Wednesday, 18 December 2002.

wokeup early thanks to jetlag again.

Due to my forgetfulness, I only packed a single pair of shorts to wear :-P. That was a really really dumb move. To top it off, the single pair I packed had a hole in the back of them #-|. So went shopping for pants for me as well as decent shirts for my brother and I at Game Centre. Managed to get two pairs of shorts at Game SuperStore. While I was there I saw something really weird. Gillette Razor blades, with English and Cyrllic scripts on them. I know South Africa is a multicultural country but that is getting ridiculous. Had a look at the packaging, and it turns out they are imported from Kahzakistan (sp?).

Went to Mr Price there as well, managed to find a really nice colourful blue shirt made of Viscose so it was comfortable in warm weather.

We were looking around for a place to have lunch, and found a very busy looking placed named 'Butcher Boys'. Had just stuff from the starters for lunch. The place specializes in steak. You can go up and tell them exactly how you want your piece of beef cut, as they have a functional butchery adjoining the resturant.

We picked up Judy after that, and took her up to Augusta, for the wedding pre-planning meeting with the DJ. He seemed a reasonable fellow with his apprentice that knew just the right questions to ask about the planning stuff so he could get it all down and ordered. First/Second Songs, First Dance Song, some stuff about activities etc.

After that, we sat around with the Bakers and Judy and I went out to a local pizza joint to get some pizza for the entire family to eat, as well as some nice icecream. We got 3 large pizzas for 7 people, and a 1L tub of mixed icecream that we picked. The icecream was half Amarula Cream and half Caramel Choc-chip.

Thursday, 19 December

Got up not too late. Took Greg out to his friend Damian in Umghlanga Rocks, went to Granddad and Nana.

From there my father was talking business with Granddad, and I walked up the hill to see my old friend from kindergarten, Carlo Montemarano. I would call him my first best friend. Sat and talked to him about what's been going on with him and updated him on my life. He goes to the University of Stellenbosch, doing a B.Comm. there. His elder sister, Marisa. Since I've been away, she has graduated from Natal University with a bachelors (spinsters?) degree in English. Right after that she went and working with their family connections in Italy. She now lives in Cape Town and is working in breaking into the publishing business as that is where all the publishing companies in south africa are. Carlo has been living in residence for his first two years down at Stellenbosch, but now, he is moving into an apartment with two friends, since he is in the final year of the 3 year program. Once he is done, he plans to loan some money from his parents and go to London or Italy to work there. When I was there, the moving truck came to pick up some of Carlo's stuff. One of his new apartment mates is somebody else I went to senior elementary and high school with, Matthew Bennett. Matthew's family has a share in a moving company so they were using that to get their stuff down there for free.

After talking to Carlo and his parents and having a small lunch there, I walked down the road to visit the Jacksons. They are long standing family friends thru many connections, grandparents on both sides went to school together and Helen trained to be a nurse alongside my mother. They are the family that had The Cat (Jimmy) that practially owned the house, since it was first bought when the the grandparents (Joy and Donald) had the house. A while after Donald died, Joy moved out, and Helen and her husband Johan moved into the house. Jimmy was still there. Helen and Johan had two daughters. Jimmy was still there. They tried to emigrate to Australia, and that caused a divorce. Johan went there, but Helen and her daughters came back. Meanwhile Allan, Helen's younger brother, a man at 50 who was still a bachelor, moved into the house, and ran his own small business from there. He was originally a newspaper journalist and later the computer columnist for one of the local the newspapers. He now does the occasional newspaper article freelance and runs a small web-design and hosting company. Helen later went back to Australia with her daughters seperetly. Allan later tried to emigrate to Ireland, but ended up in Scotland for a while. When he left, his mother (Joy) and uncle (Mory) moved into the house again. At this time, Jimmy was getting too old, and after going blind and falling into the swimming pool twice, it was decided the humane move would be to have him put down. The family still misses Jimmy and does some things like he were still there. Allan came back as his business venture in scotland didn't work out. He got there shortly after 9/11 and despite a £1000 in free startup capital from the Scottish Government, he didn't get much business and after the theft of his Laptop, Printer, Fax machine and many other bits from apartment, he decided to come back to South Africa. He now lives back in the same house running his own business in South Africa again.Helen's eldest daughter, Jo-anne had been sent over from australia to spend some time with her grandmother and family.I sat and chatted to them for a while. And then Allan gave me a lift back down the hill to my grandparents again. I found my mother cleaning Nana's kitchen, and ended up helping her a fair bit. When the grandparents get old, their eyesight isn't as good as it used to be. I remember years ago, her kitchen was literally clean enough to eat off the floor. She was a very accomplished cook, but with her advanced age (96), she isn't as active as she used to be.We took Granddad and Nana out to dinner at the local steakhouse, RJ's.

Friday, 20 December

Woke up at a decent hour in the morning. My father had to go the bank to sort out our investments and so forth that we did with the money we got when we sold our house here. 12% interest here :-). He also sorted out a number of screwups that the bank had made with various things.

While he was doing that, my mother and I went shopping for a bit more clothing and gifts for the grandparents. I got a few new pairs of comfortable underwear in the style I like :-), I also got a nice hat in the style I've been looking for. It's a really crucial thing around here with the sun as it is. Keeps the sun off your face, ears and neck. Got a varieity of luxary food items for my grandparents, and I saw that the luxury foodstuffs here are starting to include things we get in north america as everyday goods, like Wasabi and Thai chilli sauces. Once my father was done with his banking, he came to find us in the luxury goods store, and saw a tie he liked.

After that, we went upstairs in that small shopping centre to a little resturant, called 'Mugg & Beans' that was more of a over-glorified coffee shop that served meals. I had a 'Chicken Pineapple Potbelly Sandwich' it was a massive affair of a sandwich, much too huge.

After that we picked up Greg from Damians, and went to the Jacksons for a braai. I have been asked what the word 'braai' means. It is basically south african for barbeque. Except that when we do it, we cook over charcoal. There is usually a LOT of meat cooked, steak, chops, boerewors (a very long sausage thing) and kebabs (sometimes called sosasties here). A little bit of salad and bread rolls on the side. Meat is the main thing to eat. Jane McIntosh joined us for the braai. She is another friend of my mother from Nursing School days.

Saturday, 21 December - Judy's Wedding

Woke up earlish to get ready and everything. Sudden shopping trip out to find a shirt for my brother since he still didn't have a nice one for the wedding. We picked up some JMO's burgers on the way back to the apartment. JMO's burgers are some of the very few that I will eat. The come from an indian place that cooks them carefully, and they cook the food such that it qualifies as both Kosher and Halaal for anybody to eat. It is a fair sized piece of beef, nearing the size of a small tea saucer, not too thick. In a nice bread bun, with lots of grated vegetable bits and their special sauce. The sauce isn't even spicy, I think Marissa would even eat it. But the sauce does have a delicous flavour. It tastes like a cross of BBQ, coriander and many of the other indian flavourings.

Wore comfort clothes to go up to Augusta. Once there, we went to change into our wedding clothing. I had dark long pants, and the very colourful blue shirt seen in some photos.

When we got to Augusta, photos of the bride were already being done, so my father grabbed my camera and started snapping away. I took out the video camera as I had been delegated to do by Jacqui. I was tasked with being the videographer for the wedding. I had borrowed an ultra-light tripod from Allan Jackson to do that.

After taking lots of picture at Augusta, the bride got in the car taking her to the Chapel along with her father. She nearly forgot her garter. I went with Jacqui in her new Renault Cleo to the chapel, and set up next to the front row for filming, as well as filming from behind the pastor for a while.

Tristan and Emily were the ring-bearer and the flower girl. There was no best man or bridesmaid. The pastor read out the parable of Jesus turning water into wine at a marriage reception, and then the pastor claimed that he really liked wine and went on about just how mch wine there was, about 800L. Even for the old days, that is a LOT of wine. Everybody had a good laugh over that.

Afterwards the service, we went to the reception, which was held at the clubhouse in Augusta. Firstly, everybody was out on the balcony and in the bar eating pates and various other appetizers. Then the bride and groom arrived, and mingled for a while. There was one interesting idea at the start for drinks, everybody got one glass of champagne on arriving, as well as one glass of champagne for the toasts, and a glass of wine for dinner. Other than that, mixers, pop and non-alcoholic drinks were free (paid for by the groom in bridal tradition), but you had to pay for your own alcohol.

After that, we went into the main dining area (See photos), my father was the master of ceremonies, so he gave the introductions to the speakers (Neville and Derek), as well as his own speech. His speech, which he didn't really prepare for, was quite funny, relating the fact that he had a dog many years ago (before I was born), Jason, who didn't like peas at all. Judy also didn't like peas on bit, and to this day nobody has figured out if Jason taught Judy or vice versa.

There proper starters (some salad) to go with the main course, which was lamb, beef and pork on a spit with lots of vegetables.

Judy and Derek danced the first dance to Savage Garden's "Truely Madly Deeply". Desserts with the exception of the wedding cake were provided by the groom's mother, and they were very good :-). The wedding cake was a chocolate mousse and quite nice, although a bit small.

The dancing and everything went on for quite a while. I didn't catch the brides garter, but the dude that did catch it didn't want it later in the evening, so I have it around somewhere now ;-). After the reception, we went back to Jacqui's house, and had some coffee and so forth. All the family was sleeping around Augusta, so we didn't have to drive the 45 minutes back to Durban in a fairly intoxicated state :-). My immediate family were the only ones not staying in Augusta, because of a minor problem with the loft where we were going to be staying. So instead we slept in Derek's little cottage.

Sunday, 22 december

woke up at derek's cottage, helped my mother get out the front door that has swelled and sticks in it's frame a lot so that she could have a smoke break.

met the Bakers back at Augusta to help clean up from the wedding reception, my palm came in handy again for keeping track of counting all the catering equipment.

the Fishers (my mother's sister, her husband, their daughter, and their daughter's friend) then arrived, for the 'after after' party. this name came up because shortly after they arrived Nana said to them hello, goodbye, there isn't enough food for you. Jacqui took her aside in the kitchen and said that she was rude for saying that, and they were here to help finish the volumnous leftover starters and desserts. there were no entrees left over amazingly, that went great. so we had large piles of various pates on melba toast and crackers of various sorts along with cheeses. there was a very good butternut and spices pate that I enjoyed, as well as a Thai Chilli Jam over creamcheese on crackers.

afterwards, there was still quite a bit of pate left over, but less than we started with and no dessert left over, all of that was finished for good.

everybody parted ways for then, the fishers following us back down to durban, with my brother in their car helping direct them (yeah him directing, I know it's a joke). Nicolette was with us getting a ride back to where she was staying.

dropped her off back in durban, met the fishers back at the timeshare. chatted for a while, took a walk down on the beach, the first beach walk that we've had since we got here to durban. it's changed a lot in some ways, but not in others. the beaches are a lot quieter than they used to be I think, both of white people and definetly of black people. there are more cape malays around fishing off the piers, but the beachers also look to be cleaner from litter. that isn't to say there isn't any litter around, just that there is less of it now. i also noted a lot more female surfers and bodyboarders than I have seen before. walked barefoot on the beachsand, which I haven't done in a very long time. i should visit wreck beach and the other beaches of vancouver more often during summer I think. I'm sure you won't say no Marissa.

Picked up Mary-Granny and Chris, took them out to dinner at Legends. I had a green thai curry to eat.

Mary-Granny is really getting old now, at 86. She is slowly getting more and more batty, like in the middle of a conversation about my high school graduation class, she starts "and How is She doing?" leaving no clue as to who she is talking about.

Took them home and had a earlish night.

Monday, 23 december

woke up later than previous days. my parents slept even later, till noon. weather did the usual south african thing. that is, fierce sun in the morning, then big storm clouds coming up from all the evaporated water, and dark skies. now tropical thunderstorm, and it's only 14h45 in the afternoon. the rain is positively bucketing down on the car, along with lightening and thunder.

went via Liberty Liqours to return some wine that had gone very off. We also purchased some more alcohol of various types to supply us for the days of christmas and boxing day. some barefoot dude in front of us at the checkout bought R1200 worth of booze, now you might think thats only CDN$200 worth, but booze is about 4-5 times cheaper here in south africa than canada.

We are on the M4 highway northbound, stuck in traffic because of a traffic accident. got passed it now. 3 vehicle pileup. here things work differently. 7 private tow-truck companies, 1 ambulence, and thats 20 odd minutes aftetr the accident. no cops or firetrucks yet. Yeah, things are different here.

We dropped Greg at Damian after that. Next we went to the new Gateway mall. It still has some way to

With the local stores at the Gateway mall I have found a few stores that bear a striking resemblence to those in North America. Mr Price is Army & Navy. Govan Mani is The Sony Store. Checkers is Superstore, right down to the colour scheme. Funny how it goes, but I suppose that is the way life is.

The Wave House is impressive, in the style of mini-water parks, it is a set of surfing wave generators. serious surfing waves (see pictures later).

the whole time we were there we saw nobody that we knew until we were nearly done, when we ran into Jane McIntosh, we finished our shopping and went with her to the house she is presently taking care of for a drink.

put our laundry in the washing machine there and went out for dinner with her to a thai resturant. came back and put the laundry in the dryer. i was sitting in the lounge playing Bejeweled on my handspring and my parents were sitting around the pool chatting to Jane.

around 01h5, we went out to leave to find our ca has been broken into. called the police flying squad, who took 15 min to get to us. they took statements and had a look. the amateur burgler smashed the rear left window cutting himself up badly in the process. he got away with our 35mm Pentax camera and a big box of peppermints. luckily he didn't get into the trunk, although he did try to, as we had a lot of stuff in there. the police stuff took half an hour, then we drove home slowly and went to bed.

Tuesday, 24 december

woke up earlier this morning, due to a very strong wind blowing in the windows, and slamming doors, as well as a pesky Indian Mynah bird that came and sat on my windows and chirped at me quite loudly.

today has been uneventful compared with yesterday, my father and I took the rental car to an autoglass place to get a quote on replacing the window, and then back to the rental place, they fretted over who was going to pay the insuracnce as my father opted to use the insurance from his north american credit card instead of paying extra for their insurance. the quote from the place was for R960, which I think is quite reasonable. they were fretting over that instead of wanting to organize a new car for us. my father set them right for the moment.

after that we went back home, I checked some email and wrote a few replies and then we went out to buy some cold meat and groceries for the next few days since the stores are closed over christmas and boxing day here. we wanted to get proscuttio, so we found a supposed italian deli, but they only had a parma ham that wasn't much like what we wanted. found that wrapping paper is hideously expensive here now, R23 for a 5m roll!

had lunch, now my parents are taking a nap and i'm typing this up on my father's laptop instead of directly into my palm. i'm listening to 1.5gb of mp3 I brought with me on a little hard drive, and catching up on the days of diary writing that I haven't done.

Heading out along the M4 again, to pick my brother from Damian. the speed limit is 100km/h, but evrybody is doing at least 120km/h, us included.

After picking up greg, we went to visit the Jacksons again, as they claimed to have surprise for us. It turned out to be Helen and Megan, having snuck in from Australia, giving even the family this side only a day's notice that they were coming. Helen's eldest daughter was already here to visit granny, and she knew about the surprise visit, but she wasn't divulging the information until she was finally prompted to.

Sat around and had another impromptu braai for dinner, just a little salad, some bread rolls, and lots of red meat. i took some nice photos of reflections and the sky, the sky photos are to show the plethora of stars that we have here.

I drank some of the bottle of Sambuca that I left here 18 months ago, it'll follow me around for a while, and get left in somebodies cupboard again for me to drink from on my next visit to south africa, if I don't finish it while i'm here, which is a possiblitiy since it's only 1/8th now.

Went home and crashed quite soundly again.

Wednesday, 25 December 2002 - Christmas Day

Woke up around 10am, packed stuff to go out. We were having a fancy christmas lunch with the family at the Chancily Hotel. Quite a long drive up there, into the Valley of 1000 Hills area. Very scenic, but a bit of haze in the weather stopped me from getting many nice photos. Apparently when my parents were courting, they used to come up to this place once a month for a sunday lunch.

Lunch was diffentely first class. It was all a buffet deal. First there was a massive table of starters. With the really nice exotic and tasty things. The Thai Chicken Peanut Salad and Salmon Rolls containing Caviar & Capers were excellent. One thing that I was really surprised about was a salad consisting of watermelon and feta cheese, which was also good. For the main there was a carvery, with turkey, gammon and beef. There was also a big selection of vegetable dishes, a vegetarian lasagne, and a white fish casserole. I didn't have any turkey as I'm not fond of that, but I did try all of the other mains, just one plateful in total, as I wanted to keep room for dessert.

The dessert selection dwarfed both the mains and starters put together. Christmas Cake, Christmas Pudding, a variety of fruit salads, several cakes and mousses, various pies, lovely custard, and a selection of ice-cream. I tried perhaps half of the desserts there, and that took me two bowls of dessert. I couldn't eat any more. I've probably put on a bit of weight from that christmas meal alone.

After that nice lunch, we all went back to the Baker's house in Augusta, for the christmas gift exchange and opening. Things change as you get older, you see those younger than you and older than you start to get different amounts of gifts than you perceieved previously. I saw the grandparents get plenty of things, as well as my parents and the other little younguns (Cheryl's two children). It's not that I feel left out or anything, as I did get gifts as well, but it is how your perception of people getting gifts changes.

Most of the people left for various things after that, Cheryl, Brett and their two offspring going to their holiday cottage on Pete's Lake, the Grandparents heading home together, and Judy and Derek heading out camping on Pete's Lake for a mini-honeymoon before going off on the company gift of the honeymoon trip they recieved. Pete's Lake was a favourite vacation spot for Cheryl and Judy to go camping at as they were growing up, starting there with their parents and the caravan, then later on just camping their with their friends and getting quite drunk one vacation ;-).

That left just my immediate family with Jacqui and Neville. Sat, looked at photos on the laptop, and cold meat stuff for dinner.

Thursday, 26 December

Woke up lateish again :-). Picked up Nicollette and went to the house Jane was housesitting. Parked our car inside the property this time since we know what happened last time.

Munched snacky things, watched some cricket on TV, lounged around the swimming pool. Went out to looking for a store that was open to purchase some more foodstuffs to make our braai. Had to go to a few different stores looking for what we needed. Eventully got it all. Came back, cooked lots of meat on the braai, including a leg of lamb :-). Ate lunner (lunch+dinner) around 7pm.

Went to the video store to look for a movie, we wanted to get the new Leon Schuster film, "Mr. Bones", on DVD, but all the DVDs were out so we had to settle for VHS. I think the quality of his work has gone down. This latest one is very slapstick, and not the original incredibly funny stuff he used to do.

Had some nice chocolate ice-cream after that, and went home, dropping Nicollette off on the way.

South Africa doesn't do boxing day sales or anything like that. That stuff picks up in January of the new year instead. Boxing day is usually just used to recover from the effects of Christmas day, eating less food than usual to counteract things.

Friday, 27 December

We are checking out of the timeshare today.

I'm sitting in front of my father's laptop again, catching up on writing diary entries that I neglected over the last little while, and packing my suitcase, and eating the last of the food in the fridge. Mango, cheese, cold meat. We checked out of the apartment, then went to the bank at Musgrave centre for my father to sort out some stuff in the bank. Because of all the stuff in the car, my brother and I remained in the car. I was playing Bejeweled, working on fixing the scoreboard back to my name only, as my brother and mother have been making some inroads into my high scores. I have also been playing timed game more now, and I'm getting reasonably good.

After that, we went via my grandparents for my father to speak to them quickly, and I quickly ducked up to a 2nd hand bookstore, to pick up a few more novels to read during my flight. 3 novels and a giles comic set me back R65.

Went via Escombe after that to see my grand-aunt (my maternal grandmother's elder sister). Didn't stop long, then carried on to Pietermaritzburg to see family there.

Had a nice home cooked meal there, and I've been sitting connected to the Internet. They use the local Telkom deal of R7 for as long as you are connected. Considering that you normally pay by the minute here, it's a good deal here.

The speed isn't bad either so that's good.

(no subject)

I'm sitting in Pietermaritzburg (Pmb) still, local time is 1.07pm. Weather is 29C outside, 27C inside. Partly cloudly. Quite decent weather. Having a braai for lunch today, then heading back to Augusta.