with roast chicken, roast potatoes, divine roast courgettes & carrots with rice and gravy too! We also did a secret santa :) And, of course there was dessert, *and* mini Lindt reindeer!

What a great week it has been. Seriously, I woke up in an absolutely awesome mood this morning. Even tho there was no power. Life is good today. Oh, and there is internet ;) Haha.

Yawn

2011-12-05T07:48:00.002+02:00

On Wednesday evening I went to dinner at Koi for @tfrayne's farewell ... It was quite a lovely evening marred only by Koi's lack of service. It took more than half an hour after asking for the bill to get it, pay for it and get on my way. And then I got a nice surprise, The Trucker came over after his evening out :)

Urgh. On Friday morning I got to work to discover my newly installed computer would not switch on. After IT spent 2.5hrs trying to get it sorted, we gave up. I worked on someone else's machine and they whisked my computer away. This morning I'm using another recycled machine and they are ordering me a brand new one. Sadly tho it does mean yet another day spent installing the requisite software and setting up my machine ... temporarily :P This does not make for a good Monday.

On Friday at around midday we headed out for our office year-end function. In true big-corporate style (since that appears to be what we've become, much to my dismay), we had a proper team-building type event with an Amazing Race at the Johannesburg Zoo. Urgh. Not my favourite way to spend an afternoon. Obstacle courses and traipsing all across the zoo in the heat with nothing to drink didn't put people in very good moods.

That was followed by drinks with everyone's partners at Pimento in Illovo. I was very glad that The Trucker came thru. Things have been going really well with him this week :) Aside from one minor hiccup on Sunday morning that was cleared up pretty quickly ... except for the looming prediction from him that we are very different people and that this is hard work (which I already know). For now tho, things are going nicely.

On Saturday The Trucker helped his sister move, she & his 9yr old niece will now be living with him (long story). And I got lots of much needed shopping done. Sadly, aside for 2 Secret Santa gifts, none of it was Xmas shopping yet :( I had my fill of malls on Saturday tho, so am dreading the shopping I will have to do shortly! Especially since I am so out of ideas :(

They didn't finish moving till after 7pm, so I took some Indian food round and we all had an early night. On Sunday The Trucker and I went for breakfast at Nino's in Cresta and then did even more shopping. Finally got the curtain rods I need for the lounge and I got cushions for the bench this weekend too :) Then after I cleaned the bunny hutch and The Trucker had a nap we headed to the Rosebank Market where I got the 3 remaining frames I need (just gotta get 2 photos reprinted for them now) and a contact to do the board-mounting in the new year (yippee!). And then it was off to Zoo Lake for some lunch and to watch The Trucker's LSM team play their final.

After that I went home and finished off one of the Xmas presents Mom & I are planning for the family and later The Trucker came over and we watched series.

It was a good weekend :) I have yet another busy week ahead with plenty of food ... such is the Christmas Social Schedule.

Is It Coz I'm Black? By Ndumiso Ngcobo

2011-12-01T07:05:00.000+02:00

The urban Zulu warrior, Ndumiso Ngcobo, returns to aim his streetwise eye at a fresh range of typically South African characters and social issues, including obvious targets such as Jacob Zuma and xenophobia, and classic Ngcobo subject matter such as his coloured cousins, black-on-black relationships and Benoni Afrikaners. The result is another collection of laser-sharp commentary on this wonderful Rainbow Nation of ours, with no regard for political correctness or sacred cows of any size, shape or form – South African satire at its best.

I read this on the flight to Cape Town and back. It took me a while to get into it. The Trucker thinks it's hysterical. It wasn't laugh out loud funny to me. I find Ngcobo very difficult to read ... it's like he's trying to be verbose to be funnier. Which didn't work for me, honestly. Otherwise tho, I did enjoy it once I go to sit down and read solidly for a while (a page here and there is not the way to read this book).

More Comedy

2011-11-30T08:08:00.000+02:00

On Monday The Trucker came over for dinner and then he worked while I watched Series. Just a quiet night at home :)

Last night I went to watch @DeepFriedMan at the Old Mutual Theatre in Sandton. I thoroughly enjoyed this. More than Nik Rabinowitz the other night, honestly.

I didn't really know what to expect (I only found out last week it was musical comedy). But hey, I grew up listening to Tom Lehrer. And it was funny, sometimes a little predictable, but funny! And the theatre is nice and cosy, with more comfortable seats than usual, I thought.

Keeping the Dead by Tess Gerritsen

2011-11-29T07:20:00.000+02:00

HE HIDES When an ancient mummy is discovered in the basement of a museum in down-town Boston, excitement starts to mount. Under the glare of a media frenzy, the mummy is taken to hospital for a CT scan. Forensic pathologist Maura Isles is also invited to attend. HE KILLS As the CT scan proceeds everyone in the room leans in -- and gasps in horror as an image of a bullet is revealed. Maura declares it a possible homicide, and calls in detective Jane Rizzoli. HE KEEPS When the preserved body of a second victim is found, and then a third, it becomes clear that taking their lives is not enough for this terrifying killer. And that unless Maura and Jane can find and stop him, he will soon be adding yet another chilling piece to his monstrous collection.

I quite liked this. Cause, of course, it had mummies :) Hahaha. A pretty decent offering in the genre, I'd recommend it.

Hey, Hey Cape Town!

2011-11-28T07:40:00.000+02:00

So last Thursday I managed to (again!!) lock myself out of my house :P I am beginning to feel a little foolish. I mean I can't remember any other time before this that I've ever done this! Let alone twice (three times if you count The Trucker locking his car keys in his boot too, so hopefully we've covered the magic three and can be done with this now!)

On Thursday I managed to lock my house keys in my car, and only realise once I'd locked the padlock on the garage! Pfft, seriously? Luckily The Trucker was nearby and popped over to valiantly let me in again.

He didn't stay long, he was playing action cricket in the evening and I had @Kath_Forrest coming over to see the new house :)

On Friday morning The Trucker & I headed off to Lanseria to fly to Cape Town for the weekend. The morning didn't start well, but everything was fine once we landed :)

It was a lovely weekend spent with the family :) On Friday afternoon I let The Trucker nap and headed off to spend some time visiting my gran. In the evening we went to the massive party (the reason we were down for the weekend) at Polana. Was such a fun evening, with good food and a great venue. Danced the night away and drank far too many mojitos. Haha.

We had a late lazy Saturday morning followed by a sushi lunch at Just Sushi in Simonstown with Daddio and my cousin. Wow, did we order far too much :) Haha.

The weather was damn windy and quite overcast, but I was determined to take The Trucker to our beach cottage. So we headed there after lunch and after a quick walk on the beach, we spent the rest of the afternoon reading, relaxing and napping to the sound of the waves.

On Saturday evening we went to The Woodlands Eatery for dinner with The Divine Miss M. Wow, such an adorable little place, and the food was delish! We shared 3 of their pizzas, The Lamb Pizza (my favourite!), The Parma Ham Rocket and Goats Cheese Pizza and the Bacon Blue Cheese Chili and Avo Pizza. Seriously folks, I would recommend you try this place!

On Sunday the whole fan-damily headed out to Blouberg for breakfast at On The Rocks. Although the view they have there is beautiful, I was seriously unimpressed by the restaurant in general. I couldn't hear anyone at the other end of our table, the food was less than fantastic and the decor was just way too over the top for the gorgeous sea-side spot in my opinion. I wouldn't go back.

Yes, Cape Town weekends always seem to be all about food - haha. I also got to play with my Mom's 2 new kitties. OMG they are too cute and although they were less than impressed with our presence when we first arrived on Friday they were playing and scampering over me quite happily by the Sunday. Awe, can't wait to see them again in December :) The Trucker got some adorable photos, but I don't have copies so can't post them :(

What an awesome weekend. Am so not in the mood for work today!

Christmas Crazy Social Season

2011-11-24T07:56:00.000+02:00

Wow, the Christmas Crazy Social Season is *definitely* here. Yesterday afternoon I headed to Virgin Active for my Discovery Vitality Fitness Assessment. Let's not mention it again :P In my head I do definitely want to do something about losing some weight ... but when it comes down to the actual effort involved, there is always something I'd rather be doing.

I am seriously considering that 2012 may be the year to invest in a personal trainer, just to get me forced into gymming properly. anyway, we'll rediscuss this in Jan (of course!). Hahaha, I remember how determined I was at the start of 2011. Wow that seems so recent :P

On with the more fun news. The Trucker collected my new bench yesterday afternoon and then when he came over for dinner he assembled it and there it is, on my verandah :) It fits *exactly* perfectly. I can't wait to get some comfy cushions for it next weekend :)

We finished watching Falling Skies last night. Meh, we were quite enjoying it, but by the last 2 episodes it was getting a bit wishy-washy for me. As The Trucker said, it's strange how you actually dont really care what happens to the characters. Anyway.

And then, best news of all, today is officially a Friday for me :) I'm off tomorrow! We're flying down to Cape Town for the weekend tomorrow morning. I can NOT wait! I can't wait to show The Trucker some of my favourite Cape Town things (like our beach cottage), I can't wait to see my family and I can't wait to see The Divine Miss M. It's going to be awesome :)

And in case that wasn't enough excitement for you, I have only one evening to myself next week ... Tues - Fri are already all completely booked up! It's gonna be exhausting but awesome :)

Keeping Busy

2011-11-23T08:42:00.000+02:00

As I type this I am busy copying files from my old work compuer (Linux) to my new one (Windows). Yes, Linux is officially no longer a part of my life (except on our web servers, I guess). It's a kinda sad day, honestly. I really like a lot of Linux, and there are bits of Windows I prefer too. Me, I'm still wishing they'd get round to inventing Winux, the best of both worlds - haha.

So, it's likely to be a slow day getting all set up. But I am hoping my sloooow computer issues will be solved :)

So some stuff to tell. I forgot about the tedious Saturday afternoon we actually had on the weekend! The Trucker managed to lock his keys in his car boot. Annoying because he was parked in front of my garage doors so we couldn't even get my car out to go to his house. So we decided to take a walk. Thank goodness I live so close to him now :) It took us about half an hour.

When we got there, he searched and searched and couldn't find his spare keys. Bugger. And then the afternoon really turned into a comedy of errors. We were gonna take his motorbike back to my house (to save us from the walk back), but what do you know, the battery was dead and even with a couple of push-starts we couldn't get it going. So we walked ... And BMW Assist came to our rescue to get his keys out the boot.

I actually really enjoyed the walks :)

Anyway, on Monday I had a much deserved quiet night at home. For the last 2 nights I've been getting my photo wall finalised and actually stuck up on the wall. This is actually harder than it sounds. I tried going straight from the brown-paper cut-outs to the wall, but things ended up very unbalanced with plenty of weird spaces between ill-fitting frames. The solution that ended up working for me was demarkating the same area on the wall on my lounge floor and physically moving the actual frames around. This gave me a much better visualisation.

After that it was easy enough to make the wall match the floor :) I am so far very happy with the outcome. Although I dont think I'll be moving further with this till I get 3 more frames and the photos for them printed (I already know what they are and I can't believe the huge oversight ... but it's because they're currently in another group frame). (Sorry the picture is so rubbish, was too dark not to have the lights on which created quite a glare and the bb camera is useless at best!)

I also started the grand-move-around in the lounge. I moved my book shelf to it's new potential spot. Although I won't lie, I don't much like it in the new place. I'm gonna leave it there for a week or so and see if I warm to it.

Was supposed to meet the electrician last night, but that has been postponed to Thursday eve. Have paid for my garden bench, but not sure when The Trucker will have time to collect that for me.

Last night I went to SCM Dinner. Sheesh but what a storm! Driving up Malibongwe was quite an experience. Flooding! I even saw a full black rubbish bag floating down the slow lane :P On the plus side, I can confirm that my garden didn't flood (I have a brick blocking half the drainage pipe so that the bunnies cant escape). The down side of this lovely cool rainy weather is that I haven't got to play with my new toy (irrigation) at all!! Haha. I'm sure there'll be plenty of time in future :)

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

2011-11-22T07:40:00.002+02:00

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her fate is merely hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the verses of the Book of Genesis that recount the life of Jacob and his infamous dozen sons. The Red Tent is an extraordinary and engrossing tale of ancient womanhood and family honour. Told in Dinah's voice, it opens with the story of her mothers - the four wives of Jacob - each of whom embodies unique feminine traits, and concludes with Dinah's own startling and unforgettable story of betrayal, grief and love. Deeply affecting and intimate, The Red Tent combines outstandingly rich storytelling with an original insight into women's society in a fascinating period of early history and such is its warmth and candour, it is guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of women across the world.

Okay, I'll admit that the blurb is not why I read this book. Rather, I read it because 2 people I know recommended it as a great read. And it was mostly completely captivating. The ending slows down quite a bit, but the beginning had me enthralled so I was okay with that. I really enjoyed this.

House Evolution

2011-11-21T08:29:00.000+02:00

Wow, what an absolutely wonderful weekend I've had. Friday was kicked off in a seriously good mood and I'm still riding the high :)

The Trucker told me we were going out on Friday evening, but again wouldn't say to where. Nothing like a surprise date to look forward to to keep you in a good mood! Thursday was our 6months, actually. Although all we did was kinda acknowledge it over bbm. Sheesh. 6 months. In some ways it feels longer, in others so much shorter. But things are good for now and I adore him.

And then I got a surprise inheritance in my bank account. I say surprise because I didn't remember about it at all till my uncle called and asked for my bank details on Wednesday. Another surprise was that it was so much more than I was expecting. And it came with truly perfect timing! My grandfather gifted his inheritance from his brother's death to all his grandchildren.

I won't lie, I spent the weekend spending it on house-stuffs. My home has evolved so much this weekend and I love it more and more every day, as each little part becomes more me (although transfer is still not officially through, I have high hopes for it happening before the end of this week!).

On Friday after work I was instilled with a get-things-done attitude that stayed for the whole weekend. I headed out to hunt for a framer who I need to mount the 31 frames I have for my photo-wall. I haven't found one I like yet. But I did buy some brown paper, prestik and a black-marker pen and got started on cutting and marking each of the frames and demarcated the area on the wall where I plan for them to go (a method I found via Pinterest). I haven't finished this yet (ran out of brown paper, but I have bought more and I'll finish up during the week). I also realised I need 4 more frames for 4 more photos I want (one for The Peeb's wedding next March!). I realised how tricky it'll be to add more once they're all up on the wall ... oh well. I just really want them up and on display already! I can't tell you how excited this makes me :)

And then before I knew it, The Trucker was there to collect me for dinner. We went to Lucio's Pizzeria, which I'd never been to but he'd raved about. It's one of those dodgy-looking from the outside in a totally random location, but warm cosy inside with really delish pizza's! I was impressed, and I'd go back :)

Saturday was a crazy admin-filled day. We had to go drop off some stuff for The Trucker's trucks and then headed to breakfast. We tried the Woolies restaurant in Northgate. What a giant disappointment. Although the food was delish, the service was completely shocking and the portion sizes for their prices mean I'd probably never go back.

So, on my list for the weekend was buying curtains for the lounge & 2 bedrooms. By the end of the weekend, the 2 bedrooms have curtains (although that included exchanging the ones I orig bought because they ended up looking yellow with the light shining thru) and I've bought the lounge curtains but we got the wrong sized curtain rods so am waiting for the right one (neither of the Mr Prices we went to had the right size :( ).

Next up was my garden bench for my verandah. I've ordered it, I should be paying today when I get their invoice. Sadly they don't have their stock room open over the weekend so I couldn't get it there & then. Either they'll deliver or The Trucker will go and fetch it for me this week. I am *so* excited about this item on the list. Seriously. It's going to be awesome!

Next on the list was irrigation for the garden. I know, that may sound like a strange one, but It isn't that expensive and it really is going to make quite a difference to my garden. And I just adore the sound of the sprayers, like light rain :) So I bought all of what I needed, since I had already measured and whatnot during the week.

And then when we got home there was a flurry of putting up curtains and *finally* moving my dining room table to it's spot outside. I was really nervous about this (which is why I think I have been putting it off, aside from the sheer weight of the table) But not only does it fit, but it fits perfectly :) I am so so so happy. I can't wait to get an electrician in to put the new light fitting on the verandah for my Moroccan Light above the table. It's gonna be fantastic! The only thing is at the moment the table is barricaded from the bunnies so they don't nibble on it's legs. But that's obviously not a permanent solution. So am thinking of some kind of "leg-warmers" to stop them ... I will have to have a think about this.

Oh, the other thing I got was some mesh for the gate so that I can keep my sliding door open while the bunnies are outside in the garden. Has been sweltering keeping it closed in this heat while they've been out & about!

On Saturday evening, we collapsed with some take-out from Simply Asia and watched some series.

On Sunday we went for breakfast, stopped back at Mr Price to exchange the old bedroom curtains and the ill-fitting rod and then The Trucker went off to work, while I headed home to clean the bunny hutch and install my irrigation. OMG I love it. It is so awesome. Of course tho, that is why it has been pouring since the middle of last night non-stop :P Hahaha.

So, still on the list of minor-house-stuffs is collecting my new bench, getting the electrician in, getting new light fittings and switched and then getting the cupboards in the 2 bedrooms re-done. And then all the minor house-stuff will be done and I'll be super happy :) And then the saving for the kitchen-bathroom-tiling revamp will begin!

I relaxed on Sunday afternoon before heading to The Trucker's with dinner. We watched Kung Fu Panda 2. Yeah yeah, just the kind of mild entertainment I needed to end off and exhausting but oh so lovely weekend. Seriously. I'm filled with all sorts of bliss still this morning. The note in my breakfast didn't hurt either ;) *feeling so spoilt*

All Good

2011-11-17T07:29:00.000+02:00

Has been a good and busy week so far, honestly am looking to a quiet evening home alone with some series, a bath, my book and an early night (The Trucker has cricket this evening, perfectly timed - haha).

On Tuesday I skipped SCM (having seen the whole crowd on Saturday evening - is anyone else like me and prefers not to see the same people more than once a week?) and went to make a late dinner at The Trucker's after he'd had a long day. We watched some series and had a nice quiet evening. I like those times where you're not really doing anything just existing near each other (does that make sense?).

And then last night, on the spur of the moment, I decided to go and watch Nik Rabinowitz at The Market Theatre with @chrisdawson and @levonrivers (and a girl visiting from the US).

I haven't seen him before but I had heard good things. I laughed, but not that tear-of-laughter kind of laughing. I still prefer Trevor Noah & John Vlismas I think. Still, it was a fun night out and I'm glad I went :)

It Wasn't Funny At The Time

2011-11-15T07:37:00.000+02:00

So yesterday started out really well (with the Bond being lodged at the Deeds office). The work day was pretty average, neither here nor there. Then there was a bit in the late afternoon, that I'll tell you about now, but caused absolute panic. And then it ended off really nicely with a friend over for dinner. A mostly good day :)

Right, let me start by saying that this was probably bound to happen at some point, but yesterday afternoon, Murphy hit. I managed to lock myself in my garden, with no phone and no keys.

I noticed about a week ago that the sliding door latch was a bit loose because I almost had a minor panic one afternoon while outside because I thought I had locked myself out by shutting it (which is standard practice when the bunnies are out because the last thing I need is them in the house!). The sliding door locks with the lever in the down position. And being loose, gravity seems to lock it. Although this had never actually happened till yesterday.

When I got the fright a week ago I joked that I should put a spare set of keys in my garden (not that I could open the sliding door anyway, but if I had my house keys I could open the padlock on the garage door and get back in the front. Or that I should keep my cellphone with me whenever I went outside (to call The Trucker and his spare keys). We joked that I didn't know his number off by heart (that's what cellphones will do to you). And I've been pretty conscientious about it since.

Yesterday, I got home from gym, planning to shower and had a quick catch up with The Trucker on bbm. He was heading out to help some friends with their computer, he knew I had @jarredcinman coming over for dinner that evening. But then I decided to rather replant my potted rose into my garden before I showered, since I was hot and sweaty already, why not.

So I did that while the bunnies played and then when I was about to head inside to put out the garden refuse, I noticed the lever had fallen. OMG. Minor panic set it. I pulled at the door. Nothing. I tugged at it even harder. Still nothing. Quick look around for my keys ... nope there they are inside on the kitchen counter - damn gym outfits with no pockets! And my Cellphone was charging on my bed ...

OMG More panic sets in. What on earth am I going to do. My sliding door is locked, my garage is locked. I was locked in my garden! Mkay, lets stay calm. (Yeah right!).

I probably spent a good half hour in a state of absolute panic (you know where you wonder how long it'd take for anyone to notice you were missing ...). Knowing I still didn't know The Trucker's number, knowing that @jarredcinman wouldn't even be let thru the gate later since I couldn't answer the phone when the gate-guards phoned me. I attempted absolutely every option available to me. By the time The Trucker did arrive to let me out, there was a full arsenal of rakes and brooms and pergola's lost to my bedroom floor (that was the only window that was open) in an attempt to pull my cellphone from my bed and out of the charger (impossible from that distance, as my attempts will attest).

I weighed up throwing a brick thru a window ... but with all the bars, I still wouldn't be any closer to getting inside. Unless I broke the entire sliding door glass. I can only imagine how much that would cost :P So that was really only my last resort.

Instead I eventually (after major panic had set in and I'd had a mild bout of sobbing) went to try yelling for someone thru the hole in my garage door. And then I heard my neighbours drive in. My neighbours who I had never met before this. I can only imagine the great impression I've made, but they were very helpful :)

OMG. Do you have a bolt-cutter I asked, still determined to be self sufficient. I figured if I could get out by cutting the padlock on the garage door and then into the kitchen courtyard by cutting that padlock too, I might have a chance to reach my keys from the slightly open kitchen window.

Nope, they didn't. I asked them to ask the gate-guards. No luck there either. Then I had a brain wave. I borrowed my neighbour's phone and phoned work. I had The Trucker's business card saved on my desktop from about probably a year ago. So someone from work phoned him to tell him I was locked in my garden. #sigh

He was fabulous about it and raced over (luckily he wasn't far away) and had a good laugh at me :P But he did unscrew the sliding door lock and take a look. And it seems tighter since then. But I am still buying a new one this weekend!!

After I got over my disappointment that he hadn't shown up in any armour or on a white horse, he went back to his friends to finish working on their computer and I got showered and ready for @jarredcinman's arrival.

The evening was lovely. We ate vegan burgers outside on my verrandah and drank some very good wine he brought and caught up. It really has been far too long! I didn't realise how much I'd missed chatting to him.

An Awesome Weekend

2011-11-14T07:51:00.000+02:00

Wow, it's been a very busy social weekend. On Thursday evening, out of the blue, I got a call from The Trucker saying he could get the Mahindra again and we could finally move the gym stuff from my verrandah. Which has made such a difference :)

His cricket had been cancelled and we headed off to @clairam's with the gear. We stayed for a drink and chatted the evening away. Aside from the sweltering hot days, these warm evenings are really lovely at the moment.

On Friday I went and splashed out on my new TV! I was planning on getting myself one ever since I put the offer in on the house. It makes sense. I watch a fair amount of series and I ended up in the old house just in my room watching on my laptop. I barely ever used my lounge, like ever. I have realised that's also probably a lot to do with the layout of the house, because even without a tv, I've barely spent any time that wasn't sleeping in my bedroom in my new house.

But anyway, having a TV is also more sociable because it means The Trucker and I can comfortably now watch series or movies at my house :) And I was getting more series from DJMike on Friday evening.

So, with all that in mind, I've been keeping an eye out (hardly at all, honestly) for a TV. I did not want to spend a fortune at all and earlier this week I found this special at HiFi Corp. They have a 42" LG (full HD) for 5K. A steal when I think that a few years ago Varen bought his 42" for about 14K!

So during lunch I headed over to Woodmead's HiFiCorp and bought myself a new (massive!!) TV. And a dvd player so I could plug the hard drive in (totally unnecessary with this TV!) and a TV License :( *sob* I get why everyone who owns a TV should have one because they *could* get signal if they wanted it. But I never plan to plug my TV into anything more than my hard drive. So that really was a bit of a grudge purchase. But they've become a lot more sneaky about it and there was no way round it.

I was quite amazed I could fit the giant TV box into my little C2. Barely. I was squished up against my steering wheel for the rest of the day. But smiling :)

And then The Trucker came over after work to install it for me ... although I was hugely disappointed that we got the wrong screws for the stand so we had to pop back on Saturday morning. But it did all get set-up and used this weekend, and wow, it just looks absolutely massive! I guess compared to my laptop screen it really is :) Haha.

The Trucker went home after that and got ready for the braai we were having at his house while I waited for DJMike & his girlf to come over and see my new place. And then we all went to the braai. It was delish & there was so much yummy food (The Trucker braaied ribs!).

Saturday morning was all admin, shopping and getting the right screws for the TV. The afternoon was spent relaxing (in front of the new TV - haha). And on Saturday evening we headed off to dinner with the SCM Dinner crowd (on a Saturday, I know!) Haha. It was awesome, but again wa-ay too much good food. Hummus and melba toast for starters. Beef Wellington for mains and Cheesecake for dessert. Was nice that The Trucker could finally meet that group properly :)

And then on Sunday, The Trucker & I had a long chat. Things seem better now. Admittedly things always seem to go up and down, depending on my mood and how secure / insecure I'm feeling generally. But I think it's hard when a relationship has to cope thru rough times in people's life (like the work chaos he's currently dealing with) so early on. It does put weird strain on that you haven't had enough time yet to figure out how to deal with or how it affects each other. Who know what'll happen. For now things are okay again. #sigh Life is complicated. Haha.

I went to breakfast at Vovo Telo on Sunday morning with some of the work-girls. We hardly see each other anymore now that the company has grown so much. So it's nice to have these catch-ups :) And Vovo Telo was delish!

After breakfast I headed to Mark's Park to watch The Trucker play cricket & we had their year-end braai there afterwards. And then I headed home to spend some quality time with the bunnies (they are absolutely loving their new garden. The heat, not so much) and watch some more series :) While The Trucker got some work done.

Ps. My Bond officially got lodged at the Deeds office this morning :) Giant happy smiles all round!!

Sleepyhead

2011-11-10T07:29:00.000+02:00

It's been a kind of weird week. Seriously, I'm asking myself today how it can only be Thursday. Anyway, not a very eventful week, however.

I don't even remember what I did on Monday evening ... On Tuesday I intended to go to SCM as usual. But at about 18h30 I was lying on my couch reading my book and could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed and finished my book before falling asleep early. I guess these 5:30am wake-ups are taking their toll. I didn't feel especially refreshed the next morning but I think it did definitely help.

Last night I was kind of intending to go to a work social dinner, but then decided I didn't really think I was in the mood. But since The Trucker had already made other plans, I decided to go out and do something constructive.

This started with a drive out to Angel's place to deliver my very lonely fish. Poor thing, I have felt so bad since I moved about him :( I had the pond set up at the old house but it wasn't very well looked after and at some point my big yellow koi died (the one who survived well past when I expected!). I knew there was a little orange guy in there still but I wasn't too fussed since I knew I was moving soon. So we emptied the pond during the move and at the new house I decided I didn't actually want to set it up again. The water-plant had really grown out of hand (it is still on my verrandah because I can't pick it up and get rid of it!!) and there are no outdoor plug points to connect a pump to. Besides, I decided I just didn't need the hassle. Maybe one day it'll make a come-back tho... but not right now.

So I put word out on twitter that I had a fish looking for a new home. The poor thing, I hope he survives, he's been thru so much in the last 2 weeks. His pond being dismantled, a drive to my new house, living in a tiny amount of water for a week & half with no friends, a drive to Angel's House and now an introduction to a new home with more fish and bigger fish than he's ever known! Anyhoo, in a flurry of second-hand pet acquisitions, my fish now lives with Angel. I hope he'll be happier there :)

And then, well, since I was out and had no other plans I decided to head to the work dinner. And I'm really glad I did. It was a nice small group (7 incl me) and although I was too late to eat, we sat and had a drink and chatted for about an hour.

The evening turned out quite well. Aside from the fact that (although I haven't seen the movie) I feel like I'm starring in "He's Just Not That Into You". Sigh. That's a whole other story, which I'm not ready to write about. Needless to say that at this point, I don't think that The Trucker & I will make it to 2012.

Catch Me A Killer by Micki Pistorius

2011-11-09T07:21:00.001+02:00

Micki Pistorius, who has a doctorate in psychology, has spent 6 years as a profiler with the South African Police Service. As head of their investigation psychology unit, she was involved in more than 30 serial killer cases and participated in the training of nearly 200 detectives in the investigation of serial homicides. "Catch me a Killer" is the story of her remarkable career.

So this was quite an interesting read after Byleveld. It's very different. It's differently written and I guess it's a different side to the investigative story. I think I definitely preferred Byleveld. There is something about the way this was written that I didn't quite like. Sometimes it got confusing and I felt like she hadn't been clear about things. And I'm also not into this whole "and then I swam into the abyss" nonsense. But whatevs. It's her story, it's what she believes and feels. I don't quite buy it. But either way it's still a very interesting read. Again because who can believe the sheer quantity of serial killers we have in this country. It's kinda frightening, really. Glad to hear they're so good at catching them :)

The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers

2011-11-08T07:17:00.000+02:00

Zimbabwean journalist and travel writer Douglas Rogers wakes up in his fashionable New York neighborhood to discover that, at the age of thirty-five, his life has become a routine of latte orders, real estate conversations, and late nights in cocktail bars. Meanwhile, back in Zimbabwe, his parents are caught in the crossfire of a violent land war, and going to ever-greater extremes just to stay alive. Returning to the family farm and backpacker lodge to help, the author discovers that marijuana is growing instead of maize; prostitutes, diamond dealers, and refugee white farmers prop up the lodge bar; and war veterans and youth militia loyal to Mugabe hover outside the gates. Having left Africa in search of adventure and excitement a decade earlier, the author discovers that the great story he had traveled the world looking for was happening in his parents’ backyard. And in going home he discovers that there is a lot more to his country, himself, and his parents, than he had ever imagined. The Last Resort is an inspiring coming-of-age tale about home, love, hope, responsibility and redemption. An edgy rollercoaster adventure, it is also a deeply moving story about how to survive a corrupt Third World dictatorship with a little innovation, humor, bribery and brothel management.

I wasn't so sure when I started reading this ... but I really enjoyed it and found it a fascinating read. I'd recommend it.

Seven Weeks Til Xmas

2011-11-07T07:31:00.000+02:00

Well it was a pretty busy weekend, really. Not much house stuff to report tho. Transfer still has not gone thru :( But apparently the lawyers have now got in an external company to get the Clearance Figures (or something). Damn, I hope it goes thru before the end of November!!

On Friday evening, I was watching the storm closely because The Trucker & I had plans to go to the Drive-In. Hahaha, I know, right? How mad. I haven't been since I was probably about 3. They closed them all in Cape Town and I've never been since I moved up to Joburg. We've been trying to go for a while, but there has never really been 2 movies we wanted to see. Honestly there is very little showing at the moment that interests me at all. But we were both keen to see Contagion and What's Your Number? didn't look terrible.

The storm cleared perfectly and the Drive-In was very quiet. We even got to watch a few fireworks going off during intermission. So, the Drive-In is R75 per car. Not too bad considering normal movies are probably about R40 per person. But I don't think I would go to watch 2 movies again anytime soon. I honestly could hardly stay awake thru the 2nd one.

The Drive-In is a weird experience. I wouldn't say your car is more comfortable than a cinema. The people who came in their Land Rover, reverse parked and then climbed in the back with the back seats down and duvets & pillows probably had a better idea! There were some very weird kids in the car next to us. And some people brought their dog ?! The sound and everything was perfect, being enclosed in our own little space tho :)

What's Your Number? was exactly what I expected. The Trucker was a little bored with it. Contagion however was a huge giant massive let-down. Massive. Yawn. I barely stayed awake during it. It was a star-studded cast and the trailer made it look far more interesting than it turned out to be. It was completely boring. Do Not bother watching this. Not even on dvd. Don't even waste the bandwidth downloading this!

On Saturday morning I had my new Domestic Worker come around so that I could meet her and she could get a feel for the place. She was only there about 3 hours. So far I'm happy with her, thanks Doodles! She'll be starting on Wednesday properly. Which is marvelous, the house needs some serious post-move cleaning :)

The Trucker & I popped out for a quick breakfast and then a bit later we collected his sister & niece and headed off to his mom & gran in Reitz to celebrate his gran's 80th birthday (tomorrow).

He snoozed most of the afternoon while the girl's all chatted away. In the evening we watched Trevor Noah's Crazy Normal.

On Sunday after breakfast we headed home. The Trucker went off to play cricket and I headed off hunting for house stuffs. I think I've found curtains I like for the lounge & bedrooms. But, I didn't think finding a bench for my verandah would be this tricky! Ah well, nothing is really urgent, honestly. I like the browsing, although with the lounge still in chaos (am waiting for another opportunity with the Mahindra to get rid of some gym equipment the previous owner left before I can figure out where that giant dining room table of mine is going!). Also I want to get the carpets cleaned too. And then the shuffling around will begin. Haha. Really not sure where anything is going to go yet!

In the evening I popped over to The Trucker's (can you believe I haven't been there since before we went to Dundee!) with dinner (I made us delish gourmet hotdogs!) and we watched Captain America. Haha, another movie I'm glad I skipped on the big screen. The Trucker's comment was "Well that's quite enough propaganda for one night" Haha.

Settling In

2011-11-02T07:19:00.000+02:00

So, yeah. Things with the house are awesome. Although I have not actually unpacked anything at all since the weekend. I've been trying to get used to my new earlier mornings (waking up at 5:30am now, half an hour earlier!) and the longer drive to work. Which luckily so far has been a breeze. It is a bit of a longer journey (inescapable as I live further away), but it doesn't really feel that much longer. Except for the minor fact that I have to leave the house by 6:15am in order to enjoy a stress free drive. On the plus side, I'm leaving the office at 15h45 now (15mins earlier) and the drive home has also been stress-free and easy (I am dreading my first day with an accident on the highway!).

On Monday afternoon I went and wandered around Northgate a bit. I am looking at what my internet options are. The Trucker tried out his Vodacom 3G at my house over the weekend and the signal was fine. I haven't decided yet, honestly. And I think I might've found some curtains I like for the lounge :)

And then I had a very quiet night at home. Yesterday afternoon I went to my new gym after work. So far this move hasn't really affected my routine which is good :) And then it was SCM. So nice and nearby now!

I made the mistake on Tuesday morning of letting the bunnies out in the morning while I did all my other stuff (it seems I have quite the busy morning routine, which involves showering, making breakfast/lunch for the day ahead, putting washing on or hanging it and letting the bunnies run). They were very difficult to herd back into the hutch which is less than ideal when I'm on a tight schedule! So they haven't been out again. I'm not really sure how to get round this ... they love their morning time in the garden ... maybe I will try letting them out immediately when I wake up to give them longer. In the afternoons they're much easier to herd back in because they've usually been out for about an hour and a half or longer ... they're ready to go back by then. But the mornings are too short.

Other than that, things are complicated. I don't know what is going on with The Trucker & I or if it is a perfectly normal side-effect of 2 independent people trying to have a relationship. I don't really feel like I've seen him much lately, since he has been working so much. And when I do see him, he is exhausted. I suspect he's taking strain trying to juggle all these things: work, me, his friends. It really is reminding me of the last 6months with Varen at the moment tho :( :(

My New House!

2011-10-31T07:32:00.000+02:00

Shoowee, what a weekend! Friday evening was a bit of a screw-up. I headed thru to the new house with a few more things in my car. And there I sat and waited for The Trucker. I had an awesome evening in mind, but his work got in the way. it's happening a lot lately and last week was particularly bad. I have high hopes that the person who's starting today will take some of that strain away because for someone who used to be very punctual and reliable (apparently before he owned the Trucks), he really is not lately and it's very frustrating for me.

Anyway, so him being late and then still dealing with stuff over the phone kinda ruined the mood so instead of the evening I was hoping for, we headed back to my old house so that I could pack up the kitchen and all my clothes (probably a better plan practically, really). But I did get to enjoy my first thunder & lightning storm from my verandah while waiting for him ... and every evening since! Haha. It is awesome :)

Saturday was such a long day. I was up at 6:30 dismantling the bunny hutch and 2.5hrs later I had cleaned and removed 225 bricks that were the base of the hutch. I'm sure I've probably left about 50 bricks behind, but I simply didn't have the energy for any more!

At about 9am, The Trucker got up and CollegeInstructor & ChrisLite came over. The Trucker is an amazing tetris-packer of the 2 bakkies (1 x Corsa, 1 x Mahindra). So we took thru the first load and unpacked it on the other side.

Sheesh, it went faster than I thought. ChrisLite had to go to a wedding so went home after the first load. But CollegeInstructor stayed and helped with the next 2 loads we took (with the Mahindra and my little c2). And that was that, everything had been moved by about 15h30.

I reassembled the bunny hutch while The Trucker went to drop off CollegeInstructor and then he came back and we put my 4-poster bed back together. So at least the bunnies & I had a place to sleep :) I was completely exhausted. I didn't let the bunnies out properly today. They were a little traumatised and just wanted to be safe in their hutch, no doubt to reassure themselves.

Can you believe The Trucker still found the energy to make it to RR for the Halloween party? I was finished. And I didn't sleep well cause I was so sore. But it was the first night in my new home.

I can't explain how much I adore the place. On Sunday morning I was up at 7:30 and the bunnies got their first taste of the new garden. They were completely adorable to watch! Lily was only concerned with the boundary walls. Coal tasted everything! And Rexy wasn't so sure. He only came out of the hutch about 10mins after the girls.

But they've all settled in really nicely. I think they love it. They came out about 3 times yesterday. Sadly they didn't get a pre-work morning run today tho, they are too hard to herd at the moment with so many plants for them to hide under. Haha.

Yesterday I started unpacking. My clothes are all in my cupboard (except for a few things like shoes & scarves). The kitchen is just about all unpacked (except for 1 bag that is mostly tupperware). I started shopping for stuff too, and making a list of stuff I want to buy / do to the place.

I really want to rip the entire kitchen out and redo it. It has shelves that are almost completely useless to me because I can't reach to the back of them. And I think it is really badly designed too. And I also now want to redo parts of the bathroom (particularly the bathroom). I've started a little on the garden (ripped out some plants when I made room for the hutch). I really want a bench for the verandah now too. Oh, and I want to redo the cupboard inside & doors in both bedrooms ... And redo the light fittings thruout. Yeah, it's a work in progress. But at least when it's done, it will really be mine :) Although that said, the Council still has not provided the cancellation figures :( Even if I had the cash right now, I'm not doing any of this till transfer goes thru.

Oooh, and did I mention how much I am loving having a bath again to relax in? I adore it!

Ps. excuse the poor quality photos, I dunno what exactly Blackberry was thinking, but the newer version of their Curve (which I now have) has the most rubbish camera compared with, well anything really, but specifically with their old version of the Curve (which I had before).

The keys

2011-10-28T07:44:00.000+02:00

So yesterday was a bit chaotic. Car Service went smoothly, no unexpected expenses there (Yay! A mere R1000 compared to last year's R6000! Had the breaks done last year ...). Considering how expensive this month has been, I am counting myself lucky (doctors bills, car service and I can only imagine what I'll need to spend on stuff I realise I need after moving).

The Trucker got caught up in a work crisis and I ended up having to race off and collect my car and leave his car & keys there for him to collect. And then it was off to The House to collect my new keys.

OMG OMG I have the keys to my very own home. The only thing that could've made me happier yesterday afternoon would be if transfer had already gone thru, but the council is still dragging their feet :( *sob* I have high hopes they can get this sorted before the end of Nov!

And then after meeting the previous owner and having a small bottle of Champagne to celebrate with him, we took a wander around and then said goodbye. And I was on my own, in my new home. I sat on my verrandah and just enjoyed the evening. And then I set off to let the bunnies have a bit of a run and collect a car-load of stuff. Which was not that impressive in my little C2, but it felt good :)

I parked in my new garage and unpacked and spent a little more time just sitting on my verrandah. I adore it. I feel at peace there.

Tonight I have high hopes of sitting with The Trucker, watching the rain fall (dammit rain, where are you?!), in front of my lit jet-master on the verrandah, eating take-out and drinking a bottle of red wine. That is my idea of the perfect evening tonight. Tho I'm beginning to suspect the weather won't be playing along :P

I can't wait for the bunnies to discover their new home. They are not very excited when I tell them all about it, so I guess it'll all just be a big surprise tomorrow. Yay. I can't wait :)

What's For Dinner?

2011-10-27T07:54:00.000+02:00

Righto, this week. Um, on Monday evening I got bitten by the OMG-I'm-moving-in-mere-days bug and packed just about all remaining stuff. Even the bathroom is all packed except for the stuff I use daily. The only stuff that I haven't come close to is the kitchen and my bedroom (clothes). There is a possibility I could be getting the keys this evening, so keep your fingers crossed!! Eep.

It all kinda depends on how the car situation goes. This morning I'm driving The Trucker's BMW. He's kindly taken my car in for a service ... because he started listing of things I had to tell them and eventually gave up and just offered to do it himself. A great relief on my part, I promise. But somehow we have to re-swap cars again after the service ... and we're unclear on the exact logistics of this as yet. So it's hard for me to make concrete plans with the current owner (up from Cape Town) to meet up and get the keys as he is here for a work dinner. We have about a 3hr window, so let's hope we can make it happen! OMG. I'm moving this weekend!

So yeah, back to the week. On Tuesday we had a very special Wedding Edition of SCM Dinner (that's Slow Cooker Monday, but now on Tuesday, for everyone who keeps asking). @Thunderkitty6 was suitably blown away with the effort, the cake, the gifts and the champagne! Twas an awesome evening :)

And then last night, since The Trucker had been having a truly awful week, I figured instead of going out I'd cook him dinner. It was kinda amusing when he was on his way home before coming thru and phoned to ask what I wanted to do tonight and I could say dinner and dessert were all ready and waiting for him :)

And it was delish and unbelievably easy to prepare! I decided to try 2 dishes I'd pinned on Pinterest. First up, I prepared dessert which waiting patiently in the fridge till after dinner. Dessert was Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries. Let me tell you, I do not own a paring knife so it was not the easiest thing in the world to take the center out of the strawberries. But Woolies is currently selling hese absolutely mammoth ones, which made it a little easier because it really was like de-coring them. Also I replace the Graham Cracker crumbs with Tennis Biscuit crumbs. and just used a spoon to fill the strawbs. These looked so impressive and tasted quite amazing!

Dinner was Bacon Wrapped Chicken with a Cream Cheese filling. I served this with Woolies Mediterranean veggies. I may have used a little too much cream cheese, and not flattened the chicken quite enough. And I cooked it for only 30mins. But it came out perfectly. I have a left-over one for lunch today - yay. I think I might try these with the smaller chicken strips another time. These also looked completely impressive (that's a before photo)!

It's good to be cooking again :) On the downside tho, I barely got any sleep last night between the heat, a noisy mosquito and my brain spinning. So although I'm not tired yet, I expect to crash around 2pm. The only reason I know I got any sleep at all was cause I had a terrible dream about the bunnies escaping :(

Can't wait to introduce them to their new home this weekend. So exciting!

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

2011-10-25T07:38:00.000+02:00

The nameless and beautiful narrator of The Gargoyle is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is over - he is now a monster. But in fact it is only just beginning. One day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles, enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates equally mesmerising stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland, Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life - and, finally, to love.

I didn't have any great expectations of this book when I started, but I absolutely loved it. Although I can't pin point why exactly, I plowed thru it and was absolutely captivated by the story.

Another Weekend Away

2011-10-24T08:10:00.000+02:00

Yip, I had another weekend away :) Sheesh, but it was further than we thought. And we left about 2hrs later than we intended to (The Trucker was waiting for the Pajero to get fixed by the mechanic who didn't seem to have any sense of urgency).

Eventually we set off at about 3pm. And it was a good 5hr drive to Nxala Ranch near Dundee. We arrived in the dark. There were 4 other guests sharing the lodge with us for Friday night and they'd decided to wait for us to arrive before eating dinner. So after offloading our bags, we sat down to a 3 course meal and then it was off to bed after an exhausting drive.

The place would be awesome if it weren't so far away from Joburg because you can rent out the entire place as self-catering. Sadly tho there seems to be only 1 room with a double bed :(

Anyway, after a delish breakfast on Saturday morning (we had got a Dinner, Bed & Breakfast option from St Luke's Auction) the other guests set off for their next destination and we headed out to explore the Battlefields region a little. I'll admit my knowledge of the Anglo-Zulu war is (still) pretty minimal. But it was interesting to visit Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana.

After that, it was off to Dundee to get some provisions for lunch and then back to the Ranch for a relaxing afternoon.

Later in the early evening we took the Pajero out and went to find their san rock paintings (which are barely discernible anymore). And then we just generally drove around the farm looking at the cows & game and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset.

For dinner, since we were the only ones staying there, they provided us with a vast amount & variety of food and left us to ourselves to braai and eat at our leisure. It was quite a nice evening and the food was delish :)

We watched Repo Men after dinner, which The Trucker had already seen, but I hadn't. I wasn't that blown away by it, but you could tell they really thought they had a good twist at the end. I thought it fell rather flat, actually.

And then on Sunday morning, after another yummy breakfast, I relaxed with my book outside and The Trucker watched the Rugby World Cup final. Wow, so many birds around, I saw loads of weavers & swallows as well as 2 woodpeckers! So cool :)

And then after the rugby, we packed up and headed off home. Another long hot drive. But we got home before 6pm and the bunnies enjoyed some good run-around time :)

Can't believe there is less than a week before I move. I am excited and mildly freaking out. You know, not about the actual move, about all the other stuff that I haven't thought about. The making new habits and getting into new routines and what not. Let alone trying to organise a new domestic and what to do about telkom and who knows what else! And quietly boiling over about the fact that the council still has not provided clearance figures although they've been requesting them since 09 September!! This is the last thing holding them up from getting to the Deeds office and getting this house transferred into my name! Yip. I'm a little emotionally wired this week ...

And The Beat Goes On ....

2011-10-21T07:31:00.000+02:00

So Tuesday evening was SCM. And we were shocked to hear some awesome news from @Thunderkitty6 ... who'd just arrived back from a week in Zanzibar. She'd got married! She & her new hubby did an amazing job of keeping everything quiet cause they'd been planning for about 4months and even their folks didn't know till they landed back in SA!

On Wednesday I had a "Doctor Day". 3 visits in 1 day, with a big book to keep me company in the waiting rooms. Had a "surprise" biopsy of my fibroadenoma. Not nearly as bad as the Prof implied, but still the sound of a staple gun was a little unnerving. Luckily I haven't had any pain at all.

It was a long and exhausting (and *expensive*) day. The Trucker came over and we made a tuna pasta dinner which was really just thrown together out of the ingredient we both had in our cupboards and turned out to be quite nice :)

Yesterday evening I popped round to @samanthaperry's new flat for what turned into a girly evening of trying on dresses (by @clairam), hearing @Thunderkitty6's wedding story, with wine and pizza and girl-talk :) Was an awesome last-minute evening.

And today is only a half day (thank goodness, this has been a very long week) cause The Trucker & I are off to Dundee for the weekend :) Yay.

A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

2011-10-20T07:23:00.000+02:00

Everyone hates the perfect family. So you'll love the Battles. Mo is about to hit the big 50, and some uncomfortable truths are becoming quite apparent: She doesn't understand either of her teenage kids, which as a child psychologist, is fairly embarrassing. She has become entirely grey. Inside, and out. Her face has surrendered and is frightening children. Dora is about to hit the big 18 ...and about to hit anyone who annoys her, especially her precocious younger brother Peter who has a chronic Oscar Wilde fixation. Then there's Dad ...who's just, well, dad. A Tiny Bit Marvellous is the story of a modern family all living in their own separate bubbles lurching towards meltdown. It is for anyone who has ever shared a home with that weird group of strangers we call relations. Oh and there's a dog called Poo.

I am convinced I've read this book before. I had a serious sense of dejavu all the way thru. But since I couldn't find a review on my blog, I carried on with it. I guess it's kind of mildly entertaining. Probably a pretty good holiday read :)

Hellkom

2011-10-18T07:50:00.000+02:00

Oh wow. Yesterday was just dismal. Actually, I was having a pretty good day till about 3pm.

And then I phoned Telkom. Sigh. I'd ordered the move of my phone line and received an sms from them last week that didn't sound promising, but it wasn't till I called them for clarity yesterday afternoon that I discovered how dire the situation actually is.

Basically there is NO infrastructure left in the area I'm moving to ... which means that unless someone cancels their phone line (and I happen to be top of the waiting list), there is no chance of me getting a phone line. I'm guessing Ever. Their official line is "till their next financial year" (which is March 2012).

Practically yes, I guess I can believe it. But what sort of service are you offering that is not scalable and that you actually can not provide. I was also told that from now on I will have to call Telkom each month to get them to credit my account with the amount they'll automatically keep billing me for services I don't receive. Excellent :P What a fantastic service model Telkom. Seriously. I was completely livid. I just can not stand these situations that affect my life but are completely out of my control.

So I guess (when I calm down and stop hating Telkom and being angry and frustrated to the point of tears), I'll be looking for alternative solutions. But I am *not* happy about that. At. All. I don't want 3G, I don't like the idea of 3G. I like my permanent ADSL connection. Sigh. It ruined my *entire* day and has definitely removed some of my enthusiasm for moving. I like things to run smoothly.

And then there was just thing after thing of people letting me down or service providers not providing (2 more things happened before 6pm). I was flattened. I made myself (actually a quite yummy) dinner and then climbed into bed with my book to escape the day.

Never a Dull Moment

2011-10-17T07:34:00.000+02:00

Well, we had another pretty awesome weekend :) Lots of variety and not that much relaxing. Friday night wasn't that great, honestly. I headed off to The Trucker's house but he had some work still to do (truck-stuff that involves driving around to deliver 2 new tyres and pick up stuff from the mechanic and what not). Which I basically just tagged along for the drive. 2hrs later we were pretty exhausted and plowed thru some Chinese take-out and went to bed.

On Saturday morning he brought the Fluffies over (he was dog-sitting cause his ex was away for the weekend). And after playing with them for a bit, we headed off to breakfast. We went for breakfast at Cafe Rossini in Cresta and did some shopping.

After a bit of a relax at his house - I started watching Dark Knight while he faffed and sorted out some work stuff - we headed off to watch the Action Cricket World Cup final. OMG the place was packed, We watched the last bit of the girl's final (Australia vs. South Africa), which Australia won. And then the men's final (also Australia vs. South Africa), which Australia won too. Looking at Wikipedia, Australia seem completely undefeated in the finals :P

Then it was a race to dinner because the men's final started late. I went home to let the bunnies run for a bit and have a shower after sitting in the sweltering arena. The Trucker headed home to feed the Fluffies and take them for a quick walk before heading to my house.

Then it was off to @zoosev's for dinner with some friends from work. We had a delish dinner and played a few rousing games of 30 seconds (I always find that helpful when the boys hardly know each other and are too quiet to make conversation with each other easily). We left after midnight, only to arrive home and discover I had no electricity :( So I quickly grabbed some clothes and we headed back to The Trucker's.

On Sunday we went to Doppio for breakfast before heading to The Trucker's LSM cricket game. Sheesh it was a hot day for cricket! We got our grocery shopping out of the way before having a bit of a Sunday afternoon snooze. And then it was off to DJMike&his girlf's for a "Make your own Pizza" evening. OMG the pizza's were divine!

It was good, but quite exhausting. Am looking forward to a weekend away this weekend :) And then next weekend is moving weekend. Eep!!

So Much of Awesomeness

2011-10-13T07:52:00.000+02:00

Ah, I am in a spectacular mood this morning :) Which is in stark contrast to the mood I've been in the rest of the week, which was mostly completely frustrated with some of the people I work with. I get like that when they don't schedule me properly and I have to go hunt down work to keep myself busy and then you just know you get assigned all those annoying tasks everyone else was avoiding :P

But this morning is different, this morning all is right with the world. Blackberry Internet Services are working again, I had a lovely night out last night and woke up next to my darling boyf this morning and I am all dressed up and wearing a suit today.

So, what have I really been up to. Well last Thursday I went to watch The Trucker play Action Cricket. Also because I knew TheBrad would be there, his team was playing a warm-up game against the Indian Men's team. See, all the International teams are out for the Action Cricket World Cup. Last Thursday I really enjoyed watching the Welsh women against our Northern Gauteng ladies. So on Tuesday evening The Trucker & I decided to go watch some of the actual World Cup games in Fourways (they call it Fourways, but it's more like Northgate). We watched our u19 girls get annihilated by the Aussie girls. And then we watched the first innings of our Men's team against New Zealand. It was great fun, and a kinda offbeat thing to spend the evening watching :)

And then last night I had booked The Trucker & I seats at a Blanc de Noir Culinary Experience hosted by Maximillien. I have no idea how I ended up on Legacy Hotels' mailing list but there are some cool events :) Anyway, back to last night's dinner. The invite promised a 5 course menu of black and white beverages perfectly paired with black and white food and it was all to be secretly located in Leonardo's Blanc de Noir chamber. Oh, and all the guests had to wear black and white too. I thought it sounded like a fun night out :)

And it was. We were a little confused as to where it was exactly, but once we found it, we were greeted with an arrival cocktail at a gorgeous fairy-light-lit poolside deck area, before being ushered to the room. There were only 4 tables and I really quite enjoyed the food. The wines were also amazing. I found a white wine I like :) Jean Daneel Signature Chenin Blanc. My favourite dish of the evening was Sea Scallops and Black Pearls with new potato veloute and infused with cumin and lime zest. It's amazing to see how they can make food black & white ...

Apparently they'll be hosting more of these evenings and I'd recommend trying one :)

Byleveld by Hanlie Retief

2011-10-12T07:48:00.000+02:00

Recently retired, detective Piet Byleveld's name has become legendary. He is the man who solved some of South Africa's most famous crime investigations, including the Leigh Matthews kidnapping. He has a 100% success rate with serial murders. In this book, Rapport journalist Hanlie Retief, who had exclusive access to Byleveld's dossiers, writes about twenty of the most notorious serial-killer cases and many other murders Byleveld solved. She weaves into it the story of Byleveld's own life. The book includes full-colour photographs from police records throughout.

So this is the book I bought from the dinner I went to with @WhizBangLouLou. I've just got round to reading it now because The Trucker borrowed it first. I ploughed thru it in 2 days. It was an easy and fascinating read. Honestly. I had no idea South Africa was so high up there on the Serial Killer list ... I mean we watch all these tv shows and movies set in America and I guess somehow I always associate most Serial Killers with there. But after reading this I know we could have our own tv show or movie.

Piet Byleveld has an amazing track record, I was truly impressed and, I won't lie, I'm a little nervous now that he's retired ...

After a quick browse on wikipedia, I'm a little annoyed that all the South African Serial Killers just about all seem to have their own page, but Piet Byleveld doesn't ...

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

2011-10-11T07:45:00.000+02:00

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

Hmmm, I dunno about this one. I mean it's okay. But I don't think I'm a big fan of straight story-line books, honestly. You know what I mean, those this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, the end. I definitely preferred Haddon's first book, The Curious Incident.

Weekends Fly By

2011-10-10T08:11:00.000+02:00

It was generally a pretty good weekend :) Friday started it very well. The Trucker & I didn't really have any plans for the weekend yet, but I got a message on Friday afternoon telling me that we now had plans for that evening. Oh really, I asked, and what are we doing. Apparently it was a surprise.

And it really was! Sometimes he get's it completely right :) He picked me up at 7pm and told me that it was far away and that we needed to get dinner before. Well now I was completely confused because I had just assumed we were going out for dinner.

Turns out we were (all part of confusing me so I didn't figure it out till we pulled into the parking lot and I saw the restaurant name), at Gray. You know, the place we'd said we'd try some time after Taste. Well I had totally forgotten. but he hadn't :)

They offer a 5 course set menu (which changes often, apparently) and all their own wine (which was quite good). The restaurant is not that big, but it felt cosy. I find it's location quite bizarre tho! The food was fantastic and the wait-staff were very helpful and attentive. I would highly recommend a visit.

On Saturday we had a bit of an unsuccessful admin morning and a very lazy afternoon. But it was one of those days where whenever The Trucker had some peace and quiet some work thing would interrupt. I don't think he was in a very good mood. Poor boy.

In the evening we just got some Indian take-out and headed for his couch. We watched Easy A (now this is exactly the sort of movie I leave for dvd!). Which was good, light, no-thinking entertainment, just what we needed.

And then we watched Russell Peter's Red, White and Brown which was quite entertaining.

And then, of course, we were up unusually early for the SA Rugby game on Sunday morning. We'd made plans to meet some of The Trucker's friends at Cesco's on Beyers .... which turned out to no longer be Cesco's and an all round disappointment. So at half-time we moved across to Tony's, which was much better, even tho we lost the game :(

After that there was some general admin running around that The Trucker had to do before dropping me at home and heading to cricket. I went and did some grocery shopping, and some shopping for my Santa's Shoebox. And had a snooze and cleaned the bunny hutch.

And then I was in a truly bizarre mood. You know the one where you are just completely unsettled and unable to make any concrete decisions. Like what to eat although you know you're hungry. And even once you decide what you are in the mood for, 10 mins later you're like "Nah". That mood. Damn, when I get like that I annoy myself so much! Then I really shouldn't be alone so that someone else can make all the important decisions for me instead - haha.

So since The Trucker was working and unavailable to fulfill such a role, I ended up going for dinner with CollegeInstructor. And after driving around for about 45mins trying to figure out what to eat, we ended up at Adega so I could have their kilo of prawns. Perfect. Seriously, I was amazed. Usually when I'm in that kind of mood, because I can't pin point anything I specifically want I end up being disappointed in whatever I end up having. But not last night :)

Dedicated to Dinner

2011-10-06T07:53:00.001+02:00

Mkay so last night I channeled my inner Desperate Housewife and Domestic Goddess and well, I may never cook again :P

Haha. No, that sounds a little extreme. But it was a comedy of errors from the start. I decided on Monday evening to invite The Trucker over for dinner at my house on Wednesday. And that I would not only cook him dinner, but dessert as well (I may have mentioned this before, but the boy cannot survive a meal without dessert! Haha). I used to cook a lot, I stopped when it was just me at home ...

And here is the thing, I'm completely out of practice. And we eat completely differently. And I have no idea what he likes. No, that's not entirely true, I know he likes steak. But I don't really ever eat steak, so am completely terrified of cooking it, honestly, because I don't really know how it's supposed to look or taste ... So it was definitely not on the cards for Wednesday because I don't quite feel we're at that "I experimented with dinner, but it was a total failure so we're getting take-out" stage yet ... we simply don't eat home cooked meals often enough for that (terrible I know). And because I don't cook properly for myself (because I'm out so much) it's not like "come on over for dinner, I was making this anyway" kinda thing either (which would take the pressure off a little, I suppose). Except for the fact that I mostly eat either meat-free meals or chicken (which he is not mad about).

So anyway, with the pressure on, I hunted down potential recipes (my new favourite food "blog") although I ended up choosing something safe and familiar that I didn't think I could get too wrong. My Spinach & Feta Free-Form Pie (with Bacon) and a Banana Loaf served with Nutella for dessert. (Oh, and I never bake or make dessert ... well, because then I will eat it so it's just safer that way, so that was a daunting enough task in itself).

I left work yesterday afternoon and headed to the shops armed with my list. First stop PicknPay, followed by Woolies. My usually shopping trip. But annoyingly, Woolies was lacking in 2 of my required ingredients (okay, one was a nice to have, but one was a you-can't-make-it-without ingredient!). Mkay, I figured I'd head to my next nearest Woolies and see if they had stock (knowing that if they didn't there was yet another, smaller, Woolies to pass on my way home from there).

Aaargh. What do you know, this 2nd Woolies had about 40 packets of my nice-to-have ingredient and none of my must-have one. Queue phone-call number 1 to Mom (all cooking experiences tend to have at least 3 phone calls with Mom as I panic) to find out what I could possibly replace it with. At the end of that convo, I high-tailed it across the entire shopping center to the PicknPay inconveniently placed at the opposite end and found my must-have-ingredient and purchased it (along with a quick stop back at the Woolies for my nice-to-have ingredient). Sorted, right?

Well, you'd think 4 different shop visits would be enough for one evening of home-made dinner and dessert? But there is more to come ...

I headed home. It was 5pm. 1 hour after leaving work. I got started on my Banana Loaf, since it has to bake for an hour. At which point I discovered that although I brought my electric mixer in it's box from Varen's when I moved ... I appear to not have brought the actual beaters :p Excellent. But not to worry, I have a whisk. Queue phone-call 2 to Mom. At which point, it turns out I've added all the ingredients in the wrong order and the whole lot got tossed and started again. Not a real train smash and I'm pleased to say things started to go smoothly after this :)

The banana bread looked awesome when I popped it into the loaf-tin and started doing the dishes (at about 6pm). And then I started to wonder about that Bacon. I didn't remember unpacking it from my shopping bags ... I definitely remembered putting it in my basket. Nope it hadn't fallen out in my car on the drive home ... And it turned out not to be on the till slip. The poor packet of bacon is probably lying lonely in some shopping basket back at Pick n Pay. Sigh.

So off to the very nearby (small) Woolies we go. Yes folks, I stood at a total of 5 tills in 5 different shops this afternoon alone. OMG. That is surely far too many for one mere evening meal!! At this point I could do nothing but laugh since I had committed to making the recipe and it was going to be perfect.

Luckily it all was. To be honest the food was absolutely delish and the multiple shopping trips all forgotten by the time our bellies were full. And I can highly recommend adding the bacon to the spinach & feta pie, it was a perfect addition, I may always make it like this in future ;) And nutella on Banana bread is a total *winner*. Yum :)

And the boy liked it too - haha. Secretly I'm convinced he thinks I can't cook ...

The Map of Time by Felix J Palma

2011-10-05T07:29:00.000+02:00

An epic, ambitious and page-turning mystery that will appeal to fans of The Shadow of the Wind, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and The Time Traveller’s Wife.

London, 1896. Andrew Harrington is young, wealthy and heartbroken. His lover Marie Kelly was murdered by Jack the Ripper and he longs to turn back the clock and save her.

Meanwhile, Claire Haggerty rails against the position of women in Victorian society. Forever being matched with men her family consider suitable, she yearns for a time when she can be free to love whom she choses.

But hidden in the attic of popular author – and noted scientific speculator – H.G. Wells is a machine that will change everything.

As their quests converge, it becomes clear that time is the problem – to escape it, to change it, might offer them the hope they need...

Well I really quite enjoyed this book, it did have some "feel" of The Time Traveler's Wife (and it didn't remind me of Jonathan Strange at all!). I definitely enjoyed the first 2 sections better than the third.

12 August: Francistown to South Africa

2011-10-04T07:32:00.000+02:00

We headed out of Francistown (A) early, so early that when we tried to pop in at Woolies or PnP on our way out (for braai supplies at the farm that night), they weren't even open! It was just before 9am.

And we drove and drove and drove back to the border crossing at Groblersbrug (B), which was much quicker on the way out of Botswana. And then we decided to toss a coin. Either we could go according to plan and stop at the farm overnight and head back into Jozi the next day or we could drive straight thru, arriving home around 6pm-ish.

As much as the farm is a weird experience, belonging to The Trucker's ex-girlf's dad and all, I was kinda all for spending the night there en route home. The week away had been bliss (even tho his phone was recently switched back on now that we were back in SA). And I knew that if we headed straight back to Joburg, the holiday would be over and we'd start faffing with real life stuff. Luckily the coin agreed with me :) Haha. And off to the farm we headed.

I wasn't quite prepared for what the evening had in store for me, I won't lie. Turns out the ex-girlf's dad and his wife were headed down to the farm for the weekend and we'd be having dinner with them. Before all that tho, we went off on a gorgeous sun-downer game drive on the other side of the farm and saw many of their (apparently) 25 giraffe.

To say dinner that evening was a peculiar experience would be a vast understatement. I won't get into details, but it was pretty damn surreal for me. And to top things off, we had breakfast again with them the next morning before we left (not my idea). Not exactly an experience I will be looking to repeat any time soon. And so, we left the farm after breakfast and finally headed home (C).

Relaxed

2011-10-03T07:51:00.000+02:00

On Friday evening I headed out to Trabella for a birthday dinner. It was tricky to find because any signage was blocked by construction and parking in that Oxford-Corlett corner is generally a total nightmare. But other than that, I'm definitely planning on taking the trucker back there for pizza again :) Was yummy and it's such a cute little place. Although closed for renovations till 18th Oct.

The Trucker didn't come with me, he went out with his friend out from America again. And they headed to The Doors, while I headed home. I did consider joining them, but wasn't really in the mood.

Instead I was awake at 6:30am on Saturday morning, letting the bunnies run and eating left-over pizza while watching True Blood in bed. A lovely way to start the day :) At about 10, I showered and dressed and went to The Truckers and the 3 of us braved the chaos at Northgate for some breakfast (crazy!).

The afternoon was lazy, with a little bit of series-watching and napping and then in the evening we went to The Lyric to watch John Vlismas' One Dark Night. Wasn't the funniest of his show's I've seen, but I did enjoy it and my cheeks were sore :) Aside from the very annoying man sitting next to me who clearly wasn't aware that the seats were all attached and every time he stomped his legs and rocked himself back and forth with high pitched laughter, he was ruining it for me :P

Just as we were arriving it started storming, which it continued on and off till Sunday night. So Sunday was pretty lazy, ideal take-out and series weather :) It was a pretty perfect Sunday afternoon, honestly.

Congrats Peeble!

2011-09-30T07:33:00.000+02:00

So big news last night. My little sister, The Peeb, is getting married next year! I am all kinds of excited for her ... and a little green that my baby sister is doing it first. But I guess with my checkered relationship history thus far, it's not too surprising. She, after all, has gone well past the 2.5yr mark with her now-fiance.

But they're still not conventional, he didn't really propose, there is no ring and she was picking a date before even telling anyone they'd decided. Haha. I guess that's to be expected from someone I never really expected to bother with signing the papers.

Sheesh, so I think that takes it to 3 weddings in Cape Town for me next year ... and I can't miss any of them. I've pretty much known all 3 people my whole life!

What else ... I went to The Trucker's last night. We had one of those nice (and rare for us) evenings at home just doing our own thing. He worked and I bathed and read my book. Much more in the style of an evening you'd have when living with someone. It was nice and comfortable, honestly. And good practice driving into work from his house (just a few kms further away than my new house will be!). Eep, which reminds me ... today will be my last Rental Payment!! This is super exciting news for me :) The lawyers have all been paid and now it's the downward slide to home ownership for me! Very exciting times :)

Average

2011-09-29T10:31:00.000+02:00

It's been an average week. A quiet night on Monday. SCM on Tuesday. And The Trucker & I went for sushi last night. It took the longest time ever and was not the best sushi experience I've had there (Cedar Square, why go anywhere else when you can get strawberry, salmon, avo & cream cheese rainbow rolls :) )

This morning we started work with a team breakfast at Europa ... so it has been a crazy busy morning trying to catch-up with work already. And I've been a bit sick the last 2 days. Which is annoying because I never get sick, and The Trucker seems to take great joy in pointing this out every time I have gotten sick this year so far :P I think this has been my sickest year ever (which really only includes a bout of tonsillitis and food poisoning :P So I don't think it's that bad going!)! Either way, I am ploughing my way thru a box of strepsils and medlemons and tissues at the moment. But I do feel better today than I did yesterday, so that's gotta count for something.

I am also feeling *very* poor! Paid both property attorneys now and my savings account is resembling my current account :( *sob* But I know it'll get back on track eventually ... But I am hoping my next salary comes round asap!

Oh, and I met with 3 interested potential new tenants from my investment property last night. That went well. But it is so funny how your "top contenders" change after you meet the people. I think I've pretty much already chosen my new tenant, honestly. But will wait for the credit check to come back before we sign anything :)

11 August: Maun to Francistown

2011-09-28T07:49:00.002+02:00

Today was a long driving day. I think (it was a while ago now), we skipped breakfast and headed out, leaving Maun (A) behind.

Francistown (B) was a little confusing because they had some major roadworks on the go, but we found out overnight accommodation eventually, a little outside town. I'd booked us into Dumela Lodge because everything in town looked like a casino and I didn't want to give in to city-type accommodation if I didn't have to!

I really quite liked it. The tents were up on raised platforms with victorian baths. We lazed around for a bit of the afternoon, after the long drive, it was much needed.

But we decided to head into town for dinner and ended up at their local Nandos (pretty much the same as our Nandos). With a waffle at the Milky Lane next door afterwards :) It felt close to being back home already.

10 August: Maun

2011-09-27T07:33:00.002+02:00

Ah, what a lovely day! We were up pretty early to get the tent all packed up and us ready for our day on the river. We had some breakfast and then headed out.

We were taken by boat to a spot further up the Okavango river where we met up with our Mokoro captains & their mokoros. Weirdest part is that they now have all these fibre glass ones!

And off we went. I sat in front and trailed my hand in the water enjoying the calmness around me. It was lovely. Although I won't lie, by the time we reached the island we were stopping at for lunch, my butt was killing me! Should taken a cushion ;)

We had a lovely guy steering us, Tony. We chatted a lot to him about his life. It was very interesting. The wander around the island was pretty boring, no animals and very hot. But we stopped in the shade and had a packed lunch we'd brought from the Okavango River Lodge, which was quite nice. And then we headed back, with the intention of going on a quick tour around the village before being taken back. But we got distracted by an elephant on the side of the river which delayed us too long to fit that in, unfortunately :(

It was a fabulous way to spend a day and I would really recommend it as part of any trip to the Okavango :) And I think my favourite part was the frogs ... turns out I was quite an expert frog-spotter (they're so cute!) and even ended up with a stow-away for a little while :)

That evening we headed into Maun for dinner at The Sports Bar. It was pretty average, aside from some haloumi spring rolls, which were delish! Botswana was not a winning culinary destination for me :P

More Stuff

2011-09-26T08:28:00.001+02:00

Shoo, it was a busy weekend. On Friday afternoon a friend of The Trucker's arrived from the States so I went thru to his house and we all (along with a bunch of other friend's of theirs) headed to The Keg for an evening of catching up. My goodness but was Friday night cold!

On Saturday morning the 3 of us headed to Wimpy for breakfast while watching some of the RWC2011. I do quite like their wrap breakfast. After breakfast we did a little shopping before dropping off The Trucker's friend at his family (he had a wedding he was out here for) and then to my place to check up on the bunnies.

Then it was off to another of The Trucker's friend's for a visit (they were braai-ing but since we were headed to another braai, we just stopped in for a drink to say hi to everyone). And then to a friend of his' mom's 50th braai. Sheesh, it was a busy day. And the funniest part was that even tho I started out not knowing anyone at the 50th, I left having met my dad's cousin & his wife who happened to be there. A rather entertaining turn of events, but highly likely in my world. Haha. And one of the birthday girl's sister's lives up the road from my uncle too. South Africa can be a pretty tiny place sometimes! It turned out to be a really good evening :)

On Sunday we had a lazy morning and then got up & showered and went for a walk. It was a beautiful morning after the overcast & freezing Saturday! The Trucker took me to Golden Harvest Park (which I didn't even know existed!). It was very cool. A weird place, with all these random house in the middle of the park, but good for a walk :)

And then it was back home and we made ourselves (mostly he did) a delish breakfast (another breakfast wrap) :) Snuggled up in front of the tv for a bit, started Game of Thrones. Then he had to do some work and I went home to clean the bunny hutch and do some grocery shopping for the week. You know, the annoying admin stuff that gets in the way of the weekend.

In the evening I watched The Girl Who Played with Fire. I thought it was a very good follow up to the first one and again I can't imagine why Hollywood is bothering to remake them.

Moody Blues

2011-09-23T08:00:00.000+02:00

It has been a very meh and off-kilter week for me. I've just been down and anti-social and, left to my own devices, my brain attacks. It's very annoying that it can make stuff up and make me believe it. Although logically I know it's not true. Sigh. So I've spent a week being squashed by questions about life and what I'm doing and why and all sorts of annoying things. I've had self-doubt swallow me.

So Monday I was home and actually in bed with lights out by 8pm. I was just feeling disconnected and unnaturally tired. On Tuesday I almost did the same but decided instead that I would go out. Since it was an SCM Birthday at Schwabing ... R50 a schnitzel! Not too bad and I think the best food-experience I've had there. But because there were so many of us and we were waiting for people to arrive we ordered late, our food arrived even later and I was exhausted by the time I left ... I even skipped dessert (and @samanthaperry had organised a delish cake from Indulge!)

Wednesday was pretty average but another evening spent at home alone. Last night tho, I finally saw The Trucker (he'd been working every night this week so far). We shared a pizza at Col'Cacchio. Poor boy, dealing with my mood I had to keep trying to convince him it wasn't him ... not the real him anyway, just the him my head was making up stories about :P

I guess after this many years and this many failed relationships it's hard not to doubt and question and to just trust instead. I mean, sure it's easy when the person is nearby reminding you that they're there ... but when they can't be, it's that little bit harder. Because the last person who was "working late" probably wasn't ...

On Thursday I had woken up completely blue and spent a sad day expecting everything to fall apart and completely unsure of myself and my life and what on earth I am doing and the point of it all. Even tho logically I know I am doing great things. Traveling the world and being independent with lots of friends and a wonderful family that's just a little too far away sometimes. Unfortunately when I'm in this dumb mood I don't rely on any of them and instead just end up curling up inside my head making myself feel worse. Silly, I know.

But on the plus side I know it'll pass and I'll get distracted by real life and things on the go again ... I can feel it happening already.

09 August: Okavango Delta to Maun

2011-09-22T07:54:00.000+02:00

This morning we had a bit of a lie-in, since we were doing a self-drive stay at Sango Safari Camp (A), we had no activities to get up and out of bed for at 6am (although, just a warning, when you're sleeping in tents, luxury or not, everyone else in the tents next to yours will wake you up anyway :P).

It was quite lovely. We ordered hot-water buckets for the outdoor showers and had a relaxed breakfast before setting off.

We entered Moremi at North Gate and headed East in the hopes of seeing the Leopard with it's kill that everyone was talking about. Sadly (as is my luck since as good as I usually am at seeing wildlife, I've never seen a leopard in the wild) by the time we got there, apparently it had moved (considering the number of tourist vehicles we saw heading back from where it had been, who can be surprised?). So we drove around there a bit more, saw some more elephant (I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this trip we'd seen every single elephant living in Botswana!). Then we headed back to the gate and took the road West to Hippo Pools (B).

Sadly we couldn't take the route we wanted (to South Gate via Third Bridge) because the roads were flooded. But we did enjoy this detour, although there were only more elephant, 6 sleeping hippo and plenty of buck to see. And then it was back to the North Gate-South Gate road which we took straight down to the exit.

We'd booked into Kaziikini Campsite for 2 nights, to give us a nearby spot to explore Moremi from. I think we lasted 3hrs there ... We made ourselves some lunch. The Trucker had a snooze. I had a shower (very outdoor and communal). And then we decided this was not for us. By this stage our ice bricks had long ago melted and we were sort of under the impression we'd be able to get meals and whatever we needed here, but I don't think we could've. And I think the driving was beginning to take it's toll.

So we headed back to Maun (C) (keep in mind after packing up we left Kaziikini at about 5pm). Took the rental car back and headed off in search of somewhere to sleep. Maun was full! But we met the most helpful woman (Kirsty) at the Okavango River Lodge (our 2nd attempt to find somewhere to sleep).

She phoned around and saved us the drive. We spoke to her about what our options for the next day were ... and we ended up deciding to stay right there. We had to pitch our tent in their campsite for tonight, but they had a room for us for tomorrow.

And we booked in for a full day's Mokoro trip for tomorrow too :) A restful day with no driving. So we went and set up our tent and came back for some dinner. Cheese burgers must've been the meal of the trip - haha.

08 August: Gweta to Maun to Okavango Delta

2011-09-21T08:05:00.000+02:00

I think without a doubt this was the Longest Day of our trip, although not necessarily literally. We skipped breakfast at Planet Baobab (A) and headed out early for Maun (B) because The Trucker had noticed yesterday that there was something funny happening when he put the Pajero into 4x4 mode. So before we headed off into Okavango country, we needed to get this checked out and fixed. The Bush Mechanic that had taken a look yesterday at Planet Baobab thought it sounded simple and told us exactly where to go in Maun.

Unfortunately, things are never that simple :( After stopping at the place we were told and informed they didn't have the part but to try elsewhere, we ended up at Trans Motor World in Maun-dustria with Philemon shaking his head at us. No, no, they don't have Pajero parts.

But we hoisted her up and took off a wheel and the diff-lock (I was just nodding and smiling by this point without a clue in the world) and he checked it out. They couldn't find anything wrong and things did nothing but slow down after the thrill of the chase was over. So with nothing fixed and no ideas on what was broken we headed out to rent a 4x4.

Sigh, and eventually we headed out of Maun. It had not been a great day so far but we decided that to cheer ourselves up we wouldn't just grab a take-out and get on the road to our next destination but we'd stop and have lunch somewhere nice. My Aging Aunt had suggested The Old Bridge Backpackers, which was exactly the gorgeous setting we needed. It was beautiful, right on the river with yummy food. I definitely recommend it :)

And then we were off again. We went up around Moremi and ended up going thru a bit of Chobe to get to Sango Safari Camp (C). But not without some more trouble along the way. The drive was going well enough, we saw a few elephant. And then we came to the river crossings. It's hard to believe the river crossings will be un-crossable when for the most part you spend your time driving thru such dry sand. We'd never have made it across on our own and we were stuck without any cell-signal when a Sango vehicle came past us, en route to transfer some other guests. We attached a tow-rope and floated thru the worst parts of the river, grateful.

Needless to say that by the time we arrived, moods were a little frayed. We spent our evening at our gorgeous luxury tent and watched the sun set while listening to a hippo not far away. Sadly we didn't get to see him :(

We had a communal dinner in the main area and then headed back to bed to enjoy their gorgeous plush beds and listen to the sounds of wildlife around us. I will say it's really tricky to tell how close the animals are when it's so quiet at nighttime ... but it was easy to believe that the elephants we heard were pushing over trees really nearby. The hippo's also continued to call. Apparently there were also lions after I'd fallen asleep (The Trucker did not sleep well, listening to the cacophony surrounding our mere tent)

Not So Far Away

2011-09-20T07:57:00.000+02:00

Well, I did skip the traditional Monday morning weekend post ... but Taste seemed more important :) So here's what else we got up to.

I'd bought a weekend in Bryanston on St Luke's Auction a while back and decided that the Taste weekend would be the best time to use it. So on Friday afternoon, we headed off to Homestead on Homestead.

Wow. Seriously. We (much to our surprise) found ourselves in the honeymoon suite, an absolutely massive room with a giant bathroom (2 showers, one indoor & one outdoor!). It was fabulous. And the house is also amazing. The owner, Ingrid, grew up there as a little girl cause her folks built it originally. The grounds are massive and stunningly maintained. I was just fascinated. I mean I always look at these fancy places and wonders who puts together all the bits and pieces of furniture. Because it all looks amazing but none of it is ever stuff I would choose. It's like those places in magazines where you wonder if anyone ever uses all these chairs and spaces ... it all just looks too pristine.

Anyway we headed off to the original Ghazal's for dinner on Friday night. Their Mahknie was delish (as always), but neither of us found the Korma as good as usual. And I dunno why The Trucker insists on starters ... I was so full by the end of the meal! But we still found space for a little flake-cone from KFC on the way back (he *has* to have dessert ... it's a terrible habit ;) haha).

And then we had a bit of a lazy Saturday morning and breakfast was spot-on ... while we watched the 2nd half of our very convincing RWC win over Fiji :)

Then it was off to the shops for a bit (had to collect our taste tickets). I hate shopping with The Trucker ... inevitably he comes home with bags of goodies and I've bought nothing. Well, I'm not that much of a shopper anyways. Haha. But I was teasing him about it ;)

Then it was a quick hello to the bunnies before heading off to Taste. After Taste we headed back to my house let the bunnies round a bit before heading back to the B&B for a lazy evening. We decided to make use of the DSTv in our room (since neither of us have it ... and again I was reminded of why we don't!) and watched Ghost. Wow, it was rubbish. Some movies I guess you should just not watch again.

Sunday was another lazy morning. And then after some lazy book-reading before leaving the B&B, we headed off to do some major grocery shopping.

I decided to experiment this week with pre-made meals for breakfast & lunch for work. So far it's going well. Breakfast is a mix of granola, vanilla seeds, dried cranberries, banana and strawberries (those last two are added on the morning). And for lunch I whipped up a veggie cous cous salad type thing (cous cous, chopped almonds, sunflower seeds, carrot, baby tomatoes, red, yellow & green peppers, celery, bean sprouts, kidney beans, feta ... I can't remember if there is anything else). We'll see how it keeps (hence the experiment part. It's all been portioned into 500g. So I spent my Sunday afternoon preparing while The Trucker headed home to garden & work.

It was a pretty good weekend really :) Don't discount the good a weekend away even so close to home can do ;)

Taste of Joburg 2011

2011-09-19T07:35:00.002+02:00

Ah, Taste of Joburg, I think this must be my favourite annual Joburg event :) As is tradition, I was at the Saturday afternoon session. The weather treated us well, not too hot (in fact the day started out downright chilly with a breeze and overcast but it got quite nice and sunny but afternoon).

It was The Trucker's first time at Taste and I think he enjoyed it too :) Between us we managed to try an awful lot of dishes! Hey, and this year we even had seconds of our 2 favourites (both desserts that we shared, so I guess it was one whole portion each in the end - haha).

So, the favourites of the day were definitely the Honeycomb mousse with salted peanut and chocolate gastrique from La Belle Terrasse (our first was far better than our second tho, I think because it was colder so the outer chocolate containing the delicious mousse was harder - and oh those salted peanuts complimented the flavour so perfectly!!) and the Self-saucing Malva pudding and kumquat preserve with home-made ginger ice cream from roots @ Forum Homini (always a strong favourite of mine!).

My favourite main was also from roots, their Springbok bobotie with home-made gooseberry chutney and marinated baby tomatoes. I was surprised to see that the chef from roots has now opened another new restaurant called Gray. We tried 2 of their dishes: the Beef jap roll with honey & beetroot puree, asparagus and wasabi aioli (my fave of the two) and their Pepper-grilled sirloin cube with smoke cauliflower puree and mustard seed sauce.

I was also surprised at home many dishes contained mushrooms that never even mentioned them :P My next favourite main was probably the Baby spinach gnocchi with blue cheese and walnut sauce from Oliva Bar & Kitchen.

The item that I think we had the highest hopes for (but didn't really live up to the expectation) was the deconstructed 'Rocky Road')Honey and rose water ice cream, chocolate brownie praline and home-made marshmallow) from The Saxon.

What else ... The Sashimi-style Scottish salmon with a variety of shoots, ginger and garlic chips and a citrus dressing from Bellagio was pretty average (although tasty).

I especially liked the prawn in La Bonne Table's Mediterranean vegetable tatin and aubergine caviar with Mozambican Prawn ... pity the rest was not especially impressive.

There were way too many mushrooms for me in the Crunchy prawn & ricotta pasta 'pillows' served on wild mushrooms with a smoked salmon Champagne cream from Piccolo Mondo (my own fault really).

I ended the day with the Oxtail burger with pear ratatouille from Sel et Poivre & Le Petit Sel, which was pretty average too, I thought.

The only other thing I really enjoyed this year was a delish brandy Cocktail (no idea what it was, but it was good!) with Fish Eagle. Other than that, there was nothing much I was blown away by in the exhibitors. What I found really quite sad (although I guess it was an eventuality really) was that they started charging for the wine-tastings. So much for promotions, but I imagine it can kinda get out of hand. So we tried some wines and some champagnes and all round had a lovely afternoon :)

Something Different

2011-09-16T07:58:00.001+02:00

On Wednesday eve, I went to the Sunday Times Piet Byleveld dinner with @WhizBangLouLou at The Local Grill in Parkhurst. Was so nice to do something different like that. And we both bought his book and got them signed (who can resist a signed copy of a book??).

It was kinda weird, sitting at these tables of about 12 not knowing anyone else ... ever stayed at a small hotel or b&b where they seat all the guests together at dinner? Yeah like that. Although we were by far the youngest at our table and pretty much kept to ourselves. The starters were amazing. A wide variety of different plates of food shared among everyone. The only downside is that it's hard to actually get to and store all these big plates on those tables.

After our starters, Piet and Hanlie (the actual author) got up to speak. It was really very interesting because I realised I've never really paid that much attention or been that aware of Serial Killers in South Africa. I guess because in real life it tends to drag along over years.

Then it was time for mains and I had their chicken dish. Basil Pesto and Sweet chili sauce are a bit of a strange combo. Then they got up again and took some questions from the audience while we got our dessert, which although tasted delish, was a rather small portion (but suited me fine).

And then we queued to get our books signed and headed home.

Last night The Trucker came over after cricket and I'd got us some take-out from Luca's ... I had a craving for their salad :) Was a nice eve, I feel like I haven't really seen him in a while (especially with him so distracted by work chaos last weekend).

07 August: Makgadikgadi Pans to Gweta

2011-09-15T07:44:00.000+02:00

OMG Did we freeze last night! The Trucker even had to get up in the middle of the night to re-peg the tent cause the wind had really come up and the cover was flapping around like crazy. Brrr!

Much later, we had a lazy morning today knowing we didn't have far to go to our next overnight-stop. The rest of the campsite seemed to have completely cleared out before we left!

We faffed around making a delish scrambled egg breakfast (with feta & chives, bacon and toast) and then after packing up camp, took a bit of a walk before saying goodbye to Kubu Island (A). We also took a drive around the "island" before heading on our way.

This was by far one of the most awesome days of our trip. The Makgadikgadi is like nothing I've ever seen before and we got to see it in all it's moon-surface-like glory today! Words cannot describe it :)

We got to Planet Baobab (B) in the afternoon and had a refreshing swim in their pool. While I lazed next to the pool with my book, The Trucker took the Pajero off to try get it cleaned. That Makgadikgadi dust is something else! It got everywhere and it was impossible to clean!

We had a lazy afternoon, reading and napping. The Planet Baobab cottages are truly adorable! Before sunset, we went for a drink and to place our dinner orders (these have to be done around 5pm). We sat just enjoying our surroundings ... until I noticed that their stove chimney had set their thatch alight. And then there was quite the mad scramble with everyone (well, all the boys) trying to put it out. Throwing buckets of water and sand up into the air.

Turns out that although the cottages all have fire extinguishers, the dining area, kitchen and bar don't seem to?? Anyway, nothing got too burnt although we could see that there was quite a gap of thatch the next morning! And everyone continued their evenings.

I think I just had a toasted sandwich for dinner. You don't get so hungry snacking on rubbish while driving ;) The place is beautifully lit at night, highlighting all the massive surrounding baobabs. I would recommend a night or two at Planet Baobab if you're nearby :)

My First ...

2011-09-14T08:41:00.001+02:00

Oh my word. What a morning!! I just had my first personal brush with crime in Jozi ...

Okay, let me start by explaining my living situation. I live in a cottage on a large property. There are people in the main house and there are also people living in rooms between the cottage and the main house (our domestic worker and family of hers, I'm not always exactly sure of who lives there and who doesn't, aside from my domestic and her man). And a business is run from the main house during the day so there are always plenty of people around.

This morning I woke to a massive verbal fight happening in the rooms next to my cottage. A little later I heard the fight move into the large garden behind my cottage and I peeked out the window and saw my domestic's boyfriend and another man shoving and fighting. I went to go shower, staying out of it.

I got out of the shower to my phone ringing. It was the lady living in the main house telling me that my domestic's nephew had apparently opened my kitchen windows and taken stuff, could I please go and see if anything was missing. There was an already-opened bottle of vodka missing and that was all. The windows were wide open and I guess that was all within reach thru the burglar bars that he was interested in. Apparently this all happened at 05:45 this morning.

And so, the police & ADT were called. Apparently during the fight he'd also assaulted my domestic and her sister (his mom). I was impressed with how prompt they were. We made statements and when I left for work he was already locked in the back of their van.

Now it does seem kinda silly to me to lay a charge of theft against someone for something as ridiculous as an already-opened bottle of vodka, but I understand the principal. They wanted to press charges so I got behind them and did what was needed. They live there for free and he was screwing with the trust that exists between all of us living on the property.

I don't know what will happen now, but it was not an ideal start to my day.

At least the day has improve dramatically since I had my annual review just after arriving (I was obviously quite late after the morning's antics) and it went really well :)

06 August: South Africa to Orapa to Makgadikgadi Pans

2011-09-13T12:09:00.002+02:00

So actually our trip started at 13h30 yesterday afternoon (A) when we actually left the house and started driving ... this involved a stop at Steers for lunch and more driving, almost to the Botswana border. We spent the night at The Trucker's ex-girlf's dad's game farm (yes, it is weird, but they're still business partners). We arrived after dark, but we still had a bit of a game drive before braai-ing (saw some of their giraffe). It was not a late night because we had an early morning border crossing to get to.

This morning we didn't even have breakfast, just packed a few muffins and rusks and whatnot into the front with us and headed off to the Groblersbrug border post (B). We weren't there first and it's a bit confusing with a lot of people all queuing for different things (I did not think it was particularly well sign-posted) but we got thru the SA side quite easily. Then it was over the Limpopo river and into Botswana. All this was pretty quick ... until we got to the queue to pay (I'm not sure what exactly, honestly - assume it's something to do with bringing the car in?). This took (and I'm not kidding here) ages! Two hours, I think?

Eventually we made it thru and were on our way (with a quick petrol stop - it's much cheaper in Bots!). The plan of the day was to head up to Orapa (C) for lunch (because it's where The Trucker spent some of his childhood and he'd never been back) and then on up into the Makgadikgadi Pans for our overnight stop at Kubu Island (D).

Orapa was an iffy step in our journey. You see, it is the ultimate gated community. You need a pass to even get in there (it's built around a Diamond Mine). And we couldn't get much info on how to get this pass beforehand. So we went armed with minimal info from 2 blog posts I'd found that basically implied we could just get it on arrival. But who knew how long that was likely to take? I'll tell you, it wasn't long. And as a stop, I generally wouldn't recommend it (there's really nothing much going on there). But it was pretty cool for The Trucker to check out his old house and reminisce. We had lunch at Wimpy.

After lunch we asked a local about the best way to get to Kubu Island. This was a dumb idea and left us panic-ed because we were told that the road was completely flooded and we'd never get thru and we'd have to go all the way around the Pans and then down from Gweta. We tried asking at the local police station (completely useless). And we tried calling Kubu Island. No answer. Eventually we called Planet Baobab (our following night's destination to see if they could tell us anything or if we could get an extra night accommodation there instead).

Whew, the relief! The told us there were definitely no problems with the roads (they had people who had come that way in the last few days). So off we headed. Seeing the salt pans for the first time is akin to spotting the sea for the first time on a long drive :) Quite surreal and spectacular. And Kubu Island did not disappoint (although there was a little confusion about our booking. Luckily I'd printed everything out and had proof of payments and booking emails with us).

We set up camp (yes, we were tenting tonight!) and took some Savannas up onto the rocky hill to watch the sun set. Quite stunning :) The photos don't do it justice. And the baobabs all around us were awesome. After sunset, we made a fire and set up the skottel and cooked up a delish stir-fry for dinner :) Blissful, I tell you!

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

2011-09-13T07:56:00.000+02:00

Being a Greek god is not all it once was. Yes, the twelve gods of Olympus are alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse-and none too happy about it. And they've had to get day jobs: Artemis as a dog-walker, Apollo as a TV psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Dionysus as a DJ.

Even more disturbingly, their powers are waning, and even turning mortals into trees-a favorite pastime of Apollo's-is sapping their vital reserves of strength.Soon, what begins as a minor squabble between Aphrodite and Apollo escalates into an epic battle of wills. Two perplexed humans, Alice and Neil, who are caught in the crossfire, must fear not only for their own lives, but for the survival of humankind. Nothing less than a true act of heroism is needed-but can these two decidedly ordinary people replicate the feats of the mythical heroes and save the world?

This did have a few laugh out loud moments, but i didn't think it was nearly as hysterical as I was led to believe. Good fun, but I preferred Lamb. Guess I'm just not that into those Greek gods ;)

Green

2011-09-12T10:36:00.000+02:00

To say this weekend did not end well would be an understatement ... but thankfully it started well :)

The Trucker worked late again but I had a girls-fondue to attend at @WhizBangLouLou's which turned out to be such a fun evening with a great group of girls :) Seriously, I had a blast!

I ended up getting to The Trucker's place at about 22h30 to find him almost passed out asleep. Poor boy! On Saturday morning we had a disappointing breakfast at Chef and The Fat Man. I guess I'm just not really a buffet-breakfast kinda girl.

And then it was off to buy The Bundles a new hay bale (Midfeeds has moved which caused some confusion). And then there was other admin. The Trucker is *amazing* when it comes to house-admin ... we changed all the blown light bulbs (4!) - Could not get The Housemate or Varen to do that without weeks of nagging! And he fixed my washing machine which was leaking ... apparently when I assembled it, I connected one of the water-cables the wrong way round - oops. But I don't feel too bad since it took more than 18mnths for anyone to even notice it or for it to start leaking (which I think had more to do with needing plumbers tape than my mistake.

And then we tried to have a relaxing afternoon. I hadn't slept well at all on Friday night and The Trucker was still playing catch-up on sleep from Thursday night. Well, I had a relaxing afternoon reading my book, the poor boy didn't get to sleep uninterrupted for even half an hour in 3 hrs. His phone is *always* ringing, there is always some crisis that needs him!

Anyhoo, I made us a very late lunch at 16h30 and then after The Bundles had a bit of a run around we headed off to his house for a walk. Then I had a divine bath with my book while he faffed with his house stuff. And then we settled in with some popcorn to watch Super 8.

Boy am I glad we didn't bother going to the cinema for this one. I renamed it Super Dumb. Seriously, do not bother watching this. It is like it was trying to be one of those kid-group movies from the 80s or something but throw in some completely unbelievable alien nonsense and you just lose it. Yeah, I did not enjoy it.

On Sunday we were up early and off to Zoo Lake for The Trucker's cricket game (to be played around the Rugby World Cup screening). Was quite a cool morning, although the boy was pretty stressed with work stuff (I can relate, I can't stand waiting on 3rd parties to fix issues). So I went home around 13h30, he stayed to play the final (cause they won their morning match) and then went off to work again. Thank goodness tho at the end of the evening they'd finished what needed doing, so am sure that's a weight off his mind :)

Me, I did more house admin, cleaned the bunny hutch, finished up my Botswana blog posts (!). While I ate dinner, I watched 9. It was okay, quite sweet, I guess. But again, I'm not a huge fan of animated movies.

And then around 8pm started to feel yuck. It must've been something I ate, I think. OMG I felt completely green. I think I threw up at least 4 times. I couldn't even sip water without throwing up. It was that awful full-body retching. My body was sore and drained. And I was so thirsty. Seriously, a far from ideal way to end my weekend. The last time I remember feeling that bad was when I got back from Egypt with a 7-day stomach virus.

And you know that weird combo of I don't want anyone to see me ill like this (cause who can stand the sound of someone else throwing up?!) versus omg, I just want someone here to look after me and make me feel better. Yeah, that. The Trucker was pretty good over bbm tho :)

Luckily although I am fragile this morning, I seem to be alright. Have managed some water, gingerbeer and an apple. Will have some bovril toast before heading into work a little later ... There is no way I'm going to work before I am certain I can keep my food down!!

Upcoming Awesomeness

2011-09-09T08:00:00.001+02:00

Thursday evening did not turn out to be nearly as fabulous as Wednesday. The Trucker was supposed to come over but ended up working till 2am (poor boy).

And this weekend is likely to be pretty average. Nothing specific planned except for a fondue this eve, which I am super looking forward to because I adore fondues! And then there is the rugby on Sunday (which I'm saving my shirt for - haha). But The Trucker is playing cricket the whole day ... so we'll see how that goes :P I have an admin day planned for Saturday. See, all very run of the mill at this stage.

*But* I am so looking forward to next week :) I'm off to the Sunday Times Piet Byleveld dinner on Wednesday evening (Yay! Scored some tickets after it was sold out cause someone cancelled). And then next weekend The Trucker & I are spending a weekend away ... in Bryanston. Haha. I know, kinda ridiculous, right? But I got the 2 nights for 2 people bed and breakfast super cheap on the St Lukes Auction :) And hey, I figure any night that's even kinda away for you both is good fun so why not?

And I especially picked our "away weekend" for next weekend because it's one of my all-time favourite Jozi events! The Taste of Joburg Festival :) It's their 5th year ... and I haven't missed one yet! I am so excited, it's The Trucker's first time :) I have tried to prepare him for what a Taste Nazi I am ... but I don't think he'll really understand till the day - haha.

Yep, I have a strategy and a formula ... none of this wishy-washy trying as I wander stuff for me. And I always go to the Saturday afternoon session. I go armed with my pen and the first thing I do is cross off everything I have no interest in eating (this list is inevitably far too short every year!). Then I do a second parse to try and whittle it away to a manageable number of things to try. Sharing is a nice idea but isn't usually effective, depending on who you're attending with (The Trucker does not eat seafood, the prawns will all be mine - mwahahahahaha) and the size of the portions (often quite tiny).

And then I rank the food in order of (my) priority, to ensure I absolutely don't miss out on my must-haves. And then the wandering can begin. Awe, I absolutely love the Taste of Joburg ... I can't wait!

The Stuff Weeks are Made of

2011-09-08T07:57:00.000+02:00

I'm in an oddly cheerful mood this morning ... which surprises me no end considering I did not sleep soundly at all last night. It took me a long time to get used to sleeping on my own again and now sleeping with someone else in the bed with me sometimes throws me. Especially cause at this point it's pretty erratic and usually we end up chatting till late not letting my brain switch off properly, you know?

Anyway, so this week ... Um, Monday was a total waste, and completely by accident. I had good intentions, I so often do. But instead I found myself watching 1 episode, that turned into 6, of Glee. I keep reminding myself that I do need these night's off since for the most part I'm out and about with other people each evening. But I am also starting to realise that I need to better use my free time and not use it for hibernating or escapism all the time, but rather for actually doing stuff around my house (like packing, or sorting ... there is always something!). I promise to be better and make better habits in my new house :)

Did I mention I'm going to have to buy a TV for my new house? Well I figure I must. I have realised that without one, I *never* use the lounge. And without one it is just not conducive to dvds on the couch etc. etc. So that is one major purchase I'm planning shortly after my move. (Mom, Dad and family, take note for Xmas, I will need donations to my new TV fund - haha!)

And then Tuesday was SCM and last night I stayed late at work for a Poker night, which was awesome. I haven't played in a while and was feeling a bit out of it initially, but ended up coming 3rd (of 9!). Awesome, I won a whopping R10 (on top of my original contribution, that I made back) - haha. The Trucker had had a horrible day so he decided to come over, which rather made my evening :)

And I got a present! He arrived with a pink Springbok shirt for me ... just in time for the Rugby World Cup, starting on Sunday. I've always meant to get myself one (not specifically a pink one), since I was dating Bean (he was an avid rugby fan), but never quite got round to it ... and now I ave one. YAY :)

Sugar Girls and Seamen by Henry Trotter

2011-09-06T07:21:00.002+02:00

Sugar Girls and Seamen illuminates the shadowy world of dockside prostitution in South Africa, focusing on the women of Cape Town and Durban who sell their hospitality to foreign sailors at one of the busiest cultural intersections in the world. Through their continual interactions with international mariners, ’sugar girls’ are major traffickers in culture, ideas, languages, styles, goods, currencies, genes and diseases. Many become cunning linguists by mastering the men’s tongues, develop emotional relationships with the salty waifs, bear their babies and entangle themselves in vast webs of connection. In many ways, these mermaids are the ultimate cosmopolitans, the unsung sirens of globalisation. Based on fifteen months of research at the seamen's nightclubs, plus countless interviews with sugar girls, sailors, club owners, cabbies, bouncers and barmaids, this title provides an account of Dockside 'romance' at the Southern tip of Africa. Through stories, analysis and first-hand experience, Sugar girls and Seamen reveals this gritty world in all its raw vitality and fragile humanity.

So, another book I didn't finish reading. I tried, honestly I did. And I persevered long after I grew bored, in the hopes that it would recover. The book is just tedious. And it feels terribly repetitive. Trotter says that he was thrilled to convert his research study into an actual book, but it still feels like he had no idea how to write something that wasn't technical and academic. A ghost writer or co-author would probably have gone a long way to helping this.

Meeting His Family

2011-09-05T07:53:00.000+02:00

Well I had another awesome weekend :) And looking thru the calendar I can already tell we're heading into that crazy-busy pre-Xmas social whirlwind.

So back to this weekend ... on Friday we had a work Spring party. Which originally I thought they'd just put far too much effort into, but it turned out to be really nice and I was sorry that The Trucker hadn't joined me (for a change partners were invited and it worked better than usual, I thought). But he'd had his own crazy day and I went over to his place at about 8pm and we had a relaxing evening not even finishing the Top Gear Vietnam Special before yawning our heads off and going to bed. It was a long week!

On Saturday morning I was scheduled to meet his *entire* family! Eep. I won't lie, I was nervous. His mom & gran drove up from the Free State to stay with him till Tuesday, so everyone was meeting at his house for breakfast (which was delish!). So it was him & me, his mom & gran, his sister and her 9yr old daughter and his aunt & cousin. Sheesh. It was all a bit overwhelming initially, but by the time I headed off at 13h30 I'd had a lovely morning :)

But I had @Tamara0h's Gypsy picnic to go home and dress up for! I arrived there at about 3pm and had a lovely afternoon sitting in the sun outside chatting with @Tara_L_B, @Rubyletters and @Angelsmind. And then at about 18h30 I was off again to a friend's housewarming. Sheesh, it was a crazy day and I left the house warming before 9pm, exhausted and needing just a little quiet time to myself.

On Sunday I headed back to The Trucker's for lunch with the family and stayed till dinner (we made a really yummy pasta!!). Is it weird that I think his family is the most similar to mine of anyone I've ever dated? I find it very strange. But good :)

Yuck

2011-09-02T07:52:00.000+02:00

Mkay, my head has (thankfully) moved on from it's muddle. It just gets caught up in itself sometimes. But to be honest I haven't had a spare moment to think this week, really.

Work has been crazy! Have worked a bunch of overtime to get a site live yesterday. And aside from that, I went to dinner with The Trucker on Wednesday evening and to a friend's for dinner last night too.

On Wednesday, we tried Lapa Fo. I used to love the place, but it went a little downhill but it's been, literally, years since I last had their food so I figured it was time to try it again. Hmmm, the place was packed, but it all seemed to be the owner's friends. The service was unbelievable shocking. The completely screwed up my order (to the point that all I ended up eating were a few corners of The Trucker's pizza that had no mushrooms on it). I was being difficult, I'll admit. I ordered a pizza and removed 4 of the toppings and added one. I watched the waitress write it all down (correctly). And when my pizza arrived I could not work out why on earth it was so salty (I despise salt). After individually tasting all toppings, I discovered anchovies. Anchovies, when the base pizza I'd ordered was vegetarian and all I'd asked to be added was a different type of cheese. YUCK. It had taken so long from our original order being taken to our food arriving that since it was already 20h30, I was in no mood to place a new order. We left rather sharply. Apparently the food is actually good. So maybe we'll try it again, just as a take-out instead.

And yeah, last night I was exhausted after such a long and insane work day, but I headed off to @zoosev's for a dinner with the girls. Omg she made us an amazing dinner (a Moroccan chicken dish) and even better dessert (oven grilled fruit with homemade mango ice cream!). Such a lovely evening catching-up with everyone too!

Yawn. It's been a *long* week.

Just Thoughts

2011-08-31T08:29:00.000+02:00

I seem to have lost my blogging mojo ... it's not that I have nothing to say, I do. It's more like I have a lot of unformed thoughts in my head at the moment. Which I want to say, but since they're not yet concrete, it's hard to put them down. (I bet this makes little to no sense to someone who is not a blogger).

And there hasn't been much day-to-day stuff to write about either. SCM turned into Bitchin' Kitchen Tuesday and other than that I haven't really done much yet this week.

And work is chaos. Not exactly in a bad way, I seem to have stabilised when it comes to work these days. Although we have been dealing with some annoying technical issues.

So what is swirling? I am thinking about relationships. I guess I'm facing the truth that at 31 (and a half) I have no idea what it takes to get it right. And I don't know how to separate the societal norms from what I actually want for myself. I am beginning to think that being an independent and self-reliant woman in her 30s, while it is great for me as an individual, is not a very good formula for long-term relationships.

Let me explain. I am used to doing things for myself. At this point in my life I rely on me. And I am skeptical about a relationship working out ... so I have a bunch of mental back-ups plans. I am reminded of a conversation I had with someone about money in marriage. The thought of throwing everything I have in with someone else and letting it all mix and be "ours", to allow them to do whatever stupid thing they want with what's "mine" terrifies me. I like the idea of each keeping separate accounts and having a single joint one (not really knowing the practicalities at this stage, please remember this is all just theory). And I guess that is probably the perfect explanation of what may be both right (financially and security-wise if things crash and burn down the line) and wrong (because we're always holding back and never fully combined with someone else, does that make it easier to walk away?) with the mindset that comes with not yet being married by 30. What happens when both people are like that, can it ever really work out?

See, only a half-formed thought with no solution in sight. I am just trying to muddle thru. I guess as many things that are going on and going right in my life, I still wonder when the next part starts ... it's awesome to be achieving these things (buying my own home!), and although it is an amazing thing to be doing it on my own (if anyone has done *any* house hunting lately, you will know how hard it is to buy if not part of a couple or without two incomes), I am still kinda sad cause I'm not sharing it with someone, I'm moving forward on my own, taking these big life steps alone. I can't really explain that conflict within me, but it's still there.

Happy Again

2011-08-29T08:04:00.001+02:00

Ah, a rare thing, a still blissful post-wonderful-weekend Monday mood :) I was nervous that this weekend was going to be too much like the last, moods out-of-sync and small niggly annoyances taking over (based on my Thursday and Friday moods).

But, instead, somehow I magically got over myself and had a wonderful weekend :) On Friday, the Trucker & I hadn't seen each other in a while and he'd planned a dinner out (apparently), but couldn't get a booking - I kinda love that he wouldn't even tell me where and is saving it for another time. I'm luckier than I realise sometimes, you know, those times when I'm caught up in my own tiny insecurities :(

But we'd both had a long week and a pretty miserable day. So we got some take-out and watched the Top Gear Botswana Special (we've been meaning to watching it again since our trip - yes, blog posts are slowly coming together, give me another week or two, it's harder when I have to write them from scratch instead of just copying them out of my book!). It was amazing to re-watch after having just been there! Haha.

And then we finally got round to watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4. On the plus side, I wasn't expecting anything spectacular. And at the end it was all a little Ho-Hum. But I had to watch it (that's the problem with these sequels, although I have not yet got round to seeing the last Harry Potter - shock horror).

On Saturday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast and then I was off home to sort out Rex's medication. Poor boy was supposed to be all done with the anti-biotics on Friday, but he's still not better. And I ran out of anti-biotics on Sunday and the nearby 24hr vet would not give me a refill with out a prescription :P So hopefully that hasn't been too detrimental. Will have to get the script and get him some more this afternoon. Sigh, it is exhausting and I know he preferred not having it ... I just wish he'd get better!

And The Trucker headed off to drive to Kroonstad and back on the most beautiful day we've had in a while! (work). So I lazed around at home for a while and then went to visit @louisabouwer for a catch-up. Can not believe how much Nicola has grown since I last saw her. I don't mean physically, more just talking and interacting and off on her own mission. She truly is an adorable child!

And then it was back home where The Trucker picked me up and we headed off to Monte for Gourmet Garage (I did not have my Peanut Butter Burger, I know, can you believe ?!?!) and a movie. We watched Crazy, Stupid, Love. I didn't have high expectations, really I was just picking something I thought most people already would've seen for a Saturday night movie. But I loved it. Seriously, it was thoroughly enjoyable, exactly what I needed.

On Sunday morning, The Trucker headed off at 9am to play cricket. I lazed in bed a while, cleaned the bunny hutch and then went to meet him. I got to watch his team bat (which is way better than watching them field, yawn), while I drank hot chocolate ... dunno what happened to the weather after the gorgeous summery Saturday! And after that, we headed off to Market on Main (I hadn't been yet but have heard rave reviews!). I was a little nervous. I don't think markets are quite The Trucker's sort of thing - haha. But after a few initial sarky comments, he got into it and I think really enjoyed it - might've been the amazing variety of food :)

I loved it and will definitely be taking my mom next time she is up :) We ate gourmet hot-dogs, tasted hummus, drank delish mint-lime cordials, bought biltong, brownies and sugar roasted cashews. The Trucker even had some Ethiopian coffee, which he was quite thrilled about. We'll definitely be going back for some Sunday grazing again!

And then it was back home for a lazy afternoon of eating our purchases and reading the paper. And then we made some delish mac 'n cheese for dinner (omg it was soo good!) and watched some series. It was a perfect Sunday <3

Ball of Fun

2011-08-26T11:50:00.000+02:00

Right, so I know I have hardly blogged at all this week. I was going to yesterday but then arrived at work to no internet. Same has happened this morning so am catching you all up in a text file to be posted when possible.

This week. It's not been an up week, I won't lie. I've been pretty down the last 2 days. I guess that happens after the surreal highs of last week.

On Monday I skipped SCM and The Trucker came over and cooked dinner (I was sposed to go to dinner at his house but plans changed). On Tuesday I had a catch-up sushi dinner with @saulkza, we haven't seen each other or chatted in *ages* it was very good seeing him again :) On Wednesday I had dinner at Mexican Fresh with @Kath_Forrest. Hmmm, I was keen at the prospect of finding another new Mexican restaurant and closer than Melville, but it was decidedly average and I'd rather go to Cafe Mexicho instead. Sigh, Mexican restaurants never provide enough in the way of guacamole for me!

Anyway, and then last night I stayed home and went to bed early. Was in a hibernating mood and not feeling 100% and The Trucker was working (which seems like it'll be a theme for the next month, apparently).

I have stuff going on in my head, doubt and worries ... there is some excitement: the house-buying is in full swing, but in that out-of-my-hands stage so not really that exciting till I actually get the keys now. I am hoping it's just a mood and work has been chaotic, not given me a moment to breathe. I was hoping I'd have snapped out of it when I woke up this morning, but I didn't. I feel like it's going to be last week's weird mood all over again, and I really don't want that.

And Rex doesn't seem to be improving on the antibiotics. He is still sniffly (although I think a bit less?). Sigh, this giving him antibiotics twice a day is a really hassle and he really doesn't like it :( I dunno how people who have sickly kids manage.

So yes, I'm just generally a ball of fun at the moment :P

The Usual Weekend Stuff

2011-08-22T08:11:00.001+02:00

I am surprisingly not really in the mood for blogging right now ... and as such, there is still no eta on the Botswana posts (hope by the time I get round to it I haven't forgotten it all! Haha, this time wasn't a keep-a-travel-diary kinda trip, you know?).

Anyhoo, on Thursday evening The Trucker and I went for a disappointing dinner, Luca's was full and we ended up at Doppio and my pasta wasn't how I usually have it and I'm not sure if I ordered it wrong or they served it wrong or what.

We also ended up going out for a late dinner on Friday night because it was supposed to be a little celebratory, my Bond got approved :) Am still waiting for FNB to come back (with a hopefully lower rate than Standard Bank has offered, but either way I still have an approved bond so all is a-go on the house - whoop whoop!). But he'd had a long day and we headed out late with no where specific in mind and drove and attempted many places that were full before giving up almost entirely. We actually ended up having quite a delish meal at Santorini in Hyde Park. Nothing better than sharing mezze ;)

But we were both in weird moods and Saturday was not a great day. But I think by the end of it we'd sorted everything out and everyone felt better about things :) We had breakfast on Saturday morning at the Food Lovers Market in The Wedge. I wouldn't really recommend it although my Bacon & Brie croissant was quite tasty.

On Saturday evening he headed off to his ex-girlf's dad's 60th birthday. Weird, right? Well anyway, whatever. I'm over it. I invited @Rubyletters and Nadgia over for dinner to keep me company and it was a great evening :) I'm sure I had far more fun than I would've had I tagged along with him.

On Sunday we went for breakfast at Cafe Rossini and then I headed off to a Hot Dog Half-Birthday at @clairam's while he played cricket.

All in all a pretty up&down weekend. As is to be expected after such a roller-coaster week :)

Oh, and I had to take Rexy to the vet on Friday afternoon. I'd noticed white mucous on his nose and he was sneezing since Wednesday. After a quick browse online I terrified myself. So off we went. Thankfully I phoned my regular vet only to find out he was on leave so found another exotics specialist in Craighall Park. The boy is now on antibiotics twice a day (and not very impressed about it at all!). I'm also keeping him inside with a humidifier at night. He still hasn't unblocked yet tho :(

Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran

2011-08-19T07:37:00.000+02:00

When Marie moves from her family's waxwork museum into the palace of Versailles, her whole life is set to change...When Marie Tussaud learns the exciting news the royal family will be visiting her famed wax museum, the Salon de Cire, she never dreams that the king's sister will request her presence at Versailles: as a royal tutor in wax sculpting. As Marie familiarizes herself with Princess Elisabeth and begins to know Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, she witnesses the glamorous life of court, a very different world from her home on the Boulevard du Temple of Paris where bread can only be had on the black market and men sell their teeth to put food on the their tables. The year is 1788 and men like Desmoulins, Marat, and Robespierre are meeting in the salons of Paris speaking against the monarchy; there's whispered talk of revolution. Spanning five years from budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax moulding saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom.

Love this book. Seriously. I may not know exactly how close to the truth it is, but it was a fascinating read. And I find Madame Tussaud generally fascinating anyway. Am off to Wikipedia a whole bunch of stuff now - haha. And I definitely think I'm gonna try get my hands on some of Michelle Moran's other books ... you know how I do adore Ancient Egypt :)

Keep Those Fingers Crossed

2011-08-18T08:09:00.000+02:00

So this week has not slowed down even for a second. It has been awesome so far ... but I expect there'll be an emotional crash shortly. No one can maintain a high permanently. In the mean time tho, I'm just enjoying the rush of good feeling :)

So, on Tuesday night I introduced @WhizBangLouLou to the sushi spot in Cedar Square, to let her in on the delish secret of those strawberry, cheese and salmon rainbow rolls. Oh, so good!

And yesterday I got the call. The call from the agent. The Owner has accepted my offer!! (and I re-read this blog post from March 2010 ... so surreal, haha) He did add in an additional condition of sale tho. But hopefully it'll just end up being completely irrelevant. He had actually already sold this property but that Buyer couldn't get finance so it fell thru. So now it basically says he can continue to accept offers up until the point my bond is approved. And if he does get another offer I have 48hrs to match it or lose the deal.

As such I have already mailed off all my bond docs to the Bond Consultant. Let's hope this dude works some speedy magic and gets everything happily approved and sorted asap. They are hoping to have everything signed, sealed and on the go before the 31 August so I can give 2 months notice where I'm renting now. OMG, I might be moving to my very own home on 01 November.

I will say tho, Bond Applications scare the shit out of me. They are terrifying. And I'm more terrified right now because last time I tried to get a bond while I already had one (back in 2007), it was declined :( So yes, literally the next few days are going to have me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear and being very nervy. Sigh. As much as I 100% completely believe that this house is meant to be mine, there is a small dark corner of my brain worrying that I'm just setting myself up for a giant disappointment :( Anyhoo, for now we're keeping absolutely positive, because, how on earth could this not happen?! ;)

The other good news arrived in a surprise email from my current tenant, who's lease is up at the end of October. She asked if I had found another tenant yet because she has a friend who is keen to rent the unit and will sign a 12month lease (depending on how much I was planning on increasing the rental). How fantastic will that be? So finger's crossed for that too.

I was meant to be seeing The Trucker for dinner but he ended up driving his sister (it was her bday) to their mom's (in the Free State) for an overnight visit instead. Which turned out to be a good thing. I spent the evening getting my Bond Application docs sorted and finishing the last of what I needed for Tax 2011. An admin evening, but a much needed one :)

The Bone Yard by Jefferson Bass

2011-08-17T07:33:00.000+02:00

Early summer brings warm weather to the Body Farm in East Tennessee, but Dr Bill Brockton's about to get more heat than he's bargained for. A former student who's now an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement seeks his help in identifying a partial skull found in the woods in rural Florida. The victim appears to have been a young male who died from lethal blows to the head. While leading a search for the remaining bones, Brockton and his graduate assistant Miranda Lovelady find a series of shallow graves on the overgrown grounds of a shuttered reform school for boys. According to local lore, the school's poor, troubled students understood that one wrong move could land them in their own plot in the de facto cemetery. As Brockton and his team close in on the truth, they find skeletons in some surprisingly prominent closets...and learn that the ghosts of the past are ever present.

I really quite enjoyed this one, I think I will look into reading earlier ones in the series. Always nice to find a new author in the style of Kathy Reichs :) So, if you enjoy her, I'd definitely recommend this one.

I Did It

2011-08-16T07:47:00.001+02:00

Yes, I did. Last night I signed the offer to purchase ... and now we wait. For the owner's acceptance and the bond application approval (once I find all those million documents they need :P).

OMG. When did this happen? I am still riding the wave of surreal. I went from being on holiday in Botswana to putting an offer on a house in a matter of days. I guess these are the highs :) Remind me of them later, okay?

I won't lie. Those niggly thoughts before bed on Sunday night really got to me. So I did the completely rational thing, talked it thru with about everyone I saw on Monday and arranged to go see the house a third time before SCM last night.

When I got there I was like 90% sure I was going to sign. But I just needed that peace of mind. I took my measuring tape along and found that I should be just fine fitting in all my furniture. But I'm not going to worry about it again till it's empty and mine ... and then I can decide what works and what doesn't.

And I signed. (After I got it added to the OTP that it is on condition of getting an approval letter from the Body Corporate for the bunnies ... cause if they can't come with that is really a not negotiable, but I've been pretty much assured that's a mere formality).

And I had a lovely evening at SCM. I was positively gushing. I can't believe in mere months (01Nov if all goes according to plan) I might be living in my very own home, for the first time in my life!

I did have some more niggly thoughts when I woke up this morning (money ones this time), but by the time I was driving to work I was feeling light and bright and happy and excited again. OMG. Life really is surprising sometimes :)

Hahaha. And my funniest thought thru all this? I wondered if this certainty about the fact that this is my house and my sheer absolute conviction that this is right and what will happen (regardless that I have yet to receive approval or bond yet even) is what people who tell you "they just knew" felt about the person they decided to marry? Me, I think it's much easier to just know with a house ;)

So, I Might Buy a House

2011-08-15T07:34:00.000+02:00

Yawn. I am *so* not ready to be getting back to real life ... I suspect it has to do with usually going on holiday for 3 weeks at a time. After a week, I'm just getting into it :) Yet here I am, back at work, already.

Botswana was pretty fab. Will be telling you all about it over the next few days (once I get round to downloading the photos and what not). I'll be honest and say there's a few other things kinda occupying my headspace that need urgent attention before I can get round to that.

So, The Trucker & I got back from our trip on Saturday afternoon. I had a pretty lazy afternoon, unpacking, doing washing, some much needed grocery shopping and sitting around with The Bundles :) I met up with him again later for dinner at Col'Cacchio with his friend @Toxic_Mouse.

In the morning he was off to a business catch-up breakfast (omg, his phone was off for an entire week ... it was bliss :) haha!). And I headed home to clean the bunny hutch and then went off house hunting.

Now the house hunting thing has really been quite half-hearted. Since I was *supposed* to be moving back to Cape Town ... well, ahem. So I really was just seeing what was out there and mostly just turned out to be completely depressing myself by finding nothing that met all my requirements :(

So, The Trucker said, change your requirements. Easier said than done. I've lived in "The Highway Circle" my whole life (in Joburg) and that was not one I was easily going to switch on. But I decided to pretend I wasn't actually buying for me to live in this weekend, since it was so much easier last year when I bought that investment property. So I opened up my search just a smidge to marginally outside the highway at two very particular points. And what do you know, I fell in love.

I saw plenty of houses yesterday, probably easily 6 or 7. But this one I went to twice. I showed it to The Trucker and @WhizBangLouLou. I have the offer to purchase papers on my desk next to me. I hardly slept last night. I adore the house. But I don't know that my furniture will actually fit. But seriously, it's the first place I've walked into and thought I could be "home" in Joburg. Sigh. How do you decide? I want the house, I want my furniture ... I want a home!

This could turn out to be a very interesting day :)

No more sleeps!

2011-08-05T07:42:00.000+02:00

Yip, I'm headed in the direction of Botswana at midday today :) Yay. It has been a pretty busy week tho. On Wednesday evening I had some girl-friends over for dinner and a catch-up ... I attempted my Nam-Jim Chicken as wraps (with those weird rice-paper wraps). I won't say it was as successful as the meal as a whole, but it was an interesting alternative. Perhaps next time I should try it with more adventurous eaters ...

And then yesterday The Trucker and I did the last of our shopping for Botswana and packed the Pajero. I am an expert tetris packer of food. I am only concerned about how it'll all fit together once we start actually eating it :) It is packed tight with no space to move around currently. Perfect!

We got take-out Chinese for dinner last night (his choice, not mine ... I feel the need to point this out after @louisabouwer commented that I'm eating chinese quite often after my return - haha). I can't remember the name of the place, it was pretty non-descript, but it was the most delish Chinese food I've had since my return. I had their Peking Sauce Beef (at the recommendation of the guy taking our order ... my head was too cloudy to make any decisions myself!). Oh yes, did I mention I'm sick :P Urgh. How annoying is that right before we go away. But I have been living on med-lemons and cal-c-vitas and today I'm feeling closer to better :) (My nose may still be running, but I can mostly breathe all the time again - win! Haha)

Righto folks, see you in 10 days :)

Eating Out

2011-08-03T07:57:00.000+02:00

So I am counting down the (work) days till Botswana ... 2.5! Yay. And we are just about all ready to go. The Bank has some Pula waiting for collection, I have some perishables to buy tomorrow and then we'll be packing the 4x4 all set to leave on Friday afternoon :) So looking forward to it!

In the meantime tho, I've been keeping busy as usual. On Monday at lunch we tried out a new restaurant, Lucky Moo. I really liked it :) It's a bit much food for me for lunch, but it comes in those containers we're used to only seeing Chinese food in movies in - so cute! I had their Kung Pao Chicken with Noodles. So yummy, although nothing like the Kung Pao Chicken I had while in China (which I really liked too).

On Monday evening it was SCM as normal. And then last night The Trucker came over and we went out for dinner. I'm keeping a list of "date restaurants" for us, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them :) In the meantime tho, I think there'll just be a lot of re-trying some of my old favs that I haven't been to in a while. Which is what we did last night. He'd never been to The Attic, but the boy adores his dessert, so I had to take him there to try their hot chocolate pudding :) I don't think I've been there since Nov / early Dec last year!

Dinner was lovely, although the restaurant was a little smokey (not from cigarettes or the fire place, so not really sure why). We started with the duck spring rolls to share (so yum!). He had the Sirloin and I had the chicken for mains. I dunno, I wasn't blown away by mine, and I did feel very limited by choice (which I always do there since just about everything is red meat or contains mushrooms or olives). But then we had dessert and it was divine!

All in all a good evening :)

Dark Prophecy by Anthony E. Zuiker

2011-08-02T07:40:00.000+02:00

Steve Dark is a man on a mission. He is ready to embrace his destiny, and has nothing to lose . . . Steve Dark was once a lost soul, torn between his family and his one-of-a-kind talent for hunting down serial killers especially those so-called Level 26 killers whose depravity exceeds law enforcements official scale of evil. In his reluctant pursuit of justice Dark once crossed the ultimate line, a line that might cause a lesser man to lose himself completely. Not Dark. When the world took everything from him, when it destroyed the very thing Dark once lived for, it sparked a transformation that, three years later, is only just complete. Dark is now a man on a mission. A mission unbound by authorities. A mission that, at long last, allows him to embrace his destiny. Dark is finally ready ready to take justice to the next level.

I definitely preferred the first book, but this is definitely a series I'll keep reading. This one was just a little too disconnected for me, I wasn't afraid or remotely involved in the bad guys (if that makes sense), they weren't scary and certainly didn't seem to warrant "Level 26" status. Still, I'd recommend the series as a whole and look forward to the next one :)

Whirlwind Weekend

2011-08-01T08:12:00.000+02:00

Shoo, what a whirlwind weekend. Although it did, as always now, include an afternoon nap. It seems to be a required part of The Trucker's weekends ;) Haha. I'm not much of a nap person, it feels like a waste of time ...

Anyway, on Friday afternoon at about 12h30 our entire team (along with 2 other teams) left work and headed off on an overnight team-building / knowledge sharing event. We headed out to River Place. As weird as my mood has been regarding work lately, I think it was a great idea and although I was skeptical, we had a lot of fun. With plenty of fun games interspersed with the more serious. I had organised a game of Personal Bingo which we played on arrival (I thought it'd last a lot longer, but people really got stuck right in and it was over in less than half an hour!). We watched a few presentations before dinner and after dinner we had a crazy geeky pub-quiz type game. And then there was just a lot of hanging out, drinking, smoking hubbly and playing Rock Band (not me, cause I think it's just the most boring game of tetris ever!). I went to bed about midnight. And the stories that came out the next morning about the boys' drunken antics were quite entertaining.

Breakfast was good. Pity the shower in my room was so disappointing! (Not what I'd expected from such a nice place, but I survived - Am considering it practice for my upcoming trip to Botswana ;) Haha). After breakfast we split up into teams for a Geek Seek game (a treasure hunt across the grounds of River Place). Good fun ... although it is tricky having too many Alpha personalities on a team, and some people are just way too competitive about things. Haha. But still, good fun. And then it was time for lunch. Disappointing that it was pretty much almost exactly the same menu as dinner. But the food was good. Just *alot* ! And then there were a few more presentations, a prize giving and then it was home time.

I headed home and spent some time with The Bundles before heading off to The Trucker's. We had a lazy evening on the couch, which was exactly what I needed after being on the go and surrounded by people for the entire first half of the weekend.

On Sunday morning we tried a new spot for breakfast, Nice in Parkhurst (That link being the inspiration for our visit). Well I won't lie, I started out extremely unimpressed. There is almost no signage and it takes over the pavements outside it's two shops as well as the attached Nice Bookstore. So we had no idea where to go. And then we stood around feeling completely lost, with not a single waiter or waitress even speaking to us. Eventually I stopped one and was told I had to speak to a woman who was outside clearing tables (who I assume is the owner/manageress). Eventually when she came in, she seated us ... but during that time other people had just arrived and taken empty tables. I would've been far more annoyed if there were none available by the time we got helped.

On the plus side tho, although they have a very limited menu (I think The Trucker was initially a little unimpressed!), I loved the breakfast! Their speciality seems to be their Breakfast Baskets which are delish! I had their half-and-half (one breakfast basket, one crumpet stack), to try out the two options. And I added Avo to my breakfast basket, I can highly recommend it :) The Trucker added haloumi to his breakfast baskets. My only complaints would be no iced coffee or milkshakes of any sort and I wasn't impressed by the fruit juice options. Also, I don't think their breakfasts are quite filling enough for very hungry boys ... And the service is slow, but that's not too much of a problem if you're enjoying a seat in the warm sunshine :)

After that we headed off to do a bunch of weekend admin and get a head start on the shopping for Botswana. Sheesh, I made a list and everything and we bought an excessive quantity of stuff ... barely any of which was on my list, which is mostly perishables which I'll be getting on Thursday afternoon. Still, I'm really getting excited now. We set the tent up and vacuumed all the sand out of it. Blew up the mattress and lazed on it reading the paper as well. Haha. (Doesn't sound at all like we only have 1 night in a tent, does it?).

Also popped home for a bit for a laze in the sun and some apple with the bunnies :) And then we went for an early evening walk and watched Arthur on Sunday evening before I headed home. It's not brilliant, but it's not the worst movie I've ever watched. Hell, it might've just been worth it for how much I laughed at the Magnetic Bed scene. Bwahaha.

Short

2011-07-28T07:48:00.001+02:00

Skipped SCM on Monday because it was looking to be a crazy busy week. On Tuesday The Trucker came over for dinner. I made Chicken and Basil Pesto Gnocchi. Turned out quite nicely, I thought :) Last night I went to a work dinner at The Grillhouse in Sandton and I hope that was the last time I have to go there. Their service was dreadful (we were a very large table, admittedly, but at least bring all the bits for each individual's meal at the same time!). Note: This time I did not have wine.

In a bit of a weird mood this week. Things are uppity.

17 May: Dubai to Johannesburg

2011-07-26T08:58:00.000+02:00

A very uneventful flight from Guangzhou to Dubai. But, you'd swear none of these people had ever flown before based on their multiple or oversized items of hand luggage! What a hassle. It really does annoy me, every time.

Watched Up while waiting for them to get the evening meal done. I'd heard how good it was from quite a few people but, I just found it on par with all the similar animations. I think I just don't "get" animated movies.

Didn't get much sleep on the plane either :( The seats were too high for me so I couldn't comfortably sit with my feet on the ground so my knees kept hurting. Oh well. Had breakfast before 3am :p

When I arrived in Dubai (3:40am Dubai Time = SA Time + 2hrs), I did try to get onto the (6hr) earlier flight to Joburg, but they were already boarding so they wouldn't let me :( But, that is why I didn't risk booking that flight in the first place.

Spent another 6hrs or so in Dubai's very dull duty-free. I had something to eat ... I was trying to be healthier so avoided McD's or Burger King, but I think I would've been better off sticking with the known. I ended up spending more with a less satisfactory sandwich at an Irish sandwich spot. I will say tho, the hot chocolate was worth it ;)

The flight back to Joburg was better. Pretty empty flight and I had 4 seats to myself the whole way home. Managed to stretch out and get some rest :)

Watched I Am Number Four. Was not particularly impressed at all (perhaps because I watched it in bits & pieces in between sleep, while eating and when I had to sit up and fasten my seat belt thru turbulence). It seemed a pretty average sci-fi attempt, honestly. And has the predictable ending allowing for sequels (which I will not bother with, except perhaps if there's nothing else to watch on another long-haul flight ;) ).

I also watched, No Strings Attached, which I quite enjoyed. This kind of light feel-good entertainment is way better for flying :)

And then I landed home, eventually, after a very long journey. To find that instead of being met at Sandton Gautrain station by The Trucker, he'd caught the Gautrain to the airport to meet me at the gate (awe, sweet!). But wait, it gets even better ... he'd also bought me a bag of groceries (since he knew my fridge was empty after more than 3 weeks away!) :) *spoilt*.

Neuropath by Scott Bakker

2011-07-26T07:17:00.000+02:00

Tom's life is not what it once was. His marriage to the beautiful Nora is on the rocks and he now sees his two young children only on her say so. His best friend - and best man - Neil has moved away to California to teach neurology. He has one successful book - on human psychology - but he now wiles away the time teaching bored grad students. But that all changes when Neil comes back into his life. For it seems that his best friend was no teacher - he was working for the US government, cracking the minds of suspected terrorists. But now it is Neil himself that has cracked and gone AWOL - what's more he has left behind evidence that he has been employing his unique skills on civilians - obsessed with the idea that he can control the human brain. Thus begins a terrifying sequence of events as Neil starts to kidnap and mutilate people with a connection to Tom. But it is only when he gets near his ultimate target does he reveal the full horror of his plan...

Um, I'm not really sure if I liked this book or not. Honestly I think it got a bit wrapped up in "The Argument" which was tricky to follow in some particularly convoluted spots. Still, if you get into it, I think this could be a pretty good book. It feels like it had potential to be, but honestly, it lost me in the detail.

Movies & Food

2011-07-25T09:39:00.001+02:00

Well it was a varied weekend :) On Friday night The Trucker came over and went to Ghazal's for dinner. He'd never been before and it was fabulous. Yumyum. We got a Chicken Mahknie and a Chicken Korma to share :)

On Saturday he headed off to do some work and I had an admin morning, cleaning the bunny hutch and dropping off my mountain of recycling. In the evening we went to Cedar Square and had some sushi at Yamakazi. Wow, I'm pretty fussy about my sushi, but I liked this spot. I especially liked their Strawberry, Cheese & Salmon Rainbow Rolls. Such divine flavours :) This will become a standard spot for pre/post movie sushi, I expect :)

And then we went to watch Horrible Bosses. It was alright, definitely some funny bits, but not at all what I was expecting. I guess I wasn't expecting something quite as frivolous ... but it was a star-studded cast.

On Sunday morning I went and had breakfast with InterviewingForAHusband who was up in Joburg. Awesome to catch up :) And then I went and depressed myself by attempting to house-hunt a little. Sigh. I just thought maybe I'd have a look and see what's available at the moment ... and it did nothing but frustrate me :(

In the evening I went back to The Trucker's house and we went for a walk and then he made dinner and we watched The Adjustment Bureau. meh. It was okay, but it took a while to explain itself and it didn't really feel very compelling at all. I would definitely wait for a bored night at home to watch this ... don't go out of your way.