Have just finished reading Smacked & am feeling more confident than ever about writing my own book! I have the story, the ability AND the industry contacts. Now all I have do do is shift my lazy A into G & get STARTED on the bloody thing!!!
Just before I went on leave, I bunked work with Lee the one day & went shopping in Melville. (My boss, whom I adore & who is based in our Cape Town office, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this month. She had just had a mastectomy & I knew she was at home recovering, so it was unlikely that anyone would be looking for me!) After a hearty breakfast at the delicatessen on the corner, I headed straight for an awesome vintage store, called Reminiscence, I had read about / passed on several prior visits to 7th Ave. I was lucky enough to find two vintage waistcoats (one from the 30s, the other from the 40s), plus a tortoiseshell-&-silver cigarette holder (from the 50s). Lee gets very creeped out by vintage stores (my favourite one in Durbs was called Granny's Attic), so while I stepped back in time & played out a bit of a girly dress-up fantasy amidst racks & boxes & cabinets full of olde-worlde finery, he went window-shopping. Afterwards I visited a tiny independent music store I had read about recently in an ezine. It is owner-run by a guy named Riaan, out of a converted single garage, just off the main drag, in 3rd Ave. After listening to at least half a dozen potential buys (usually in big music retail stores I can only find 1 or 2), I finally bought three CDs: Public Image Ltd: The greatest hits, so far (1990), Nude & Rude: The Best of Iggy Pop (1996), & The Cardigans' Super Extra Gravity (2005). The first two brought back a flood of memories from my early clubbing days back in the late 80s & early 90s. And I have yet to come across a voice as sweetly seductive as that of the beautiful Nina Persson
Glad to say that we had a great Xmas. Spent the day at our mate, Jon's house (great location - just off Grayston Drive, in Sandton), with a whole smattering of his & his girlfriend, Jen's, colourful mates - braai'ing, drinking, smoking, chatting, laughing. Jen made us spacecakes, & it was the first time I had ever tried 'shrooms. OMG, what an awesome trip!!! Watched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - for the second time - & I can assure you it's a lot more entertaining when stoned, rather than straight! Came home that night & slept for 16 hours straight
The following evening (Boxing Day), Lee & I went to watch the Chronicles of Narnia at the Velskoen Drive-in. What an absolute jol!! My mom tells me I was taken to the drive-in on the Bluff in Durbs a few times at a very young age, but I have no recollections of that whatsoever. So this was essentially my first real drive-in experience & I seriously LOVED it!! I couldn't believe how full the place was! This is obviously (still) a very popular form of entertainment - especially for families with young kids. And I can now see why! We ate grilled calamari on fresh white rolls on our laps, followed by a bag of freshly microwaved popcorn (all organised en route & at home beforehand, BTW - just in case my IBS didn't agree with possibly dodgy cafeteria food!), & washed it all down with a 2L Coke. (As it turned out, the cafeteria was immaculately clean & decent-looking, & I will happily buy food from there next time). I particularly liked the freedom of being able to go for a wee-break & a smoke-break at will. Compaired to the confines & rules of a movie theatre, all I can say is: Wow, what a damn pleasure!! Albeit a bit cheapskate & corny (only by my snobbish Westville standards, perhaps?), we will DEFINITELY be doing the "Ag, please, Daddy, won't you take us to the drive-in" thing again
Yesterday Lee & I went & checked out the new (nearly complete) Design Quarter in Fourways, just off William Nicol Drive. For a decor junkie like me, this is one awesome concept - having all the major homeware retailers, & some delicious niche ones inbetween, in one gigantic architectural space, under one magnificent roof. And without all the hassle of trapsing around a claustrophobic shopping centre, with inadequate air-con, dodging between the throngs of teenage mall rats aimlessly milling around in their designer labels & pimple cream, not to mention the hordes of flustered mothers with great big hulking uber-prams &/or sticky, squawking, children-laden trollies going about their never-ending chore of grocery shopping
Me, I'm just an uncomplicated little birdie wanting to feather my suburban nest. And hopefully the rest of the peeps who continue to patronise the DQ will be of the same midset as me 
We also managed to finalise our house plans with Marc. Tomorrow we're off to visit an old friend, Bronwen's, new house in Featherbrooke Estate. She & her husband, Richard (whom we haven't yet met), have given their builder a GLOWING reference, so we want to check out his work before approaching him for a quote when he returns to work on 9th Jan.
Other than that, there's not much else to tell. Just that we're looking fwd to a NYE of note
Hope you all have a good one!! Till the new year then...
Just before I went on leave, I bunked work with Lee the one day & went shopping in Melville. (My boss, whom I adore & who is based in our Cape Town office, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this month. She had just had a mastectomy & I knew she was at home recovering, so it was unlikely that anyone would be looking for me!) After a hearty breakfast at the delicatessen on the corner, I headed straight for an awesome vintage store, called Reminiscence, I had read about / passed on several prior visits to 7th Ave. I was lucky enough to find two vintage waistcoats (one from the 30s, the other from the 40s), plus a tortoiseshell-&-silver cigarette holder (from the 50s). Lee gets very creeped out by vintage stores (my favourite one in Durbs was called Granny's Attic), so while I stepped back in time & played out a bit of a girly dress-up fantasy amidst racks & boxes & cabinets full of olde-worlde finery, he went window-shopping. Afterwards I visited a tiny independent music store I had read about recently in an ezine. It is owner-run by a guy named Riaan, out of a converted single garage, just off the main drag, in 3rd Ave. After listening to at least half a dozen potential buys (usually in big music retail stores I can only find 1 or 2), I finally bought three CDs: Public Image Ltd: The greatest hits, so far (1990), Nude & Rude: The Best of Iggy Pop (1996), & The Cardigans' Super Extra Gravity (2005). The first two brought back a flood of memories from my early clubbing days back in the late 80s & early 90s. And I have yet to come across a voice as sweetly seductive as that of the beautiful Nina Persson
Glad to say that we had a great Xmas. Spent the day at our mate, Jon's house (great location - just off Grayston Drive, in Sandton), with a whole smattering of his & his girlfriend, Jen's, colourful mates - braai'ing, drinking, smoking, chatting, laughing. Jen made us spacecakes, & it was the first time I had ever tried 'shrooms. OMG, what an awesome trip!!! Watched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - for the second time - & I can assure you it's a lot more entertaining when stoned, rather than straight! Came home that night & slept for 16 hours straight
The following evening (Boxing Day), Lee & I went to watch the Chronicles of Narnia at the Velskoen Drive-in. What an absolute jol!! My mom tells me I was taken to the drive-in on the Bluff in Durbs a few times at a very young age, but I have no recollections of that whatsoever. So this was essentially my first real drive-in experience & I seriously LOVED it!! I couldn't believe how full the place was! This is obviously (still) a very popular form of entertainment - especially for families with young kids. And I can now see why! We ate grilled calamari on fresh white rolls on our laps, followed by a bag of freshly microwaved popcorn (all organised en route & at home beforehand, BTW - just in case my IBS didn't agree with possibly dodgy cafeteria food!), & washed it all down with a 2L Coke. (As it turned out, the cafeteria was immaculately clean & decent-looking, & I will happily buy food from there next time). I particularly liked the freedom of being able to go for a wee-break & a smoke-break at will. Compaired to the confines & rules of a movie theatre, all I can say is: Wow, what a damn pleasure!! Albeit a bit cheapskate & corny (only by my snobbish Westville standards, perhaps?), we will DEFINITELY be doing the "Ag, please, Daddy, won't you take us to the drive-in" thing again
Yesterday Lee & I went & checked out the new (nearly complete) Design Quarter in Fourways, just off William Nicol Drive. For a decor junkie like me, this is one awesome concept - having all the major homeware retailers, & some delicious niche ones inbetween, in one gigantic architectural space, under one magnificent roof. And without all the hassle of trapsing around a claustrophobic shopping centre, with inadequate air-con, dodging between the throngs of teenage mall rats aimlessly milling around in their designer labels & pimple cream, not to mention the hordes of flustered mothers with great big hulking uber-prams &/or sticky, squawking, children-laden trollies going about their never-ending chore of grocery shopping
Me, I'm just an uncomplicated little birdie wanting to feather my suburban nest. And hopefully the rest of the peeps who continue to patronise the DQ will be of the same midset as me
We also managed to finalise our house plans with Marc. Tomorrow we're off to visit an old friend, Bronwen's, new house in Featherbrooke Estate. She & her husband, Richard (whom we haven't yet met), have given their builder a GLOWING reference, so we want to check out his work before approaching him for a quote when he returns to work on 9th Jan.
Other than that, there's not much else to tell. Just that we're looking fwd to a NYE of note
Hope you all have a good one!! Till the new year then...