I had such a wonderful weekend last week! Firstly, my darling husband was home. Then on Saturday I saw my friend Annette who has been in my life for about 35 years. We met in George when our sons were best friends and our husbands worked together. We have stayed in touch through various relationships, locations and situations. I know that she will always support me, not matter what happens and it goes both ways. She is the sort of friend who will always be there for me and I for her. We realised that we had not seen each other for about 2 and a half years, but we picked up as if we had just seen each other yesterday. She has only relocated to Cape Town relatively recently, and we both have grandkids and busy lives but we vowed to make more of an effort!

Annette collected me just before 2 and we headed off to The Lookout. She and I have both always liked it there. We had booked so we had a table right at the window. My hair was still wet and I did not comb it. Oops.

Shortly after we settled in we opened up the large sliding window next to us so we were at one with the harbour. Luckily it did not pong and there was a lovely breath of fresh air blowing through. Several people came over and thanked us afterwards, it seems there had been some sort of window standoff before we arrived. We did not know that and we just whipped it open as it was next to our table. Well, by whipped I mean we pulled, pushed, tugged and eventually figured out how to open the bloody thing.

We watched some men messing about on a raft in the harbour ala Huckleberry Finn. We did not know if they were trawling for something (there was a diver with them which you may not notice) or if they were just doing some sort of training exercise for one of the rescue groups in the area. Or neither of those things lol.

I have since had feedback from several NSRI members to advise me they are building a slipway. Apparently it will be a launch from the NSRI building which is next door. (I did not know it was next door, I only know the restaurants and ice cream stalls locations at the harbour.) In this image I stole from their website, you can see the restaurant on the left of the image.

Annette & I had such a lovely lunch and visit. We chatted and chatted and chatted. We talked about so many things. I mentioned that I had been whinging constantly about the heat, meanwhile I am soaking in my pool while sipping iced coffees, then at night having access to running water to cool off in the shower and then to be blessed to sleep under the air conditioning in my bedroom, all while wafting about in an airy caftan.

Meanwhile most of the residents of South Africa have none of those advantages. My friends who live in the township told me they sat outside until midnight every night during the heatwave. It was too hot to go to bed, too hot to close the doors to their shacks, and too unsafe to go to bed without locking everything up.

Annette pointed out that someone else’s experience being worse than mine does not lessen my own right to whinge. She put it much kinder than that but you know what I mean. We can all collectively complain about those levels of heat, regardless of our personal circumstances. Norman always tells me I cannot solve everyone’s problems or take on their angst.

Annette and I both ordered the same meal, the calamari and prawn combo. It was huge, I expected a tiny basket like they had on their old menu. I took half my chips and calamari home for Norm. The prawns were fresh and plump and gorgeous. Me, being me, squirted hot buttery sauce up my arm and onto my new dress while ripping the head off of a fat wee prawn. Mr Prawn got his revenge. I also came very close to dragging my sleeve through my tomato sauce (that is ketchup for you Americans) on several occasions.

Annette popped in to the house when she dropped me off as she had not seen any of the renovations. She parked at the front of the house and I got out, turned around and shut the car door on my ankle. Annette was very upset that she had not parked in a ‘safer’ spot but I pointed out that I was the doofus who shut the door on myself.

Annette was one of the people who saw the house when we first bought it, before anything at all was done. It was lovely seeing her and spending time with her.

After Annette left, Norm and I just relaxed and watched a bit of telly. We had takeaways from the Butcher’s Mermaid. I had 2 portions of the prawns wrapped in bacon starter, so 6 prawns again! These were just as plump and fresh as the ones I had earlier that day at the Lookout.

I decided to shower before bed and I thought I would give my skin a good exfoliation as it felt very dry. I had bought a new scrubber – it literally could scrub pots. I lathered up my scrubber and set to scrubbing my entire body. It felt a bit stingy in places but I carried on. When I got out to dry I noticed that my ankle was very red, swollen and bruised. I had forgotten about the injured ankle and I did not realise I was slightly sunburnt all over my body. I thought I was just feeling dry from the swimming pool, but I was sunburnt. Another Autism problem, we are terrible at knowing WHY we are uncomfortable, we just know we feel bothered! I was so sore after abrading all of my abrasions. I slathered my skin in lotion and put some antiseptic on my ankle and went to bed feeling a bit sorry for my self-inflicted pain.

On Sunday morning Caitlin and Bree popped over for a quick swim. Bree was adorable with Poppy.

Finn was such a nuisance trying to protect Bree that he had to be put in the back garden because he would not stop barking. He means well but he makes too much noise and is too much well, everything, with such a tiny baby. Bree saw Blue and meowed at him from the pool. She ate a bowl of grapes and some slices of sausage and chicken, all while she was being carried around the pool by Mom. She held onto Caitlin for dear life because the pool is a bit cold, to us it is delightful but to a wee bairn it is like an ice bath. Eventually she started making a game out of it – throwing herself against Caitlin and clinging like a little baboon to her mama, shivering and giggling, her tiny brown legs clamped down around Cait’s waist and her arms clasped tightly to her neck while smiling a huge smile. Her smile could melt your heart.

Caitlin had to get Bree back home for her nap and Caitlin was going to meet friends for lunch. After they left I went back to the pool and relaxed in the shady corner and watched the birds. I saw a young male Cape Bulbul fly right down to the limb in front of the pool and cock his head curiously at me.

The Cape Honeysuckle is starting to bloom which is bringing the sunbirds, I saw several red collared sunbirds and several swee waxbills.

At one stage I was sitting on the pool step and Poppy decided to jump in. She jumped down onto the step rather than out into the depth of the pool luckily but still landed snout first and looked terribly surprised about the wetness of the water. She stood frozen for a while, then slowly turned and tentatively tried to leap out via the side of the pool, but she is too small to do so. We now know that she must never be left near the pool without the cover on. After this incident she has stuck to me like glue.

I watered my plants in my Peace Garden and all around the front of the house. This garden sometimes gets forgotten in my watering cycles.

Since I have been spending a lot of time in the pool in the afternoons and evenings after work, I have been listening to a lot of music. I even listened to some playlists other than my usual Liked Songs, so I was exposed to some music I had not heard. I cannot say ‘new’ as the one I adore is not new at all, it was released a few years ago. I love this song, I especially love the little horn section playing in the chorus. Did I ever tell you that I played trumpet in the High School Band for 5 minutes? There are no Band Camp stories because once I heard that only geeks were in the band, I rapidly exited stage left.

I love the little Nirvana tribute, the iterative and varied deaths of Finneas and the overall style of the video. The entire production is amazing. To those who are unaware, Finneas is Billie Eilish’s biological brother. They both have so much talent, his talent is closer to the surface than his sister’s. By that I mean he moves so confidently in his skin. He dances so beautifully in the video for Till Forever Falls Apart. OK now I am just fangirling. Is it still ‘fanGIRL’ if it is a grandma doing it? FanGran? FanGranning.

The weather turned on Monday. The wind was blowing fiercely and the heat had faded away.

The wind died down on Tuesday and it was a lovely and cool 24-26℃ thanks to extensive cloud cover.

This is perfection to me, what I call T-shirt Weather. The pool cover was closed until the next heat wave. My daily food consumption went back to iced coffees and cookies.

I was watching one of my series this week when one of the women talked about dreaming of her best life living by the seaside and wearing only caftans. I love a good caftan and buy them every time I see a new one. I already live by the sea, so does this mean I have reached the pinnacle of fabulosity?

Speaking of fabulosity. I love this funny little dance ditty by MEEK. It makes me want to dance, and by ‘dance’ I mean flapping jerkily about in a lot of tulle while trailing a feather boa.

It threatened to rain all day on Thursday. We had contractors here who were sent from the insurance company. They were replacing the damaged ceiling from the last contractors who were sent by the insurance company. The first team could not get the hot water heater out of the attic space without cutting the access hole. The second team painted our entire ceiling! It is always annoying having strangers roaming about all day but at least it is all resolved now and done properly and it was all covered by the insurance.

On Friday we woke to a fine drizzle of rain which kept on throughout the day but never really bucketed it down for a good drenching. Our grass and plants were still grateful and looked so lovely and green. The sun came out in the late afternoon.

Today is a beautiful clear day and it will be spent in laziness and leisure. I watched the lizards while having my morning coffee. See one on Ganesh’s ear? He had been fighting a bigger lizard earlier. I watched one of them arch up like a cat and sort of skitter sideways. They are fascinating.

Now, I am at my desk writing obviously and Poppy is nearby on the steps in the sun.

Norm has gone back to bed for a nap as he is not feeling 100%.

Tomorrow I am going shopping at one of my fave local shops, Rock Chic, and then to lunch somewhere nearby. I tried to book into the new Nostos but it is full for lunch. I am going out with a friend who is coming to Hout Bay and I am delighted to see her for the first time in many years! We are so much alike in so many ways except she is short, fit, and sporty and I am tall, lazy, and leisurely 😉🤣. But inside, we are the same, Virgo!

I hope you all have a great weekend and week ahead.

Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxox