My daughters have now finished University exams and are now ready to be released onto the work force. Hard to believe I have 3 children with university degrees, I am very proud of them all. I’m also glad they are on holiday as things were a bit stressful during exams. Throw in a menopausal woman and it’s a hormonal hot pot with potential to boil over at any moment. Poor Norm.

The girls are in George to visit their Dad, brother and friends so it is very quiet at the moment.

Friday night we went to Papino’s for dinner. We love the steaks there and Norm and I both had the fillet and chips, the veg is always al dente and perfect.

I ordered the mushrooms as a side, one of the things I have always loved about this restaurant. However when they arrived I saw they have changed from the lovely butter fried button mushrooms to black mushrooms. Yech. Not a fan of those, but they were ok just not as good as the old version.

However, the service was shocking. Before the food arrived there was plenty staff wandering about, but once our food was delivered they seemed to vanish. We only received 1 portion of chips, a second order arrived after we had mostly finished. Our plates sat in front of us for ages after we were done, one of my pet peeves.

We both fancied a bit of dessert, but no one came near to offer us any, nor were coffees offered. I could have sworn a restaurant actually wants to make money, but we finally got fed up waiting and had to literally wave our arms wide to get someone’s attention at the bar to ask them to send over a waitress.

This is the 2nd time we have been unimpressed with this venue, but the food is so divine we keep giving up being annoyed and go back. We have been going there longer than we have lived here as we went even when holidaying here from the UK.

We had a lovely evening despite the lack of attention from the staff.

Saturday I awoke hot. I can’t sleep without a fan. I thought that Norm had turned it off, but it was a power cut due to load shedding. I was feeling the wine the night before and I was desperate for a coffee. I would have killed for a gas stove.

Luckily it wasn’t off too long, only 2 hours. I was off to Janine’s Skin Clinic for a facial. This is the spa where I’ve been going for laser hair removal so I’m there most weeks it seems!

This week I went for deep cleansing. My therapist had asked me to not wash my face as she wanted to measure my oil levels. She also took pics of my skin in various lights and all the data is entered into the computer program and it analyses your face and compares you to all other women your age.

First you put your face into this contraption that looks like the machine to test you for glaucoma.

Then there are flashes of bright light and the laptop brings up various pics of your skin. I now know how my face will look when dead. I look like a cadaver. A cadaver with good skin for my age, but a cadaver none the less.

They then check your pores, your wrinkles, your sun damage, pigmentation, all that can be measured is measured.

I didn’t fare too badly, I’m way below most women my age on most of the measures. But my pores looked horrendous. I had much torture of my pores being cleansed, which sounds innocuous until you experience someone else essentially squeezing your zits. Which brings me to the question of what the hell is a woman of my age doing getting zits!? I even had zits in my ears. How does that happen?

Next year I’m going to start going for microdermabrasion just to help my skin a bit more. It all helps!

We just stayed in last evening, ordered pizza and watched a movie. Norm was feeling a bit poorly so we chilled.

Today we went to do some shopping. Norm isn’t any more of a fan of shopping than I am but the days til Christmas are ticking away fast! We headed to Blue Route and I found a pair of jeans that looked decent and were also comfy. I also got a top for work and a casual comfy dress just to slob around in, cool and comfy and perfect for summer to throw over a swimming costume.

However I didn’t get a single Christmas present. Oops. Today was my bestie Retha’s birthday and I did find a lovely lantern for her. She has been making bits and pieces in pewter since our class so I thought it would go nicely with those and would be lovely in their conservatory.

What do you think? I have a lantern fetish as I love candles. Of course we do have a lot of power outages in SA so it also has a function. We popped by for a quick visit on our way home to say happy birthday.

Tonight is another quiet night in, just us and the doggies.

It’s cozy 🙂 I’m happy and blessed.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.