I mentioned that last weekend was another three day weekend and I just wanted to say that I had such a lovely time. I needed a good break from reality and I felt completely renewed.

A friend had invited me to join her and a friend of hers, but she said I could let her know closer to the time and see how I felt. It made me feel so understood!! Come Friday I did not feel like going out and I let her know so we arranged to meet up on Sunday. It was so lovely to have someone put my needs first and not be upset when I expressed them.

Last Friday marked little Roo’s 4 months on earth. It is hard to believe it has been 4 months but he has more personality than a 4 month old should ever have. He is such a smiley engaging little chap. He rolled over this week.

On Saturday Norm and I woke to abysmal weather & decided to stay in instead of our planned morning. I ordered an online delivery & gave him a nice tip for coming out in the rain. That afternoon our friends R & A came over for snacks and a chat and Norm lit a fire and it was so cosy! I just put out a random assortment of crisps, cheeses, pickles, fig preserves, crackers & some feta and zucchini ready made fritters. We had such a lovely day, relaxing, chatting about whatever came to mind and getting to know each other. Afterwards, in my brain I felt like I had been very loud but I hope I was okay and not off-putting. I can be a lot when I get overly excited. I love entertaining and it is nice to find a couple that we can both chat to. Norm is not very chatty but I never shut up.

I compare my full on advances to a Labrador puppy. If I meet someone whose energy I like, or whom I want to like me, I vibrate at an incredibly intense level and I am jumpy and practically lick their face. The latter is obviously an exaggeration. Norm told them several times I was exaggerating in my stories. I admit it, I am an exaggerator.

I forgot to take any photos of any of us on the day so I took a photo of the bar after they left. I love sitting at this bar in the winter it is perfect for chatting and snacking and still being comfy. The music speaker is there on the bar so we have sound and the fire is just behind us.

That night Norm and I had pizzas and an early night as we were tired.

On Sunday morning after having a coffee in bed, I showered, gave myself a good exfoliation, washed, and conditioned my hair. It can take a while to dry and was still wet when I went out.

Norm dropped me at Nostos and I waited just a few minutes for B to arrive. I had forgotten to tell her they are no longer called Spiro’s. Oops. She found it! We ended up ordering so much food they moved us to a bigger table to accommodate it all.

We each chose 2 dishes we did not want to share and 2 dishes to share. Our waiter was an adorable young man named Toy and we teased him a lot. Well, I did. You cannot have a name like Toy and not be played with.

I chose “Lula’s Prawn Saganaki: Plump prawns simmered in ouzo and savoury tomato relish, finished with feta and village bread”. I loved this dish and it was a perfect ‘dip’ for everything else I ate.

I cannot remember either of our ‘second’ dishes, we just shared everything. We had the Squid Heads: “Crisp and wildly moreish, served with their own Greeklish tartare sauce”.

We also shared the “Halloumi Fistiki: Pistachio and panko crusted halloumi with hot honey and lime glaze”. This was divine!!!!!

We shared the Moussaka Croquettes which were heavenly. “Aubergine, potato and savoury mince, crisped in panko and finished with creamy béchamel and Kefalotiri”. This was beautifully spiced and tasted like Greece popping off in your mouth. Calm down, not in a hot pool boy sort of way.

We ordered both the Loaded Fries and a portion of plain fries and Toy said it was too much so we chose the former and Toy brought the lamb on the side as I do not like lamb. Loaded is normally: “Rustic fries topped with pulled lamb, crispy onion and their Yami sauce”. These were soooo good. I almost ate the whole platter and it was supposed to be B’s dish!

For her ‘own’ dish B had the “Sardeles Fresh sardines, butterflied and simply grilled with ladolemono, tzatziki, dill oil, and crispy fried capers”. She said this was a taste memory and it reminded her of her childhood.

After he had cleared the table Toy walked up and in a matter of fact way said “I assume you want a portion of ‘Anastasia’s Ek Mek” and when we asked what it was he said it was ‘drenched sweet kadaifi pastry layered with semolina custard, fresh whipped pistachio cream, topped with pistachio nuts’ so we said of course! Even though we were stuffed. My daughter Lily always says that I have an extra stomach cavity for dessert because no matter how much I eat I always have room for something sweet. This was somehow both light as an angel’s breath and as rich and smooth as Bezos’ head.

We also had a coffee and we leisurely chatted and it was so relaxing! One thing we talked about was expectations from friendship. I only expect someone to be interested in me and to have a laugh with. Someone I can tell my crazy stories to who can either drag me back to earth or nod and agree with me.

We found that what we have been going through in our personal lives was so parallel it was crazy!! I caught myself mirroring B’s body language but I was not in full on Labrador mode. I think because I already know B and I feel she accepts me as I am.

After we finished B dropped me at home. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside watching the birds and listening to the wind.

On Monday we woke to torrential rain. When Chichi came to work she said that her entire shack was full of water. She said that there were rivers of water everywhere and she could not do anything about it and had to just leave it. I felt so bad for her. When I sit outside at the back I hear the constant flow of water off of the mountain after it rains and Chichi’s house is also on the side of a mountain but without any drainage to direct it.

The rain continued on and off, sun shining on and off, clouds rolling around looking angry, then clear blue skies. Cape Town seemed to be having some issues deciding what she wanted all week.

Kim came to work on Wednesday and the rain was so erratic he just did a bit undercover and left early. He managed to get all of the new plants replanted though. If you can see the generated transcript I had a laugh over I put plants in my ‘old butts’.

Shortly after I filmed this, Finn went to the tulip pot on the end, yanked off the clump of plants as if unveiling a toupee wearing bald man, and knocked over the pot in the process, scattering dirt all over the patio.

I also had a delivery of the bracelet, crystals and geodes I ordered from Gaia Crystals. This is the whole order.

I had ordered a fairy for my garden, but the owner contacted me to say the fairy had sold the day before and it was the only one, so I chose a pink geode to replace her. I also ordered the small Oco Geodes. I love geodes!!! I love holes in stones and crystals, those are the best!!

I also chose some gorgeous large crystals. The creamy one is Spodumene Hiddenite and the multicolour one is beautiful Blue Azurite/ the almost turquoise Chrysocolla/ Malachite from Tsumeb, a town in northern Namibia. I did not check the meanings of the stones before I ordered them, I just liked them. I then discover that Azurite is associated with the third eye chakra, enhancing intuition, intellect, and inner vision. It is associated with Astral travel which regular readers know I feel has been happening to me, but I have no control over it. Daily I ask my Creator to show me how I can tune into my abilities. Chrysocolla is a stone of empowerment, communication, and calming. Again, the same sort of vibe. Malachite is known to create a “cloak of invisibility” around the owner. This is a ‘spell’ I have been sending mentally to someone whom I want to keep away from me, so that made me laugh at my instincts (laughing with them, not at them).

The purple orb at the top is a ‘Galet Lepidolite’. Galet is just a fancy French word for a pebble, but clever social media marketers in Crystal World™ (yes I just literally made that up then trademarked it) call them a ‘palm stone’ or a ‘worry stone’. Lepidolite tunes our mental state to pick up on the fine details of symbolic imagery around us. People “commonly refer to it as the “jumpstart stone” as it wakes us up with a jolt of life-force energy.”

Several of them mention the Throat Chakra and I certainly do not feel any blockages in what I say, in fact I often wish I had more filters in place, so that confuses me. I chose a Chakra balancing bracelet with lava stones as the other beads and I love it.

I also chose a ‘Variety Box’ just for fun. It has some lovely pieces in it! Unfortunately I have no idea what they are. I just like them.

I had also ordered from Takealot and I added a little treat for myself. Namely this adorable little fairy on a snail. I have called them Suzy and Simon.

Norm had an order come in and he had also ordered some little things for my fairy garden, a little cottage made from an apple and a little Tinkerbelle fairy.

Last week I mentioned how I often wake with a Pomeranian on my head? It happened all week because it was cold. It is quite sweet to feel her back to back with me. Yes, I am comfortable enough with how I look to post a pic when I wake up without makeup or combing my hair. I am what I am.

On Friday Norm and I had to go to VFS, the offices of the people who manage visas for the South African government. It was a nightmare from beginning to end. It took us ages to find the parking as there were roadworks everywhere. Eventually we found parking and wandered vaguely about until a security guard asked to help and he directed us up to the offices.

The majority of the visas handled seemed to be for people from other African countries. We arrived in the offices, queued up, and got scanned. My handbag caused the device to beep and everyone jumped back like I was going to whip out an AK47 from my tiny handbag. It was a metal pack of mints. All was safe people.

There were two desks, one had no one in front of it and the other queue was all the way across the room. The desk with no queue was the ‘Premium Service’ where you do not wait, you are escorted to a lounge with a coffee machine, then you are moved to a service area and remain seated to do your application processes. You pay dearly for it and most people cannot afford it. We saw one person use it out of the multiple times we were there and he was on crutches and was military air force personnel.

Then we finally get up to the desk and the woman there looked like she hated the world. She had the most miserable expression on her face and she could barely be bothered to move her mouth from the tight grimace when she spoke. Norman had printed the wrong part of the appointment letter. Even though she could see his information on the computer in front of her she just said. ‘You printed the wrong thing’. Norm replied he printed the letter they sent him. She repeated ‘You printed the wrong thing’ with no additional information. When it became clear she would give no voluntary info to assist or guide us Norm asked, ‘so what do I do now?’. She told us we had to go back out to the mall, head downstairs to the chemist and they would print it for him. So we both went back out of the security area and downstairs to the ground floor to get it printed.

Back to the interminably slow elevator, down to the ground floor, off to the chemist, email them the form, pay to have it printed and then go back up the slow elevator to the third floor, back through security again, back into the queue again, get a smiley helpful guy this time, get given a number then we go to the waiting room and wait.

And wait.

Eventually, we get called to the window only to be told we do not have one of the forms we need. Note that the website was down when we tried multiple times to go through the process. Norm asked what is our alternative. She handed us a huge stack of forms and said we had to go to a police station, have the forms notarised as legitimate and come back. I asked, “so even through I am standing here and you can watch me fill them out and sign them, they are not valid unless we get them notarised?” She said yes. We asked if we could come back to her window when we return and she said no we had to go through the entire entry process again and get a new number.

Why would a business like this not have a notary on premises? That is so ridiculous.

Now you need to note that there is also no bathroom anywhere around. There are families with multiple small children in tow, children in nappies, young people, old people, infirm people. It did not matter, there was no special treatment of any bladders. You held it or you went down to the first floor, paid two rand and used the toilet there. Norm asked about the toilets just outside the offices and he was told they are for staff only.

We left, went back to the car and entered the chaotic road traffic and made it to a police station. It seemed to take Norman 572 years to fill it in. We then got into the queue there, had the forms stamped as legitimate then headed back to the mall again, entered the parking and thought we would be clever and go up to the third floor and avoid that bloody elevator. Nope, the parking at that level was private, by monthly rental only so we turned around and drove back down to the original floor, back to the elevator and back into the security scanner line which was all the way out of the door and into the lobby this time. We got into the line for the desk, got a new number and went back to wait to be called to the window with our new number. We got called up eventually, checked off that we had all of the paperwork, signed the necessary documents and we were told to go and sit down by the ‘bio rooms’. Norm went in quite quickly that time and they did his fingerprints.

We left and on the way out I said I was bursting to wee. Norm went to the chemist to get a 2 rand coin for me and off I went down the steps. I saw a box and I put my coin in the box at which point, Norman, the assistant in the male loo and the assistant in the woman’s loo all started shouting at me. I had put our only 2 rand coin into the men’s loo. The female assistant opened up for me and I managed to do my business.

We headed home and I had to work late to make up the missed time but I made great progress this week on the project and am feeling very positive.

This morning I was up and out to the Skin salon to get my facial and my threading done. I just got back home. I am a bit tired from the dramas yesterday morning so I will have a lazy afternoon. I hope you all have had a great week and that you have a lovely weekend. Tomorrow Caitlin and Bree are popping by for Mother’s Day.

Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxxo