NoJoMo 2

 I’ve decided to do November Journaling Month again this year. Writing one entry every day for a month last year was quite a challenge, but I did it, and it made me fall in love with my open diary again. I feel I need a diary related kick and NoJoMo might just be what I’m looking for. I couldn’t write yesterday though, I was horribly sick with some sort of bug or food poisoning or something incredibly vile and spent all day in bed, vomiting into a bucket. I will write an entry on 1 December to make up for it though!

My first entry will be the details of my trip home. I got back on Wednesday.
Apologies, this will be boring, it’s more for my own record than anything else though.

I left on Monday 15 October:
Ben dropped me off at Bristol Bus Station and I caught a 2 hour bus to London Heathrow. I checked in my bags and went through security and occupied myself for 2 hours. Whilst waiting for my gate, I saw Jedward! Both of them. I stalked them through duty free trying to get a photo on my phone to send to Ben. I really hate being on my own at times like that, now I’ll never be able to turn to a friend and say “do you remember that time we stalked Jedward through the duty free in Heathrow”.
I flew to Zurich and had a 3 hour stop over. Zurich airport is boring, and massive, I had to catch a free shuttle train to my gate which played Sounds on the Amazon, frogs and birds and the occasional random cow moo, very odd! The flight over to Cape Town was fine, food was nice and I watched Madagascar 3 and People Like Us, and read 100 pages of my book.

Tuesday 16th:
Landed in the morning, picked up my rental car from the airport. It was electric blue, which meant I was always able to find it in a crowded parking lot. I drove to Tyger Valley, Andrisa met me outside woolworths and we went to buy a South African pay as you go simcard for my phone so I didn’t spend a fortune on international calls. I spent the day at her boyfriend’s house and I got to meet Bruce and their baby.
Late afternoon we drove to our old riding school. We fed all the horses and ponies carrots and then sat for an hour on Brunsi’s stoep catching up with her. Man alive that woman just doesn’t age. She was ancient when she was teaching us to ride, and that was about 15 years ago. She even sold us raffle tickets, some things never change. Andrisa went home and I drove to Stellenbosch. I was staying with Charlotte. Her new flat is beautiful! So new and sleek and modern, loads of exposed brick, 2 balconies and a river view. I’m totally jealous. Briggs and her friend came over that night, Chez cooked and we ate supper and drank wine and caught up.
Quote of the night: Chez “but I like smiley faces!”

Wednesday 17th:
After waking up, breakfast, shower etc, I drove down to Zevenwacht Mall and met up with Chez for lunch, her office is right across the road. We did a bit of shopping afterwards, Charlotte was looking for something to wear to our reunion. I drove into Stellenbosch and went to Mugg and Bean so I could use their internet. That evening we met up with Chez’s dad and one of her friends and the 4 of us had dinner and drinks at the Slug and Lettuce. I had a deboned rib burger and it was delicious! 4 gin and tonics later and we came home.

Thursday 18th:
I don’t really remember doing anything during the day, but that night Chez, Briggs and I drove to Durbanville for supper. Jacqui lives in Cape Town so she wanted to meet somewhere half way between the city and Stellenbosch. Pretty uneventful evening but it was nice to catch up with everyone.

Friday 19th:
I spent a few hours in Stellenbosch in the morning, they’ve completely revamped Eikestad mall and I wanted to see all the changes, also stopped by Die Boord and picked up some snacks and a pizza for supper. I drove passed that house where that family was murdered all those years ago, it instantly gave me the chills, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget that. I don’t know how people can live there. I spent the rest of the day by myself in Charlotte’s flat. It was POURING with rain outside so I didn’t really want to go anywhere anyway. Chez went to Cape Town straight from work and came home at about 8pm. We just stayed in together, a very lame Friday night, but I was always happy just to spend time together even if we weren’t doing anything… that was, after all, the whole point of this trip.

Saturday 20th:
Our 10 year high school reunion. The whole thing was a bit of a let down, we had 120 girls in our year and the turn out was very poor. We had a brunch function on a wine farm in the morning with buffet food and bubbly wine and orange juice. The food was delicious! And it was nice to see everyone. The sun was shining, everyone looked radiant and the atmosphere was fun and light and airy.

Saturday evening there was a cocktail party. No one knows why we ended up having 2 reunions, my guess is that Lisa was trying to please everyone and probably ended up pleasing no one. We spent the afternoon at Charlotte’s flat and then Chez, Sophie, Jacqui and I all got ready together and watched all the old videos I brought with me, including the horror movie we made when we were 14. We were crying with laughter, one of those moments where I felt like I’d never been happier.
The cocktail function was a huge disappointment, only about 25 girls and their dates. We had a 3 course meal and a hog roast. After a few glasses of wine the hostel girls went and woke the duty teacher up and she gave us a tour of the hostel in her pyjamas hahaha. They’ve made a lot of improvements to the hostel, so it was nice to see. Everyone started leaving and before we knew it there were about 8 of us left in the entire school hall so we had some more wine and turned the music up and danced the rest of the night away. We went to De Akker for a few hours afterwards, we saw Neil, one of the boys I was in love with when I was about 12, he has a massive beard now and Sophie made some comment about him looking like a pirate. I nearly fell off my chair I was laughing so much. We got home at about 3am.

Sunday 21st: 
Chez, Sophie and I drove to Mooiberge and bought ticklemouse biscuits and wine, and then we went to spur for brunch. We all had burgers and I covered everything in pink sauce. We went to Mr Video and rented The Rum Diaries and American Pie The reunion, which was fitting because we had celebrated our 10 year reunion the day before and the movie was all about theirs. We watched American Pie and then Charlotte got ready for a date with some South African comedian called Dave who she’d met through work. He came over and Chez cooked dinner and then we all ate together at the dining room table. VERY strange haha, Chez on a date with this guy and Sophie and I sitting there like 3rd and 4th wheels.

Chez and Dave were on the balcony for quite a while chatting and smoking and then they slowly moved to Charlotte’s bedroom, almost like they were hoping if they moved slow enough we wouldn’t notice. Soph and I watched the Rum Dairies (which was uber slow and shit and weird) with the volume really loud. Charlotte appeared 2 hours later wearing nothing but a towel and a smile.
Quote of the day: Sophie “But I like straight Donée”

Monday 22nd:
I drove Sophie home to Muizenburg and then drove to Bloubergstrand to visit Marike. We went for lunch on the beach, then a walk on the beach, I collected seashells like a child. That night we went to the Cape Town roller derby team’s training from 8 to 10pm. It was fun and all the girls are lovely, but they’re a very new team and they don’t really know the rules so it was a bit frustrating to play with them. Marike and I stayed up till about 2 in the morning catching up. Her loft apartment is awesome and her bedroom is upstairs with a balcony and a huge glass sliding door and she has the most perfect view of table mountain.

Tuesday 23rd:
The next morning we woke up early and went for breakfast and coffee on the beach again, and then she had to go to work. I drove from Blouberg to Tyger Valley and spent all day shopping. I wanted to do some shopping while I was there and I didn’t want to drive all the way back to Stellenbosch from Blouberg so it was perfect to stop there for the day. I saw so much stuff in Mr Price Home that I wanted to buy for the new house, but with limited space in my suitcase I had to behave myself. I bought some clothes and stuff too.

Then that evening I was having supper with my aunt and my cousins. When I parked outside my cousin’s apartment complex I didn’t know what number she lived in and then I realised my SA phone we dead! So first I tried swapping the sim cards, but that didn’t work because her number was saved to the phone AND my UK phone is locked to other networks. So I swapped them back and then tried switching the internet on on my UK phone to get her number from Facebook, but that didn’t work either. At this stage I snuck into the complex behind another car and then started asking people who were coming and going if they knew which number apartment Dominique lived in and no one could help me. Eventually I sent a text to my brother asking for Dominique’s number, he replied and I sent her a message from my UK phone. It was a complete mess and meant I wasted about half an hour of the time I was supposed to be spending with them and they were all worried because they thought I’d gotten lost and they couldn’t get hold of me because my phone was dead.
Anyway, I got to see everyone, and Dominique’s 2 dogs are adorable! So I got to see Dominique and Jacques and Auntie Elize, and I got to meet Barry (Dominique’s boyfriend) and Emma (Jacques’ girlfriend) and both of them are really friendly and nice. We had a braai and the food was great. Got back to Stellenbosch really late.

Wednesday 24th:
Was a bit of a nothing day. Went back to Stellenbosch Mugg and Bean to steal some more internet and the rest of the day was a bit of a write off.

Thursday 25th:
I woke up at the crack of dawn to drive to Hermanus to see Helen. She lives in Bredaarsdorp, on a farm in the middle of nowhere, I’m glad she recognised it wouldn’t have been fair to ask me to drive all the way there just to spend the afternoon there, so we met half way. We had a lovely lunch outside, her little girl toddling around playing with toys and other children. We went to the shop together afterwards and had a somewhat in depth discussion about contraception, it was quite strange. She had to hurry home after about 3 hours because Claire needed lunch and a nap. I decided I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Hermanus just yet after driving an hour and a half to get there. So I walked along the cliff paths watching the ocean and feeling the breeze and sunshine on my face. Even saw a whale, it was miles out and pretty tiny, but it was most definitely a whale. Even saw it blow some water out it’s blow hole, ha. I walked around the markets and bought an enormous wooded hippo that weighed a ton. He’s so fat and shiny and is smiling, I couldn’t not buy him. And now, every time I look at him, I’ll think of home.

I drove from Hermanus to Bellville and met up with Andrisa again. We went to starlight diner for supper and took advantage of their buy on get one free appetiser deal. Spent the rest of the night at her flat talking shit and catching up.

Friday 26th:
We spent most of the morning in bed, watched Marmaduke in our PJs and then Andi and I went to do some shopping at Tyger Valley. She’s just had a baby and still isn’t fitting into her jeans so we went shopping for some new clothes. She didn’t buy anything, but I did, even though I said I wouldn’t, space in my suitcase was reaching it’s limit by this point.
We had peppersteak pies and veg for supper and then went out. We went to Ellingtons, the pool hall Sean and I used to spend most Friday nights at when we were dating. However, much to my delight, Ellingtons is now a metal bar and they were having a Halloween party! Saw some very interesting sights and listened to a really terrible local metal band. We were home by midnight, Andi is still breastfeeding and can’t be apart from Dante for too long.

Saturday 27th:
Woke up early with Dante screaming his tiny head off. Babies scream a lot, that’s what I learnt from spending 2 and a half days with Andrisa. Drove back to Stellenbosch that morning. Spent the morning faffing about and then Briggs came over in the late afternoon. She’d been drinking all day at a wine festival and came over completely wasted. The whole thing turned into a big mess and she said some very hurtful things, was unnecessarily horrible and rude and then Chez asked her to leave. Long story short, Briggs isn’t my friend anymore, not through anything I did, but more that I’m below her intellectual level and she doesn’t associate herself with her high school friends anymore. It upset me beyond all rationality and pretty much ruined the rest of my holiday, it was all I could think of the subsequent days when I was trying to go to sleep at night, when I was in the shower, when I was trying to watch a movie. It’s a mess. I’m still a little unsure of what to do about it, and I’m even angry that I’m letting it affect me as much as it has.
After Briggs left in a huff, Chez, Lela and I went to get Thai take out, steri stumpies and rent some DVDs.  We watched The Hunger games, which I didn’t particularly want to see due to all the hype, but I caved and watched it and actually really enjoyed it.

Sunday 28th:
We woke up and watched Rock of Ages with scr

ambled egg on toast. I did not know it was a musical! It was so stupid, I loved it! That afternoon we drove to Canal Walk. My cousin works there, so I met up with him for a drink and a 40 minute chat whilst Charlotte and Lela went shoe shopping. Afterwards we went for Thai food, did a little more shopping, smelled the new lady gaga perfume and then went home. That night we watched Salmon fishing in the Yemen, which was pretty slow and boring and not nearly as uplifting as we were told.

Monday 29th:
Drove into town in the morning to do all the last minute biltong shopping I’d promised everyone. Returned the dvds and paid a hefty R60 late fee for keeping all 3 of them an extra day. Totally worth it! Did a whole lot of nothing the rest of the day and then went out for supper when Chez got home from work. We went to the Big Easy and had the most delicious food and the most wonderful conversation. I could have sat there all night.

Tuesday 30th:
My last day. Got woken up at 7am by a phone call Charlotte received to say one of her colleagues had been shot in the head and in the arm in the early hours of the morning . She was in complete shock, and crying, I just didn’t know what to say or do. We made tea and then she went off to the office to try and figure out what they were going to do about everything. It was all pretty heavy.
It took me about 2 hours to pack my bag, like a puzzle, but I managed to make everything fit. The solid wood hippopotamus came home in my hand luggage, there was no other way around it! By some miracle and some very clever hand luggage packing I managed to get my bag weighing 23kg. Met Chez for lunch so I could give her house key back to her, we said our goodbyes. Then I drove to Andi’s place, spent 2 hours with her and Dante, we said our goodbyes and I drove to the airport. Had a chocolate milkshake and a chicken mayo toastie at Mugg and Bean and then I was on my way. The flight home wasn’t pleasant, I didn’t get much sleep despite having the seat next to me free and 4 hours of waiting in Zurich from 6am.

Song of the trip: Taylor Swift, We are never ever getting back together.
It was all over the radios and constantly stuck in my head and as a result of humming, stuck in everyone else’s heads too.

Things I learnt:
Nothing can beat a cold steri stumpie. I miss them. May have easily had one a day while I was there.

Bonds with some old friends can be instant, like no time at all has passed.
With others, will crumble in front of you.

I miss home. I want to move back one day.

Ben really is the love of my life. I missed him a lot.

Wooden hippos weigh a lot when placed in ones hand luggage.

Those R9.95 canvas shopping bags from woolworths are not built for withstanding the carriage of wooden hippos on planes.

I’m not ready to have a baby yet. Babies scream and cry a fuck load.