At risk of stealing Kate's blog title

Kev got his visa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that was all she wrote

Oh that was a bad idea

Yip, that pretty much sums up most of my weekend.... The skating with the work guys was fun... I did a full 5km and at quite a pace. Then it was the start of the World Cup and things at the office sort of came to a grinding halt. Our office has live streaming of all the games on the intranet... quite clever i thought... except you'll get people staring at their computer screens for 2 hours but not getting any work done. I suppose it beats them coming back from watching it in a pub and having a couple of pints.

After work it was a mad rush to get home to change for the Friday Night Skate... we thought we were late so resigned ourselves to skating idly around hyde park for a while....yes, well.... at that moment some 200 or so people on skates came tearing past us... so we joined it... NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. The pace was really quick and you've got hundreds of people on skates taking up one lane and trying not to kill each other... I was used as brakes a number of times. And returned the favour a few times down the line. May need to take some stopping lessons before I try that again... stopping in itself is easy enough, but when you are heading down hill at full kilter and have about 3meters to stop in, it's another story.... So we'll wait a while before doing that again.
After that it was off home on the tube and relaxing on the couch to watch "The Big Yin" (Billy Connelly for those who don't know the name)

Saturday rolls around and the guys are up early to watch the rugby, I take the extra cat nap and sleep in a bit. It's nearly time for qualifying and we're off to Zulu's in Fulham... they've decided to show both the rugby and the football... being muppets they've allocated a huge area for the soccer, and the smaller one for the rugby... needless to say (in an SA pub) the rugby area had people hanging from the rafters, and the soccer side had about 20 people in it. Perhaps they'll learn for next time. So the hunters and the Windhoek were flowing and we organised ourselves some boerie rolls (yum) Sitting outside in the warm sun, laughing and drinking beer was a great idea.

Needless to say.... beer in the sun things went sideways pretty quickly....

We were chased inside where we started dancing to some particularly strange music.








Brad and Kev at the top of their game decided to do some pole dancing...












So I guess sideways, pear shaped.. give it whatever name you will... I'm not saying anymore I'll never drink that much again.... more like I'm sure I can't drink as much as I used to.

I'm sorry that's already gone!!!

5 words that I've heard at least 10 times a day while trying to be pleasant to the estate agents in this place. The landlords here try to squeeze you for every last penny and every last pound... nevermind that I'm paying the equivalent of 2 months rent for a whole flat back home and getting a Harry Potter like cupboard cupboard over here. But I suppose that's the way it works over here. For those who aren't following i'm looking for a new 4/5 bedroom flat for Kev, me, Bradley, Grant and Lauren. If you're ever interested in having a look, go to www.ononemap.com specify london for location and then 4/5 bedroom for £2500 a month and see what you get... not much. Well, not much that's worth looking at anyway. There are some very nice places in Chelsea for about £1500 a week... but that's a bit out of budget.

Summer is here... finally and with it the unbearably hot tube trips to work and back. But also lazy weekends lying in the parks and catching up on some much needed exercise, which for me comes in the way of roller blading. Or trying to kick a ruby ball around in the park with the guys... which i'm not very good at although the guys are very nice.. and they don't give me too much stick. Tonight being a friday means that all the mad people who own blades or skates all get together to take over some london road. The Friday Night Skate is a weekly event where they pick a route, get a sound system and you just blade through london. Tonight looks like we're going to do it.. the route for tonight http://www.thefns.com/next_route.htm
We'll probably only do the first half of the skate, don't think i'm fit enough to do a full 13 miles yet.

Tomorrow is the SA vs Scotland game and since it's also world cup fever over here we're having to resort to going to Zulu's to watch the rugby... I suppose I could do with a hunters dry and a boerie roll just about now. Even though I've now been here over a year and a half there's still so much I miss from back home. Yeah, okay, I'll admit it openly.. I'm really homesick... so to solve that, everyone I know must move to London... pipe dreams granted, but what is life without dreams.

I'm off blading now with the guys I work with... they do 5km in 17 minutes... I think I might take a short cut.

Would love to hear from friends back home, you've all got my email address.

It's just a jump to the left.....

They were how do you say.... "executive transvestites"

Kev and Brad get close

It was all in all a fantastic show.... audience partici......... pation.. was on top form.

Do you really want to know?

What are the boys up to?????

Dress rehersal for the Rocky Horror picture show...

More pics to follow after the show

Stuck somewhere inbetween twentysomething

Have you ever realised that the the age between 21 and 25 is probably one of the most awkward and frustrating times of your life.
I've been finding that a lot lately. People regularly say don't wish your youth away... fine, point taken, but I wish 2 years away.
Take where I am at the moment. Old enough to be responsible and have a job and pay bills... but no matter how competent you are there are always people who will look at you like you are still too young to know what is going on.
1 example... i've had a drivers licence now for over 6 years, but they still want to charge me an excess to rent a car... and at between £7 and £11 a day... it sort of makes it out of budget.
At work a good idea will be passed over because you don't have enough experience in the industry and you obviously don't have enough insight into what is needed..... that's great but the proposed change has nothing to do with industry experience....IT'S JUST COMMON SENSE.

I've never before had a problem with people trying to walk over me... maybe i've just gone soft.

Sometimes age is just a number and you don't even notice it... but then sometimes some people just rub it in your face... no matter what you do you'll always be one step behind everyone else. I may not know all about the in's and out's of the world but i'm learning.... Linkin Park - Faint puts the way i feel perfectly....

I can't feel the way i did before
Don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored

Small fish in a big pond... but i'm not going to let my peers make me doubt my ability....

So even if I still want to put on my ruby slippers and click my heels together and make 2 years disappear so that perhaps someone will take me seriously. I will be the strongest in the race.

That is my dilemma for the month. Stuck in the abyss that is the twenty somethings

Just another manic monday

I think everyone has weeks like this, you finish all your work on friday but come monday 10am and the whole world seems to want a piece of you. Luckily it doesn't last all week. It's been great having Bradley over here. He arrived on Sunday and since then my liver has been threatening to resign. He's taken over Jak's blades and we were off to Battersea park to play around a bit. It's such a pleasure blading these days. I think we got in 3 skates this week. Friday is a 7 or 13 mile skate what we were planning on doing until the weather decided against it and turned dark and wet. So instead we went into central looking for some entertainment. Kev has been looking everywhere since he arrived for a club which plays good old rock/indie etc... sort of like the stuff kerrang plays (music video channel over here). So we ended up going to Metro bar bed rock in Tottenham Court Road... the club opens at 11 and closes at 4, so we were all in for quite a party.... unfortunately the second dj was playing some particularly strange music that most of us didn't know. So we hung around drinking vodka and coke at £1.50 a pop, which is quite cheap by london standards... however it comes in the tiniest cup, which is about 4 sips worth... So we called it a night there... raided the McDonalds for the last 6 quarter pounders and hailed a cab to take us home. Not quite realising that the ethanol they were feeding us instead of vodka had had more effect that we thought.... a trolley was found in the road on the way home, and that was the end of that.... Hey, trolley races at 2 am always seems like a good idea...
The notion of going to our place and finishing a bottle of scotch soon flew out the window and we sat around and chatted quietly till the sun came up.

Saturday we crawled out of bed and watched qualifying and then Lauren and Grant joined us to go and buy them some blades... while we had to wait for grants blades to be moulded Lauren and myself headed to KFC to pick up supper and then joined the guys in Hyde park for a picnic. Then we messed around a bit on blades and headed home... unfortunately having never been through Chelsea (read very expensive area) before we got a bit lost... kind of like 180 degrees lost.. and then it started to rain on us... so a bus was the way forward there.

Once back on terra firma without wheels we headed to the woodman for a drink and then back to our place to what "The Legend of Zorro" which really was terrible.
Sunday brought around the grand prix and after that we headed out to Waxy O'Connors to meet up with Dave Matthews who we haven't seen in a while.
Then home....

Summer is being a bit tempremental still, but hopefully it'll clear up and i'll be able to trade my pale white skin for something with a bit more colour.

For those of you who haven't noticed. I've started putting all our pub quiz questions up on one of my links, so if you are that way inclined, have a look and get that brain working.

It's now off to the fancy dress hire place to choose some drag outfits for the boys for Friday night for the Rocky Horror picture show... i'll put up pics for that in the next post.

Parks and Castles

Another long weekend... i could start getting used to these. Grant and Lauren are playing host to Grant's uncle, James, this weekend. So as per usual you take the newcomers to see the sights. Although walking from Waterloo to Buckingham Palace does seem a bit extreme to me. While they were doing the tourist thing Kev and I went in search of exercise equipment, namely Saloman Rollerblades. The last set of blade I bought was close on 11 years ago... I know it doesn't seem possible but I've just taken 10 minutes doing the maths on that one. So they were slow, with cheap plastic wheels and not much else. Blading with kev in stellies was always a lot of exercise, I had to blade 3 times harder than him to go the same distance.
So now we're looking at a range of blades which are priced somewhere between £30 and £245. A bit excessive for me, but I suppose some people want their blades to be able to do 80km/h and have shock absorbers.

I tried on a couple of pair but the one's I eventually bought were like iceskating they are so smooth, if I'd known you got blades like this I would have bought them years ago.
So my blades now have ABEC 5 bearings ( if you don't speak rollerblade don't worry, neither did I) it basically means that 1 being slowest and 8 being fastest, i'm just above the middle. Also bought a pair of wrist/hand guardes for those times when gravity wins.

Kev upgraded his blades and now has a really nice set, with porn star orange bearings which are ABEC 8... trust him to want the best.
So being responsible and stuff we went home and looked at the blades. I'd intended to go and blade up and down the corridor outside our flat like a kid with new toys, instead we ended up doing about a 6 mile circuit around Battersea park. Gravity did win once, but strangely enough it was when I was standing still waiting for traffic to pass.

After rollerblading it was off to meet up with Grant, Lauren and James for drinks at the Castle. Unfortunately for us the bars in this place still close too early for our liking and it was off to another place with a later licence. It didn't end up being a horribly late night. Sunday we were off to play golf in soho....pause and wait for confusion to set in..... well, not a full golf course, one which you hit a ball against a screen and using hawkeye technology this thing tells you where on the course your ball landed. Now I've never played golf before in my life, so this is going quite slow, after the second hole i'm getting the hang of it and on the 5th i manage a birdie.. of course everything goes pearshaped after that... it's definately something that I could get into. So after some deliberation over what is for supper we head to a chinese take away shop and walk out with enough food to feed 8 people. Another quiet night with a couple of drinks at the castle discussing sport, politics and at some point guys in drag. Turns out James played Frank in a production of the Rocky Horror Show.

Monday our last day to sleep in late.... or so we thought, Stephan called to wake us at 9am and was with us 30 minutes later. We headed out to visit Jacques and Maresa at their new place which is absolutely lovely. Then off to lunch in soho at our usual little mediterranean restaurant Bistro 1 on Great Pultney street, which is actually in the same street as the golf. After this we headed home for a bit of a nap before our weekly pub quiz... which we did pretty well in considering none of us knew who played Jack in Eastenders, 5 questions on british tv and we didn't get one.... we didn't even guess because there was no hope, a couple of stupid mistakes from everyone... not knowing who Leonardo de Caprio played in Titanic..... Jack Dawson if anyone was wondering... and Grant saying that the ming dynasty was in the 1500 BC.. no one picked up on the BC.
The 3 rounds in the pub quiz that cause the most chaos are the Beer rounds.... here you are given 3 questions and something in their answers links.... so lets give it a try

1. What colours are in the french tri colour?
2. What song was sung by both UB40 and Elvis Presley and included the lyrics " Like a river flows, surely to the sea.Darling so it goes, somethings are meant to be."
3. In the weapons in cluedo which are missing? Rope, Leadpipe, Wrench, Dagger....

Right, so now you get the answers

1. Red, White, Blue
2. Can't help falling in love
3. Candlestick and Revolver

So who of you can tell me what the link is between those? Post a comment if you are curious or think you have the answer and i'll let you know.

Another week ahead, a short one at least and looking forward to golf again on saturday.

but till then, knees bent, arms straight, lock hands and don't take your eye off the ball... i may get the hang of this golf thing some day.

Rabbits, Muppets and Phantoms

Here in the UK you don't really get many mid week public holidays... well, you don't get any infact. Bank holidays always fall on a monday. So Easter is a nice long weekend. The Thursday before is lazy and particularly unproductive with most people heading out to the local pub over lunch and just forgetting to go back to the office. That thursday night was an opportunity to start catching up on sleep lost over the last 4 months, and I enjoyed just lying on the couch growing moss.... sloth like you could say.

Saturday was much more eventful, Grant arrived on his blades to watch the GP qualifying, afterwards him and Kev decided to go blading, Kev still using Jak's old blades. We suggested that they head up to clapham junction and buy a rugby ball for us to kick around in the park. The guys arrived about an hour later having eventually found a ball. They were so tired that the rollerblades were soon forgotten. We were throwing and kicking the ball around for about an hour or so. And laughing watching our perfectly placed kicks take a 90 degree turn once they hit the ground right away from the person catching them. Lots of good exercise.

Heading home for a shower and then out to Strawberry Moons in Oxford Circus for birthday drinks for Jane. A nice place but a bit rich for our blood. The music was terrible when we arrived but slowly found its way back to the stones and aerosmith and suchlike.

Sunday was lazy and included watching the Grand Prix with bated breath and then heading home for a nap.

So a fairly lazy weekend ended in a braai with Dale and Claire ( debating people will remember them from worlds)on the Monday, a lovely day, until it started being typically england and started raining on us. Heading home we enjoyed the rest of the long weekend catching up on our movies.

Back at work on the Tuesday with deadlines for year end were looming which meant tensions were running high. So a usually quiet office turned into what could better be described as a morgue... drop a pencil and 3 people around you were giving you the evil eye. But i'm sure things will perk up once the pressure is off.

Thursday rolls around and it's off with Kev, Kath and Lauren to watch Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. I've always enjoyed the music, but hearing an orchestra playing it was amazing. It's a brilliant production, the set is fantastic the actors had the most sublime voices and everything just worked perfectly. I wouldn't say no to seeing it again... but a decision has been reached between myself and Mr Burden and the Penroses (give it time and it will be so) that since we are in london perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to go and see some more of the cultural night life than we have been seeing recently. Mama Mia, The Producers, We will rock you, Les Miserable and a few others are on our one show a month calender.. This month is The rocky horror picture show... not quite in the same league, but the guys have agreed to dress up as Frank which will be a sight to see ( stay tuned for pictures later). So inbetween the music concerts we are booked to see there are all these stage shows.... should be an interesting next couple of months.

But apart from the usual day to day it's been a pretty uneventlful couple of weeks.

Going Gatwick

Being sneaky and plotting are not really 2 of my strong points, but with help from many many friends I managed to get it right... Conspiring with Grant, O'Connor and Macleod particularly I planned to take Kev to Ireland for his birthday... But how.... so a link of misinformation and cloaks and daggers were set up... relaying the whole story would take the better part of 10 pages.. so this is a brief version... How do you get Kev to Gatwick without him suspecting anything? You get his boss in as a co conspiritor, he sends him to Gatwick on business purposes and there you have it.... one Mr Burden at Gatwick... a bit confused at seeing me there, but there all the same.
So after a beer and quiet a bit of explaining it was off to check in and then on to boarding... where there came the inevitable spanner in the works.... 5 boarding desks all feeding into 1 security desk (where they scan your luggage etc) starting to panic we asked people if they would mind if we cut in otherwise we would miss our flight. Running through security amidst some people mumbling and grumbling in the corners. We took off towards the boarding gates which due to our usual luck were located on the other side of the airport. When we got there we were told not to worry, there were still 8 people behind us that still had to board. Finding seats and turning the air fully on us we regained our breath and decided to have a nap. The other 8 people never made it onto the plane, i'm guessing they were some of the people that we rushed passed at security.

Landing in Cork we were met by everyones favourite Irishman, Mr O'Connor and his lovely lady Trace. We headed off to his place to drop bags and allow Kev to change out of his monkey suit.

Tim now lives a way out of Cork itself on a lovely old farm in the stables which have now been converted into little 2 bedroom apartments. After a bit of a rest we headed into the nearby town and had supper at a lovely Thai restaurant, where we caught up on the latest news and sank right back into the usual banter that happens when debaters/adjudicators are put into the same room together.
A fairly quiet night and off to bed. The next morning it was early to rise and just our luck, the sun was shining. I headed outside to take some pics of the surroundings

This is a through shot of Tim's block so to speak, his place is just around the corner on the right.

The sign is for the old stable yard

So off we went to Kinsale for a walk around and to have some lunch at a very popular restaurant called the Fishy Fishy. It's a magnificent place, all very quaint with the little narrow streets that would give most of SA drivers an attack of nerves to have to drive through. It's an interesting place with lots of different shops that you wouldn't normally find in big cities. This restaurant was so popular that even though we arrived before it opened we still had to settle for a table outside. Luckily most places do have those gas heaters outside.

Inside the Fishy Fishy cafe you will find the most divine selection of fresh fish. Lobster and Crayfish that are huge. You can go in and check out what kind of fish you want. The fish itself is very well presented and tasty, Tim went for the Bream, Trace took the avo ritz and Kev went for the Monk Fish, and I took the calamari.. all very tasty... we even got a warm salad for the table, which was the most fantastic colours.

After the lunch and the rain having stopped we took a little walk around trying to find the Wine Museum. Unfortunately we didn't have any luck there, mainly just found some more small streets with brightly coloured buildings, along with the Kinsale Brewery. Which was closed. (insert pic)

We drove along the coast road to get in some of the lovely scenery and wound up going past Gourtmacsherry where we got out to have a look at the mad people who were trying to surf.... anyone who has heard the Billy Connolly skit about the Irish Sea, no one in their right mind would think surfing in it was a good idea... and judging by the looks on their faces, as Kev put it so well they were "surfing under duress".

Pictured above are the poor souls who decided surfing was a good idea, the fast closing storm clouds that were heading our way, and the hotel/spa which is set looking out over this lovely view.

Perhaps wisely opting not to go into the cold water what else is there to do on a cold beach? Of course... there is the national sport of stone skipping. Kev here was caught for the action shot. Final score was tied, max 8 skips each. It was a close competition (grin)

Heading back to the car trying to beat the rain we then moved on to Clonakilty, which is the original home of the best made black and white pudding in Ireland... Those of you who don't know what it is... google for it. Another lovely little town with the most gorgeous bar I think I've seen ever, it's a mix between a De Akker and a jungle rain forest, unfortunately we were just passing through so I don't have any pics. And on and on went our travels, eventually ending up back in Carrigaline where we were staying for a nap before we headed out for the evening.

Saturday night started with a quiet dinner at a Italian restaurant, where pizza isn't quite what you expected. It's more the European gourmet style of eating. And then off we headed to Bodega, which is a restaurant by day and a huge club by night, A couple of drinks there and a good laugh at the hen party that was going on behind us and it was then off the the nightclub..... Club Classic, this club spared no expense on the decor and was really well set out... after a beer Kev and I joined Tim and Trace on the dancefloor for a couple but realised that it wasn't really our scene after all and retreated to the bar area.

Sunday was a late start where we found ourselves back at Bodega for breakfast, it was something like the usual Full English, but this was a full Irish, complete with Black and White pudding. Which i did eat. We sat there for a while reading the newspapers and just relaxing before we headed off for the main street just to have a look at Cork itself... the cold weather being what it was sent us running for the car and headed out to Cobh (pronounced Cove) for a look around, it's another one of those beautiful little places, it even has a view of the abandoned prison on Spike Island and the steel docks.

Tim and Kev were sharing a laugh at the ice cream eating dog that was running around between the kids hoping that they would drop something. Cobh is a very colourful place, each building is painted a different colour, from vibrant blue to another one right next door in apricot orange.

As Tim pointed out if you live in grey all year round you would want something in your life to be colourful even if it is the outside of your house.

Off home after getting some fresh air on the sea side, and time to start packing to head back to London. It's amazing how quickly time flies when you're having fun. At least it's a quiet weekend that'll recharge the batteries.

Once at Cork airport we said fairwell to Tim and Trace and have a promise from them that they'll be coming to visit the london crowd soon enough. Having learnt from our last experience of nearly missing the flight we were there very early... going through security was one of the more amusing things in the weekend for me.... Ever heard of having to take off your boots to go through the metal detector? Well, that was just Kev's luck... aparently the buckles were just a bit to big to happily pass through.

We got home fairly late and just crashed.... so that was that for the weekend, pity it was such a short one, but I think in the future a weekend break every now and then is just what you need. Leave the rat race for a bit.....

So till the next time something interesting happens... catch you later

In between

The week before

After the massive party of last weekend it was time for a quiet week, the usual monday night quiz left most of us feeling pretty stupid.... again..... For those of you who claim to be quiz buffs, here is one for you... What was the original capital of the Orange Free State? No googling now... although granted it did take us about 30 minutes of trawling google to find the answer.... see end of post for answer. Some of the british questions still get us, but on the whole we're not doing too badly and improving on a weekly basis.
Saturday morning rolls around and it's off to Wimbledon Village Stables for the first installment of my fantastic birthday present from Kev.... Outrides... yes, they are on horseback. A beautiful sunny morning with little wind and cantering alongside a golf course... few things are as pretty. Although i'm probably going to be as stiff as a plank on Monday it was worth it.
After a warm shower it's off to watch the GP qualifying at Grant's place and afterwards looking at funny internet sites and putting away a few beers.... a fairly early night considering and then another early morning accompanied by toasted sandwiched and much coke. GP started and it looked somewhat like amatuer hour on the track with most of the big names sticking themselves into walls or just blowing an engine.
Another pub quiz monday night where we will be missing one from the team as Kate heads home for grad and a bit of sun.... hopefully we'll do well

(answer: Windburg was the original capital of the OFS.... how many of you got that?)

Getting older

It's that time of year again, where you count the extra wrinkles and wonder how the last year went past without really realising it.
So this year I decided it was time for a big party, the invites went out and finally we all ended up in Tiger Tiger on haymarket street, Piccadilly Circus. Knowing London clubs it's always wise to book a area for yourselves otherwise you may end up scrunched up against all the other folk. So we had a nice big area with comfy leather couches to spread out on. Cocktails were flowing and the music was making many people shake their money makers.... But initially it started out very civilised.
Pictured are Kath and Deon having a quiet drink before the rush started.

The theme for the evening was black/white and something fluffy. The black/white was pretty easy so then came the tricky bit. Most of the guys opted for not shaving and hence became fluffy.





Kate Thompson arrived with a lovely mafia style hat that made it's rounds that evening.
Kev goes for the tough guy look.

As the evening progressed the beer and cocktails flowed freely and the party got into full swing.
On the dancefloor we all joined in the party, left to right...Carla, Katherine, Myself, Kev and Eric. Unfortunately for us we didn't realise that it was that time of year again... The time when all the clocks go haywire and you lose an hour... or gain an hour.. i'm not too sure how it works... I think that night we lost an hour... so instead for the club closing at 3am, it closed at 2am, but we still managed to get home at 5 and then make our way down to the 24/7 chicken house for the usual late night burgers and nuggets.

Housemates new and old

Eric and Raymond

So it's not a long post and I realise I have to work on my formatting skills, but all the same I've finally been able to insert pictures.

So have a good week and hope you enjoyed the pics

Catching up

This isn't quite going like i planned. As you may have noticed things are pretty hectic... hence no posts for quite a while. But i'm going to now catch up in one fell swoop.

The rest of the holiday was really amazing, and it was great seeing everyone again... it actually didn't seem like i'd been away that long. Funny that however much things change they always seem to stay the same.

Landing back in London was cold and rainy, and finally stepping out into the open air made me wonder for the hundredth time "what am i doing here?" With heavy bags I opted out of catching the bus and caught a cab back to the flat, where i could barely lift my bag.... finally inside we all fell asleep for a good couple of hours. Then tried to unpack our bags, i think it took me the better part of 2 days to get everything in its place again. The change from the hot sunny weather to the rainy cold played havoc with our immune systems. Kev was the first to come down with the flu, followed about a week later by me.... luckily i didn't catch it as badly as he did, and it was gone in about a week. Record time by UK standards.
Going a bit further into January we have Seth's birthday. After taking a good half hour to find the place we settled down with a couple of friends for drinks. That was the first time we saw Miss Thompson in London.

February proved to be a quiet month, with not a lot happening for the first bit... Valentines day had me getting hit in the face as hundreds of people were crowding onto the trains laden with flowers and chocolates..... Amusing for the first couple of stops until the hayfever set in. Apart from that the monday night pub quiz was progressing well, we were climbing in the ranks along with a little help every now and then from the quizmaster.

VIOLENT FEMMES

A sunday night is probably not the best time to go to a bounce around concert... but it was the femmes... nobody could resist. They were playing at Shepards Bush Empire which is a nice small venue.... so Kev, Grant, Lauren, Deon, Doc and myself headed off to get there early. The opening act was a brit group called Milk Kan. I'm not too sure exactly what they were playing as they had very strong accents... anyone who is curious can go to www.milkkan.com where they have their hit single "bling bling baby" - It was quite a laugh. Especially "Without you".

The following week ran the same as most others, chasing foreign people for excel documents and booking travel for my boss who travels nearly every day.

ST PATRICKS DAY WEEKEND

Friday... always good because I can go to work in jeans, but today being St Patricks Day, i was wearing Kev's green irish rugby shirt and a fluffy top hat.

After work it was off to Aardvark bar in Canada Water to meet up with Jacques and Maresa Kriel for drinks. We arrived at a bar full of saffas drinking guinness and falling over. It was a very festive vibe. The group grew and grew with Grant, Lauren, Nicole, Doc, Eric and Deon joining the party. After we'd all had enough it was off home, the only problem being that the tubes had stopped running ages ago, and none of us knew the bus routes. So 2 cabs it was. Being a PA has it's advantages... one being that I have the numbers of a couple of cab companies on my cell. The first cab arrived and we sent the first group off and waited for the second one..... which arrived about an hour later.... I have decided that in future.... i'm taking the first cab, particularly if it's in the middle of winter.
The Saturday we met up with Kate, Tanya, Seth and Stuart at Chez Gerrard's Zinc Bar in Covent Garden for a couple of drinks. But the place closed far to early for our taste. And we spent the next hour walking around trying to find somewhere that was open, and didn't have a 20 minute queue outside. We eventually gave up and went to the queen mary for a drink and then headed home.

Another quiet week followed, with our usual Monday pub quiz seeing us take second place. Which was cause for huge celebration. But on to next week and birthdays and stuff

Cape Town again - pictures to be added

So after a stint with Tom and Amber we headed back to Cape Town for New Years. On the 31st we were at Rhonwyn's place where we started out by making Yakka (evil stuff) and then lying beside the pool for the rest of the day. Of course because we weren't thinking we had forgotten to get drinks for the evening and it was a mad rush to find some... eventually we found a shebeen in Diep Rivier where we got the necessary supplies. Back at the house the rest of the hordes had started arriving.... lots of people who I hadn't seen since the previous December.

All was festive and we were all chatting and dancing and at some point swimming again. This carried on until about 4:30 where we all decided that it would be a good idea to catch some sleep.
But the early birds woke us at about 9 when the clean up started.. so being hung over, and dosed with red bull we cleaned the house and then retreated to the pool where we spent a lot of the day. Later in the afternoon the 30 seconds board was brought out and a competition started.... Sandy playing the floating player and answering any question she knew the answer to... this was the start of ducks and sweet and sour pork (for those of you not there.... DON'T ASK)
A couple of games later the hunger had set in and we were trying to find somewhere to eat. This got postponed after someone started a game of famous names that just went pear shaped. Eventually we decided on going to the Cape Town Fish Market at the Waterfront. We had a booking for 9 and since we arrived early we made our way down to Quay 4 for a drink... we hadn't counted on the music being so terrible.
After drinks it was back to the fish market to enjoy some sushi... and the experience was something that I will not soon forget.... the description of everything that went wrong would take quite a few pages, so let's just say that the waiter was putting very serious downward pressure on his tip. At the end of the evening Hawk, Rhon, Carl, Sam, Pete, Sandy, Kev and myself had had our fill of sushi and decided that retiring for the night would be a good idea.

2nd Jan - Andy's farewell. After a good nights sleep it was off to Camps Bay and Cafe del Mar to say goodbye to Andy, there we met up with the rest of the crowd and the party started all over again. Bacon, Feta and Avo pizza, not something you'll readily find in London... so I had one and it was divine.. as the crowd started to scatter we got ourselves a smaller table and started in on the cocktails... with a name something like sunset... which after a while James was describing as smoggy? Not too sure either. A beautiful sunset and we were off to Sushi Zone in obs for.... you guessed it... more sushi. I've now learnt to eat sashimi, which is the raw fish version of sushi and is actually quite nice. Kev asked the waiter for a bit more wasabi and was presented with enough to sink a small ship, but he made his way through most of it. A surprising thing was when a 2meter long tuna was carried through the front doors... well at least we knew that it was fresh.
Another tiring day was past and we headed back to Petes' place to catch a bit of shut eye and see what the next day would bring.

Cape Town, and beyond

I landed in Cape Town after a fairly bumpy Kulula flight and was met by Andres, who in true style hailed a golf cart to take us to his car... he later explained that this was the only way that we were going to get there without having to walk miles, as CT airport is under heavy construction. We got back to the house where we had the obligatory glass of red wine and started the phone calls to see where everyone was... Andy was the first we got hold of and after a while of trying to ascertain which Cubana he was at (because there are about 10) we met him at the Tableview one. I didn't realise at the time but he didn't know who he was on the phone to, and when he saw me was quite surprised, Pete was also there so we had a good party after which I drove him home... it was quite amusing because he couldn't remember exactly where he lived. Then we pickeled off home and chatted till early the following morning when Andres had to leave for Hermanus for work reasons.

The following evening we were meeting up at Shonga with Herman for a dinner and to do some catching up. It was a lovely evening chatting and laughing again like old times, with dinner only costing a fraction of what it would have in London... then it was off to bed because the next morning early it was off to George to see the folks.

Arriving in George was a surprise for mother as she thought I was only arriving in 2 days time. While there we watched soapies, went shopping, had coffee and lots of other things, but being that relaxed the exact time frame is a bit of a blur. But it was nice to see the folks again along with the animals. I managed to salvage some of the clothes that I had left behind and add a new suit to my wardrobe. But after 2 weeks there it was time to head back down to the cape for the traditional new years party.

Kevin fetched me on his way down from East London and we stopped over in Klein Brak to visit with Tom and Amber and their puppy wolfhound Hagrid.... who at 4 months is about as big as a normal alsation.

Week 47.1

So after taking 2H30 to get to the airport and then being told that I couldn't check in for another hour... in case they lost my luggage I was left wondering what to do, there isn't much to, especially this side of the boarding gates. So i sit and wait, have an overpriced airport coke and read my book, which at this stage is Terry Pratchets - Going Postal. Finally time comes for me to check in and I'm the first in the line.... "emergency exit seat if possible" I asked, to which the woman stood up from behind her counter and looked me up and down and said "but you're to small love"... Right... fine... i can handle that... then how about a window? All fully booked there too.... how could they be fully booked? I was the first one in line when they opened for check-in... anyway. Sulking I went through boarding where I got to the real side of International Departures... the area with all the shops. Having a good couple of hours to kill I mooched around the shops and then found myself a little corner couch where I could have a bite to eat and read my book undisturbed. Having sat in one position for the better part of 2 hours I made my way along the concourse towards my boarding gate where I came across massage chairs... they look something like a lazy boy.. and for £1 you get a 10 min massage... lovely. So once relaxed I made my way onto the plane and took my seat, in the middle. I had a lady on one side and a gent on the other. Unfortunately the gent had failed to shower for what must have been the better part of 2 weeks. Supper came around and it was fairly edible and there were some good movies on. So after watching 2 movies I decided to get some shut eye, which unfortunately was a lot harder than I thought it would be. The girl next to me must have thought in her sleepy state that I was her male companion and tried to snuggle against my shoulder, the gent next to me was hogging that arm rest... the little girl in front of me had put her bag of toys under her seat which effectively cut my leg room to zero and the guy behind me snored like a tractor... so with the idea of sleeping gone I watched another movie or 2 or 3. It's okay.... i'm landing soon.

I landed at JHB at about 6:30 in the morning where I collected my bags, changed from my snow suit into something a bit cooler and went outside to meet Mia, who I was staying with for the night before heading to Cape Town.

It was nice to drive in a car again. And within 30 minutes of being outside in the glorious SA sun I had managed to get a sun burn. We went and did a bit of shopping at Menlyn Park and had lunch, then it was back to her house where we relaxed for the rest of the day. Mia was off to Greece and London a couple of days later so I loaded her with an A-Z of London and a tube map, as well as some numbers to call in case of an emergency.

Then on to Cape Town....

Week 47 - to home

The time has finally come to try to fit all my summer clothes and christmas presents into one bag and still be under my weight limit for the flight.... how do they expect you to travel with only 25kg worth of luggage. So after packing and repacking and removing some things which aren't classified as essential ( like the 3rd pair of jeans) it's off to the airport.... I'm only flying at 6pm but I figure leaving at 2 is the safest option, since the tubes aren't the most reliable of things. It should only take around 1H30 to get to the airport, then I can find a nice pub to sit in and have a last beer before I fly.

Sunshine, here I come

Week 46 - Food glorious food

The countdown is on.... 9 days till I arrive in hopefully sunny JHB for the start of my summer vacation. A quiet saturday passed, with Lauren and Grant moving into their new flat, which turned out to be a lot less furnished than they had expected. So they were off to Ikea for some home shopping and it was our turn to try to return the flat to some sort of order... vacuuming, dusting, stacking the dishwasher and setting the washing machine going. It's amazing how quickly time goes by when you are trying to clear up... 4pm eventually rolled around and we were finished. So it was time for some relaxation in front of the tv..... with the usual problem of 999 channels and nothing to watch.

Sunday morning was a crisp morning with and early start to head to Zulus for the spit. Notorious as usual, everyone was late... sitting at the bar you had the smell of the spit wafting through and making everyone hungry.. i think if we didn't get food for Eric he would have taken a bite out of someone. But we were all seated at a long picnic style table and everyone ate their fill, some even eating all the leftovers. We all migrated to the large leather couches to let the food settle. After a couple more beers and ciders the food had taken it's toll and most of us were falling asleep. So we were off to find ourselves on the couch at home having a quick cat nap, then a shower and off to bed, ready for the next week.

So it's monday night and i'm bored... so for once i decide to get organised so that it's not a mad rush next monday when i decide to get things together and pack. So I have all my papers and passports, etc etc... but have you ever noticed, that no matter how organised you are there will always be something at the last minute that will put you into a flat spin. I'm trying to be most effient this time round but inevitable the cab will be outside hooting and i'll still be trying to find things. But I'm flying at 17:50 so it does give me a fair portion of the day to get things sorted out.

At the moment I'm sitting at the office on and 8 to 6 shift, and my eyes are threatening to close on me at any second. It is different when you only have to be at work at 9:30, it's light when you leave the house for one. Leaving at 6:45 means it's still dark and will stay that way for a while.... i'm longing for the sun to be up before me for once.

So i'm off to see the wizard.... maybe he has some coffee to wake me up.... I really hope so.

Week 45 - Bonjour - Je ne parle pas français - But anyway

Another fantastic weekend has passed.... along with a number of euros. Friday morning was a fairly early start with myself, Kev, Lauren, Grant and Doc heading off to Waterloo to catch the Eurostar to Paris. Being a pretty cold morning we were all wearing most of the clothes we owned, and looking somewhat like the Michelin man. The trains that we were expecting to be packed with early morning commuters were actually relatively empty... lucky for us because of all the luggage we had between us. Arriving at Waterloo we made our way down to the Eurostar entrance and waited for the rest of our group.... also being South Africans they were still working on "africa time" and arrived about 20 minutes late. Once we had organised everything we were off to the train. Onboard spirits were high and since the first plane had already flown over the guys headed to the bar. Unfortunately I don't think the bar really catered for a carriage full of rowdy SA rugby supporters, and they soon ran out of decent beer. Which left us with Duvel, which is a Belgium beer weighing in at over 8% vol... and tasted terrible, so the girls switched to whisky. We arrived at Gard du Nord in Paris a little after 2, their time, then it was off to find the hotel, which proved to be quite amusing, we walked around a bit and eventually found the right road... so after going 2 blocks out of our way we found the hotel to be only about 100 meters from the tube exit... never trust men to give directions. Checking in was another fun point with most of the people trying to speak french but not getting anywhere close - "bonjour, ek wil my room keys have please" as I heard one of the guys say. So once we'd all moved in to our respective rooms it was off to explore Paris... and with Doc leading the way we didn't actually get too lost. Our first stop was the Champs-Elysees. The most expensive area in Paris. We wondered up towards the Arc de Triomphe. After Kevin had a run in with a group of pigeons, we all had an amusing time avoiding one of the mechanical street cleaners, whos driver was aiming to knock down a pedestrian. Another thing is they all drive on the wrong side of the road... a bit confusing when you are trying to cross. So getting pretty cold we made it to the Arc, where we looked around at the magnificent architecture.... While Doc was taking pics of the eternal flame it started snowing, and not the little flakes one would expect, but rather lots of them all at once. We got some pics, along with a fluffy white haircolour, which melted soon after we went inside. Grant, Lauren and Jane wanted to grab some McD's but the rest of us decided to head into a quiet little corner pub and have a glass of port or wine and in my case coffee (personal note, coffee in france is the equivalent of an espresso). Unfortunately for our grumbling stomaches they had already finished serving lunch, so it was off to another cafe to try to find some food. The next place we came across you had to ring a bell before you were let inside, but once inside it had very low lighting and red velvet all over the place... so a quick look at each other decided that this was not the best of ideas, after a bit of investigating it turned out to be a type of brothel.... so leaving there at speed we looked across the road to a little cafe called Le Balzac where we had crepe and a glass of rouge wine... and that was pretty much the start of things to come. We heard that most of the group had ended up in St Germain for an evening of exploring the local nightlife. Arriving in st germain we headed in the direction with the most lights blinking and figured it was a good place to start. Our first stop took us to a cute little bar on a corner which had a sort of plastic protection around it... we managed to seat ourselves around a table probably meant for 6 year olds and ordered our glasses of wine, which to our delight came with table snacks of honey nuts and olives.... a trend that was followed throughout the night. We were perfectly warm under the heaters until after our drinks arrived at which point Kev was getting inexplicably cold but Doc and myself were still toasty warm... it turned out that our waiter hadn't quite zipped the plastic sheeting closed behind Mr Burden and he was getting the brunt of the cold wind. So freezing cold outside and getting warmer inside we headed off to our next experiment. Etages St Germain had the cutest waiters that I have ever seen... getting better at ordering red wine in french we each had a different kind of wine to decide if we should get a bottle... although all were fairly nice the best would have to be the Cote du Rhone which I had. With sitting right next to the door and having the breeze hit us every time the door opened we decided it was time to move on to another restaurant where we met up with the rest of our group... but since we had found warmth and a good bottle of wine we decided to call it home for a while. Shortly following that we headed for supper at a lovely Chinese/Thai place. And then to bed to prepare for the following day. We awoke on Saturday morning a little later than anticipated due to the time difference and red wine delay and headed off once again into Paris with the hope of seeing the Eiffel Tower. Which after Grant called and said visibility was down to 200meters we decided to attempt later and hopefully have some more luck then. So we were off to Notre Dame to look around and stand on the stone... which legend has was the centre point of Paris way back in the day and if you stand on it now you will always return one day. After milling around the Cathedral for a while we headed to the Latin Quarter for some lunch, and subsequently a quiet stroll along the Seine.... when the wind had sufficiently frozen us we headed for the Metro to make our way to the Eiffel. On the way Kev noticed a sign that said Bastille, which we all agreed was a good idea.... of course not realising that when it was seized in 1789 it was also raised to the ground.... oops... so we walked around looking for it for about half and hour. After being told numerous times that the Bastille opera house was the Bastille we gave up the search in favour of a warm glass of Gluwyn at the Falstaff with the intention of checking the net when we got back to the hotel to see where exactly the Bastille was located. Back at the hotel we donned our best green and gold and headed out to the Stade de France for the reason we were there... the SA vs France rugby match. It was very festive outside the stadium, with trains bringing an endless stream of people..... even a strange frenchman with a rat who was drinking his beer..... Before the game we had transferred out OBS (to keep warm with) into plastic coke bottles, as most stadiums won't let you in with glass bottles, we never thought that you weren't allowed any alcohol in the stadium, so in we went, with the officials assuming that what was in the bottles was actually coke. Doc and I found our seats and were quite charmed to find they were on the one try line, only 6 rows back. With much action, and for the SA supporters, who were really expecting a last second come back, much dissapointment we headed out of the stadium, not quite as noisily as we went in and stopped off for a final beer at the Heineken tent before trying to make our way onto the train and back into town. Once again back at the hotel we warmed our feet and headed to a bar on the corner to analyse the game to death, as the boys tend to do, when the bar closed a small group went out to finish the party else where while we climbed into a bottle of Jameson at the hotel and got an early night. Sunday morning was comprised of packing and making our way to the train station, and then bidding a fond farewell to France and heading back through snow covered fields to London. Another week has started and our landlady has had double glazing put in so the flat is much warmer and the heating bill has gone down. Not much happening on the social side, but we are going to be having a spit braai... WITH PROPER MEAT on sunday... and after that we'll have to see

Danielle

Okay... i'm trying to get the hang of posting pics, it's a bit more tricky than i thought..... this may take some work