Despite being back at work for a full week now, my life still does not feel fully back to normal.

The flu Norm and I contracted en route to Scotland is still creeping around in our bodies so that could account for my feelings of disorientation, maybe it is feverish delirium. My first day back at work last Monday resulted in my being in the office for about 2 hours until our Project Manager showed up, took a look at my red, drippy nose and watery eyes and heard me hack like a seal and promptly sent me home.

When I got home we had nothing at all to eat in the house. Norm offered to take me out for lunch and so we popped into Barney’s Artisan Deli for a spot of lunch.

You can just see the sea if you crane your neck :).

I had a delicious salad with chicken, cashews and mango and a rich peanuty sauce. The mango made it taste so fresh and light.

Afterwards we went home and I took to my bed. I took it easy all week, we are still in end of year mode waiting on the clients to get back to ramp up our projects so we are at a bit of a loose end in regards to work.

We are also trying to get our diet back on track after my Mom’s visit and the holidays where I gave myself license to eat whatever I fancied and as a result I acquired back 4 of my previously departed kilos. But no biggy – it will come off.

Last weekend we were very busy despite our feelings of lethargy.

Lily and Josh came down for the weekend and I made a giant pot of chicken curry for her as I know she loves my curry. I did cauliflower rice for me Norm and Caitlin which was fine as Lily and Josh had made plans to go out with their pals in town. But we got a yummy curry so that was OK.

On Saturday Caitlin and I had booked to go to the matinee of the Peter Pan and Tinker Bell Ballet being shown at the Artscape.

We were a bit slow on the go and as a result we had to find something quick for lunch and we popped into Osumo in Sea Point. Luckily we found parking right in the front and there were few other patrons.

We both ordered the same filling, the 3-6-9, except Caitlin had it as a wrap and I had it as a salad.

It was delicious and light and I really enjoyed it. Afterwards we shot off to the theatre and grabbed our seats just as the last chime was sounding. We looked around and realised that about 40% of the audience appeared to be children. I mean yes it is Peter Pan, but it is a ballet! I.e., limited dialogue to amuse the wee buggers. There was a child of about 3 sitting next to me and she asked her mother questions at full voice the entire show. ‘What is he doing?’, ‘I am the one over there.’, ‘what is she doing?’, ‘what is she wearing’, ‘why are they over there?’. You name it, she asked it. And Mom had no idea how to use an inside voice either, she spoke to her child as if they were watching CBeebies privately in their bloody lounge. At intermission they trooped off and bought snacks and then they spent the second half alternating between rattling the packet and fighting over who got the next handful of nuts. The only thing which stopped me killing them was that I was wearing a new white top.

And it had to be hand-washed.

However it was a cute production of the story and I enjoyed it (other than the noisy  feral sprog and its birther).

After the ballet we headed home as we were all going out for dinner that night in Constantia. We went to Peddlars On the Bend which is a Cape Town icon, it has been around in some form or another for years. They have recently reformatted their restaurants and offer a variety of menus to choose from. We had wanted to sit outside but it had gotten a bit windy in the late afternoon and so we opted to sit inside at the tapas venue Graciales. I had never been to this restaurant but she said we could order off the pub menu or their tapas menu so we decided to give it a go.

Caitlin’s friend Sam joined us for the evening, as always it was lovely to see her, she fits into our crazy family perfectly. Norm was feeling under the weather still and decided to rather stay at home.

I ordered the Gambas Pil Pil from the tapas menu, a saucy spicy small bowl of prawns for R60.

The sauce was divine and Caitlin finished off the sauce with my bread which I had avoided for the most part. When the waitress tried to take the plate Caitlin snatched it back and kept it to dip her chips into. Yes – it was THAT good.

I had the starter sized pork tacos as my main. These were divine! The pork had the proper crispy taste and flavour of carnitas, the cilantro was plentiful and I can easily say these were some of the best tasting, authentic tacos I have had outside of Mexico.

We didn’t stay out late as poor Norm was home, so we headed home to hang with him.

Sunday Lily and Josh had to head home to George and Cait had plans with friends. Norm and I were off to the lovely Kitima restaurant.

We were going to hear a band play with some of our pals.

We had fabulous seats right in front of the band.

We ordered the sampler platter which was the only food available for the event. It was R275 per couple.

The food was lovely quality but if we had been hungry it would not have sufficed us for dinner, lucky it was just snacks as we had a bowl of left over curry before we headed out. The event finished at a reasonable hour for a school night.

This weekend we had a lazy one. Friday night we stayed home and Norm collected take aways from The Indian Oven. Saturday we had plans to meet up with friends for drinks and we went to Woodcutters Arms in Hout Bay. We met our friends in the pub garden and had a few drinks and then they headed off and we moved inside. I ordered the Jalapeño Cheddar Cigars (V) at R43.00, described as ‘Pastry wrapped cheese and jalapeño, served with tomato & onion chutney’. I love these.

Norm ordered the Scotch Eggs as he loves these things as much as I love poppers.

I ordered the starter Popcorn Chicken at R49.00 for my main, described as ‘popcorn breaded chicken strips, lightly fried with peppadew jam’. They were nice.

Norm had the fish and chips and seemed to enjoy it. After dinner we had a drink and enjoyed the pub vibe we had been missing since Belfast and then we went home to crash. Sunday we just spent the day chilling out. I cooked a lovely banting lasagna and we just had a quiet evening.

That evening Caitlin and I rang my mom on her new video phone which was hilarious. It was like The Blair Witch does a House Tour. Mom alternated between burying the phone in her hair (aiming for her ear) and flashing the camera at the ceiling. Caitlin and I were laughing ourselves silly. Technology makes life so much easier in some regards.

I hope that you have a lovely week – I am just trying to keep up with life!