This week we had news of a very significant arrest by SAPS (The South African Police Service) which I hope makes for a bit of peace in Hout Bay.

Official announcement from the Office of the Station Commander of Hout Bay SAPS: “On Wednesday, 22 of May 2019 at approx. 01:00 Hout Bay SAPS members led by the Station Commander, Lt Col Nebhisi searched several houses in Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu for known suspects. Four suspects aged between 25 and 31 were arrested for violent crimes committed in Hout Bay. The suspects will be linked with other cases, including Robbery, Robbery with a firearm, House Robbery, theft and a case of Firearm control Act. Cellular phones and an imitation firearm were also confiscated. Currently photo identity parades are being conducted to link the suspects with cases that occurred in the last six month that contributed to the crime escalating in Hout Bay. Suspects names cannot be made public at this point as they have not made their plea at court. The suspects will appear in the Wynberg Magistrate court on Friday, 24 of May 2019 on the mentioned charges.”

Two other suspects had already been arrested after a recent chase following a car theft.

The 4 suspects appeared in court on Friday and were also remanded in custody for a bail hearing on 12 June 2019, so in all 6 well known criminals will be behind bars until 12 June for their bail hearings.

This lot of bad boys are assumed to be members of the balaclava wearing gang who have been hitting houses and robbing victims in both Meadows and the Harbour. We celebrated the arrests and signed a petition to not release them on bail as there is an iterative cycle of crime, arrest, bail, crime and on and on it goes. Same criminals, different victims.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was officially sworn in this week and crime and our ineffective criminal justice system should be top of his list of issues choking our country.

I had a strange interaction this week and I was quite taken aback by how a woman spoke to a colleague. I wasn’t involved in the convo, the African man next to me was talking to an Afrikaans woman who stopped by. There was an issue with some conflicting information and this woman was so rude to my friend. He investigated and it turned out her team are responsible for maintaining this info, and we wondered if that was at the root of her defensive behavior. I couldn’t believe it. I wondered was her attitude because she is Afrikaans and he is black? Is it because she is a pay grade above and sees herself as ‘superior’ in a literal way? I then listened to the woman, and I mean reallllly listened. As in read the vibrations of her voice, not her words. I watched her body language and watched her nervous twitching.

Her arrogance was a defense mechanism. A way to deter people, put them on the back foot so they were taken aback and didn’t defend themselves, even when she was wrong. Rather defend than risk attack.

Like a small barking dog. Like our smallest Pomeranian Panda.

I even recognize that behavior in myself.

It just shows it pays to sit back and observe and try and understand the motivation for the behavior of others.

I’m just so volatile and reactive there is no time for observation or reflection until afterwards, in my post game analysis.

Lessons!

I’ve had a great weekend. Norm had a conference in Johannesburg this weekend and so he treated me to a flight to George so that I could visit my oldest and youngest children. Trevor will be 33 years old in a few days which is almost unfathomable to me! How is that possible?

Norm flew up to Johannesburg on Wednesday and so I had to keep myself and the dogs alive until Vanessa and Robyn came to stay with the dogs on the weekend. We have a dog walker as well, Charles is lovely and the dogs adore him.

I had originally booked a half day off but decided that I would take a full day off on Friday. I had to take out the bins and recycling early on Friday morning, feed the dogs their raw diet, get packed and to the chemist to pick up my meds and then I was finally off. I checked in early then went to Mugg and Bean for a quick bite to eat then went to hang out by the gate and play games on my iPad.

They do no announcements at this airport, you have to watch the signs. Luckily my gate didn’t change as they often do, and we eventually boarded a bus and were driven to the little airbus. Down came a little set of stairs and you climbed up into the tiny little cabin. The center of the aisle is very narrow and reasonably tall but the areas under the overheads are very low and due to the narrow nature of the plane you have to sort of leopard crawl or crouch to your seats. An annoying man was in the wrong seat and as a result he held up the entire queue of people trying to board as he said ‘there are plenty of seats just sit somewhere else’ to the woman whose seat he was in when she questioned him. The flight was pretty empty. There are only 3 seats in a row, two on the one side and one on the other side.

I was originally given a bulkhead seat but it had been changed at the last minute and when I got on and saw that I had two large leather seats to myself on the exit row I was happy as I had tons of space.

It’s a beautiful view.

When we landed and we went to exit there was the same man who had been delaying entry now standing in the aisle turning on his phone and faffing about. I finally shouted ‘can we get out please’ and he finally looked up and slowly shuffled off halfway into his seat so we could get off. Some people are oblivious of what is going on around them. I wanted off as I was eager to see my babies!

Lily was waiting on me when I landed in George. I collected my bag and off we went.

We went to pop into Josh’s Mom Jackie and her man Alistair’s gorgeous house for a drink. Jackie was off back to the UK on Saturday so it was such coincidence we were both in George at the same time. It was lovely to see Bronwyn and her fiancée Brendan too. We sat in the garden chatting and then Lily and I went to her house for her to change and for us to meet Trevor.

The sun was setting on the drive from George to Mossel Bay and it was quite beautiful.

We got ready for dinner and Trevor arrived to join us. I hadn’t seen him in over a year!

He is such a handsome and sweet man.

I finally got to meet Toothless, Lily’s mad feral kitten.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx2zeySpIgfJodplc-CuYF02iVhWTgxpcdpgRs0/?igshid=haszjd8fbiqw

For dinner we went to Cafe Gannet in the Mossel Bay Harbour. We did not book and we were happy that we were given a table all on our own which was nice.

Lily had the calamari with both rice and chips. She loved it.

Trevor had the Indian Battered Hake for R140: served with fries, side salad and coconut curry sauce.

I had Asian Chicken: Chicken breast in pomme coat, tossed in spiced soy, honey, ginger & garlic glaze. Served on top of short grain rice. Accompanied with pickled red sesame cabbage. It was R165.

I loved this dish! The chicken was tender and full of flavor I would have this dish again.

My only criticism was that the cabbage was not pickled. It had barely met the vinegar. It was certainly not pickled.

But I still give this dish 4.5 Kitten Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

We were full but still had a sweet craving and so we chose dessert. Lily and I ordered the Chocolate Pudding which comes with your choice of ice cream and we both chose peanut butter.

Trevor ordered the apple crumble which he usually loves. He said it was ‘interesting’. He said ‘good interesting’ when I dug deeper.

Lily then went back home from the restaurant and Trevor and I drove through to the Wilderness where he and Amber live. Their house is in a lovely peaceful setting and faces a nature reserve.

Near their house is a stunning beach.

We had a relaxed evening chatting and watching telly. It was so good to just be with him.

On Saturday Lily came through to pick us up for lunch and we went to Timberlake Farm Village. We were starving and went straight to Zucchini for an early lunch. We sat outside despite the chill. It was pleasant as we were wrapped up warm.

We were in the sun which helped.

We all ordered a panini. Trevor had the Brie and gammon panini and Lily and I had the roast chicken one.

There are loads of little monkeys running around but they were too fast for a pic.

We had a leisurely meal and then we had a wander around the shops in the village. They had all sorts of things, some cute plants, lovely jewelry and charming hand bags. I could have spent a fortune. Lily bought some cute feather earrings.

We then went back to Trevor’s house and relaxed and hung out until that evening when we were going for sundowners at Upstairs at Rosie’s in Sedgefield. They have a wide view of the sea.

We chatted to the owner Rose (who is also Amber’s mom) before the crowds arrived.

Trevor ordered ribs and Lily and I both ordered a fillet steak.

We enjoyed our evening a lot!

After dinner Lily headed back home and Trevor and I went to his house.

We watched Aquaman.

I have to saw that I thought it was really rubbish, poorly acted, had a major overuse of CGI and weird voiceovers. But I watched it because my boy wanted to watch it, and well, because of Jason Momoa. He looked pretty fine.

But the film itself scores a low 2 Kitten Stars ⭐️⭐️

Sunday morning we had a lazy morning, then Lily came to collect us and we headed into Wilderness for brunch. We went to The Blue Olive Restaurant.

We sat outside.

Lily and I ordered the Chicken Burger with avocado, brie cheese, bacon, figs and salad on a large grilled chicken breast.

Trevor ordered the Alfredo pasta but I did not annoy him with photographing it.

There was even a busker singing nearby who wasn’t bad!

After lunch we relaxed a bit then Lily drove me through to the airport. I told her that she could just drop me and head home but as I was so early she insisted on walking me in and waiting for me to go through. I had forgotten that George airport is so tiny and now I know why the kids eye rolled so hard when I wanted to get to the airport so early. We arrived before the check in desk was even open.

We had an iced coffee and hung about chatting until I insisted Lily go home and I then went through security to the gates. I had full bottles of water in my carry on bag when I went through security in Cape Town and George and they cared not at all!

The plane was delayed and they did nothing to update or inform the passengers. The board still showed the original boarding time even though we only started boarding closer to the time when we were actually due to take off. Eventually the plane tootled into view.

The board doesn’t update but people start to drift up to queue. I hate standing in queues so I waited til most people had gone through. I had asked for the same seat I had on the trip over and when I boarded, you guessed it, there was a man sitting in my seat. I stopped, looked pointedly at the seat numbers, looked at my boarding pass and then looked stonily at him. He said ‘I can move’ and I said ‘well you ARE in my seat, sooooo’ but then I realized I didn’t really want the window seat so I said that I would take the aisle seat. Of course I only said it after he unbuckled and shuffled out into the aisle and so he had to turn around and shuffle back in. Oops.

I wish I had suggested he go to a different row as there were plenty of empty seats and he manspread his thighs so wide that I felt like I had three legs. He also kept shoving his elbow across the armrest and into my body. I let him get his arm well into the space and then I leaned hard on it. I definitely heard a bit of a grunt out of him. Good. Silly arrogant arse.

I told you I am not good with strangers.

Anyway.

We land and I collect my bag and head out to the car park. I try to pay for my parking using a credit card but it won’t accept my card. I was holding up the queue and eventually had to use cash. I had exactly R400 and parking was R395. Norm said today when he tried to pay the machine charged him twice!

I was back at work today, a bit dazed and exhausted but I was there! Norm arrived home tonight to much hysteria from the dogs.

That squeaking is from the ball in Navajo’s mouth. He stole it from Pixie because a) it is a great way of expressing excitement, b) he loves to give a gift to new arrivals and c) because he loves to annoy Pixie.

It is lovely going away, but it is just as lovely to come home. We have a quiet week planned recuperating from our excursions.

We are going to Cafe Roux on Saturday to see ‘The Rockerfellas’.

The lead singer lives in our neighborhood so we are going for that reason as the music might be a bit too rocky for us old gits.

I hope you all have a great week. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxo