Mea culpa! I am guilty (once again!) of not posting regularly - please visualise me begging for forgiveness as I continue to pave the way to hell with my good intentions.
If you live in South Africa, particularly in Jo'burg (as I know that Pretoria has not been as hard hit as us) the end of November and first 12 days of December are so aptly musically summed up. Its a real remix of "Hello Darkness my Old Friend", to "Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me", "Stormy Weather", "Riders on the Storm", "Hail Rain or Sunshine" to "Dancing in the Dark" , "Conversations in the Dark" , "Dark is the Night for All", "In the Dark" "The Darkest Day" fast forwarding to "12 Days of Christmas!"
I was astounded being able to find "The 100 Best Songs about Darkness" https://spinditty.com/playlists/Best-Songs-About-Darkness
In case you missed the analogies here's another clue for you courtesy of Zen!
This was very apt for us last Thursday between the hours of 8am on Thursday morning to 1am on Friday morning we had exactly 2 hours of electricity so life is about navigating loadshedding - calculating travel times taking into account possible traffic lights outages due to no electricity, traffic jams, cooking dinner early or later than usual, getting up earlier to ensure you have a hot cuppa of tea and/or filling the thermos flask with hot water ..... its infuriating, frustrating and really despairing that we have been dealing with loadshedding since 2007 and while matters usually improve with time, loadshedding is getting worse with alarming negative effects its having on the already dilapidated antiquated overloaded infrastructure. The infrastructure is constantly being sabotaged by those who previously illegally filled their coffers in some form or other way through corruption and state capture.
Its hard to remain cheery and optimistic together with being grateful for when we do have electricity but it does get a person down - and I have not even leapt onto my soapbox about the blind drivers in loadshedding who have no clue about how to behave at traffic light intersections (also known as robots) on the rare occasion at the traffic lights work, let alone when they are not working. Having survived a horrible motor vehicle accident in 2002 when traffic lights were not working and my car was t-boned, I feel nothing and give zero efffs driving through an intersection with non-functioning traffic lights all the while hooting. And there are drivers who you surmise have not obtained their license from a lucky packet but they still drive like blind, deaf and dumb cretins when it comes to traffic lights not working - no clue of the concept of a 4 way stop and its each driver for themselves. In other words its stressful and as Zen so aptly describes it (to paraphrase her) - living in South Africa is extreme sports - extreme driving, extreme dodgem driving to dodge the crater like potholes, you get the idea!
Yesterday Zen, Johan and I did a "Christmas Market" run and it was a real novelty and sighting to come upon the, channeling my inner David Attenborough here "Rarely Sighted Working Traffic Light"
'Tis not only the season to be jolly, baking mince pies and Christmas cakes, for us in Jo'burg it is also the stormy season and no I am not referring to Stormy Daniels, the Orange Trumptard's bete noire, but to actual thunderbolt lightning storms which last Monday afternoon frighteningly darkened the skies before expelling copious amounts of huge hailstones all over Jo'burg. We got it mildly while in other parts of Jo'burg the hailfall transformed golf courses into white landscapes duping you into thinking it had snowed.
The rain is so welcome; its always needed and appreciated but its sad to envisage the unhoused folks living on the streets in all types of weather and there has been so much devastation and destruction from the storms - trees down, sinkholes appearing, in some instances most of the tarmac washed off from the road surface and homes flooded. This morning at 6.44am an almighty crash outside got the dogs into a barking frenzy and me gingerly emerging onto our patio to investigate. In the bottom corner of our complex in the servitude area a branch of an eucalyptus tree in the green belt on the other side of the servitude had clearly had enough of this Monday morning ("Its just another Manic Monday") and likely rotten from all the rain decided to spectacularly separate from the tree. I present to you, dear Reader, Exhibit "A" taken at 6.44am from the sanctuary of our patio.
It crashed out of this world so dramatically and was clearly not taking any prisoners with it so part of the electric fence was destroyed. There are vagrants living in the green belt so while we have this exposed area we have a security guard keeping a watch on the situation. The branch was eventually cut down just before 6pm and hopefully tomorrow the as yet invisible electrician will make an appearance and instal new electric fencing etc. What a way to start the week and I was already feeling very under par, not myself, flatter than the proverbial pancake (note flatter than fatter but that too) and with zero energy; all these symptoms remain together with the unwelcome invasion of a monster headache.
As the rain teems down, I am reflecting on the last 2 weeks of extreme living and surviving.
Highlights of this period have been:
visiting Super Sconto with Johan. Super Sconto is an emporium of Italian merchandise (just not clothing) and some amazingly reasonably priced pasta. Venturing upstairs we ordered delicious cappuccinos (it was early on a Saturday morning so an acceptable time in terms of Italian life of drink a cappucino) and scrumptious slices of breakfast pizza - at only R20 a slice; so reasonable! http://www.supersconto.co.za/
My slice of breakfast pizza complete with evidence of my taking a bite!
Discovering an amazing ice-cream factory shop, Polar Bear, while doing shopping runs to Impala Fruit and Veg and Impala Butchery in Northcliff.
Dinner with my work colleagues, aka Team Dinnie, at the boss's house - it was the second time we have had such a dinner with each team member bringing a contribution to the meal from butternut soup and mini cocktail sausage rolls as a starter, to gammon, chicken, pasta bake, potato bake and creamed spinach for mains with dessert being my festive pavlova, and homemade melt-in-the-mouth shortbread and mince pies baked by the boss himself. No partners were allowed but we all survived ha ha ha - we sat outside on the deck and enjoyed our very festive dinner complete with Christmas crackers, chocolates and Christmas poppers which meant I returned home covered in glitter and Christmas confetti; a truly walking talking Christmas decoration! I baked the meringue on the Friday evening adding a tiny bit of rose water and pink colouring. It seemed to be a success as the entire pavlova was devoured.
My festive pavlova with its sort-off wreath type shape
I was gifted with this beautiful orchid by Jessica, one of our amazing team members. She and I have decided that Angelica is a very good name for this orchid which I hope to either not kill and that it will be a wonderful memory of Jessica once she moves to live and work in London with her husband and small daughter.
Build-a-burger braai at ours on Sunday, 4 December with Tristan, Skye and Zen. It was a very relaxed lunch where we all created our own burgers with various toppings and additions; dessert was ice-cream cones and ice cream and Zen spoilt us with this delicious sweet treat platter. Johan practised his latest new card artistry and magic tricks and as always he did brilliantly, astounding us all. I was spoilt with more flowers as Skye and Tristan brought me a beautiful flowering rose plant; so stunning.
Being of service to my addiction support group leading the online weekly meeting and being privileged to have an inspiring speaker share his story of addiction, recovery, hope and joy.
Friendsgiving at Koekerasie Tea Garden with a small group of my "Girl Squad" - it was a beautiful morning and we enjoyed sitting outside under the beautiful trees in this very tranquil environment. Those who were sadly unable to attend were sorely missed and your absence was very evident. I am planning another such event - life is so short and precarious and as I said on Saturday morning, my friends are such an integral part of my life and making memories an having experiences with them is vital. We had such a very special time and I am so grateful for the opportunity to make such beautiful memories and Mia, thank you so much for driving all the way from Pretoria to be with us all despite not feeling at all well - hope you are feeling so much better. Alyssa, Celeste, Skye and my Mom painted pottery items (a teabag holder, small bowls and a mug respectively) - I opted out as nothing grabbed my attention to endeavour to paint so I choose rather to relax and bask in the pleasure of the amazing company. Our waitress was so entertaining and it was such a very special Friendsgiving and everyone seemed please to get a small bag of homemade fudge from me.
Christmas Markets were on the agenda for Sunday - we visited Chartwell Castle for their market. It was an adventure with lots of extreme driving to arrive at our destination. Its a fascinating property with an old building which clearly needs some of the proverbial "tlc" - the grounds are huge and we enjoyed walking around looking at all the wares on sale. I wanted to take lots of photos but restrained myself as I did not think it was a good idea to take photos without purchasing items in order not to upset the stall holders. There were clearly delicious looking waffles on a stick which I was very tempted to try but could not tolerate standing in the queue so gave it a miss - I did manage to find a few unusual items for Christmas gifting as did Zen so it was a successful retail therapy event. As we had not been there too long on the way back we popped into The Stables Market which was a lot quieter and as Zen had never been there, it was the perfect opportunity to introduce her to this permanent market. We were astounded to find the owner of an interior decor shop calmly smoking in her shop - a shop stuffed to overflowing with fabric, cushions and far too many flammable items to mention. We certainly had a weekend of encountering unique characters and personalities.
Sunday night was Animal Quiz night at the aptly chosen, Big Bad Wolf venue at Cedar Square, Fourways. This was an event organised by one of Morgan's clients and it was Jaymee's brainchild to organise this event to raise much-needed funds for the animal rescue organisation, A New Hope Dog Rescue (linktr.ee/anewhopedogescue). Both Morgan and Tristan sponsored prizes for the quiz night and auction and Johan designed and distributed cards with the A New Hope Dog Rescue logo with the QR code while he went from table to table entertaining the guests with this amazing card tricks and magic. I am so exceptionally proud of all 3 of them - Morgan, Tristan and Johan - who did so much to support this amazing initiative . The quiz was really hard featuring animal questions and sounds which I am so ashamed to admit I was so clueless about. I think our team, Smart Paws, came somewhere in the middle to lower half; not good but we had a really fun and enjoyable time and I won a spot prize of stunning gifts ranging from chocolates to skin care samples, a pen and shopping bag. Did you know that dolphins in the caribbean have a different accent to other dolphins who swim and reside in other oceans in the world? I thought it was improbable to have a Jamiacan Bob-Marleyish dolphin clearly I was wrong!
From R150 for a small dog you can sign up for a debit order to sponsor one of the 100+ dogs at A New Hope Dog Rescue. I did sign up for this; I would rather sponsor an animal in need than pay for Vitality membership with Discovery where I never get to achieve the full scope of benefits so we have cancelled our Vitality membership and signed up to rather sponsor a dog in need.
As people prepared for their festive season holidays including the boss the work pressure does not diminish at all rather escalates so I have been working from really early till late - its taking its toll on mine but hopefully there will come a time when I can get proper rest and sleep.
New additions to my watching, listening and enjoying reading, podcast and tv daily staple:
"The Lost Girl" by Carol Drinkwater - a beautiful bittersweet novel which I devoured when I had time
"Scam Likely" and "Crooked City The Emerald Triangle" podcasts
"White Lotus", "Hillsong - a Megachurch Exposed", "Three Pines", "My Unorthodox Life - Season 2" (Netflix) and my other weekly tv watching including the finale of "The Amazing Race".
What I am NOT watching and boycotting is the Harry and Meghan Netflix special - I did not watch their interview with Oprah but know it was peppered with facts which were not true, blatant inaccuracies and the same with this tv series - using an image of paparazzi photographs to create the illusion that they were being hounded by a pack squad of paparazzi; the image though is actually from a Harry Potter premiere - that is shoddy and the fact that this image is not accurately credited leaves that sense of distaste, bad faith and lack of morals, ethics and principles.
12 days till Christmas - good luck with the Silly Season we are immersed in, take care and look after yourselves. Stay safe.
