Monday morning thoughts

That was a pretty good weekend. Some highlights:

• Watching Defending the Caveman at the Pieter Toerien Theatre - hilarious! TSC and I are still laughing about it.
  
• Supper club breakfast (oxymoron, I know. But we decided to do something different this month) at my favourite breakfast restaurant in Jozi - Grand Central Cafe.
• Watching ancient movies in front of the fireplace with a hot, home-cooked meal and a glass of wine.
• Relaxed lunch with my folks at Cafe Blue with good food and conversation.

And this morning I remembered that when we helped my gran clear out some stuff last year, she gave me a pair of never-worn slippers with microwaveable heat-bag inserts. So I'm sitting here with warm feet, possibly for the first time this winter. This makes me very happy. And a little bit sleepy.

Lots to do though! Off I go.

The (not long enough) long weekend

I didn't get to craft, but I did get to garden.

Oh my goodness, I did enough gardening to leave my fingernails stuffed and my legs scratched for weeks to come.

It was great!

I pruned all the roses (about 15 bushes in total) and sealed them. Then I spent a couple of hours hacking at the giant St. Johns Wart in the back garden that obviously hasn't been pruned in years until it was reduced from a giant ball (my gardener tries to cut it into a lollipop shape despite my pleas) to a few piddly sticks that will now hopefully have room and sunshine to grow into a more natural shape. After that I trimmed the African Potato Bush plants and then hit a couple of nurseries to pick up some annuals for instant colour to draw the eye away from the pruned roses, as well as some organic fertilizer and snail bait, veggie seedlings and a new pair of fancy gardening gloves. I did some planting yesterday, but I have some more to do whenever I get a chance this week.

It was so good to be outside with the green things!

Aside from blitzing the garden and my fingers, we finally spent a bit of the money we made through hosting world cup guests. We bought tiles.

It feels very grown up and I'm sure it will bore everyone else to tears, but we spent a few hours in tile shops and found one at a great price that will be brilliant outside.

Yes, outside. We have rising damp on the side of the house where our braai area is, so we've decided to rip up the revolting old paving, fix the waterproofing issues and tile the area, as well as re-tiling our veranda while we're at it.

I'll take some before and after shots as we go to post here and maybe that will be more interesting that me writing about it ;-)

On Sat night we went for dinner with my folks at a place called Moo Moo in Brooklyn, Pretoria. It was divine. The menus are newspapers with a cow theme, so among the starters, mains, "whine" list and dessert menu are cow comics, cow jokes, beef facts and all sorts of interesting tidbits. The food was delicious, the service very good and the dessert (chocolate volcano) superb. The atmosphere was nice too, although dim lights meant that bits of the menu (black background with white print) were hard to read.

Sunday night was a potjie at our place with a few people we've met recently. It was good fun to get to know some new people, and TSC's potjie was as fabulous as ever. I made chocolate mud cake for dessert (thanks, Shayne - this recipe's still a hit) and we all enjoyed some lovely Inkspot red wine. Yum!

All in all, a lovely (if chaotic) weekend. Hope yours was too.

Assorted catch-up again

I'm feeling a bit out of it today. The headache has now been with me constantly for more than a month. I've stopped noticing it so much, except when it's particularly bad, which it was this weekend. The muscle relaxants my doc gave me helped diddly squat (ie. not at all) and so yesterday I finally got me some sleeping pills. I took one last night and although it didn't seem to help, I'm now feeling zonked. Delayed reaction?

My mom also told me to try sleeping with a mouthguard, which apparently stops you clenching your teeth in your sleep, which in turn stops stressing your neck muscles that cause the tension headache.

I duly went and purchased one, which TSC finds hilarious because I think mouthguards are the most unattractive thing in the world. It took me an hour and a half to fall asleep with that thing in my mouth. And then I woke up with it hurting me at about 2am, so I took it off. I possibly should have been less of a cheapskate and bought one of the more expensive options that looked a bit softer, but I'll give it another go tonight and see if I get used to the piece of plastic in my face. Ugh.

Other than beign dazed and confused, I'm doing fine. I think. Had a great weekend - we had a bunch of people over for a potjie and red wine tasting on Sat, which went really well. We asked everyone to bring two bottles of the same red wine. We opened the first bottle of each (after I'd wrapped them in masking tape and written just a number on each so people couldn't see the labels) and used those for a blind tasting. We then voted for our favourite number before unveling the wines. The winning wine, which we all thought was a nice aged shiraz, ended up being a cheap but glorious wine that none of us had ever heard of before (Gôiya). The wine TSC and I had picked came second (a blend called Cederburger).

We then ate lunch (TSC's DIVINE lamb potjie - yum!) and afterwards played the crazy-Santa gift-swap game with the second bottle of each wine so that each person went home with a different bottle to the one they'd bought. It was so much fun and we'll definitely do it again.

Mothers' Day was also awesome, despite a touch Grand Prix for my team (Lewis Hamilton's tyre delaminated on the second-last lap). We went to Capeesh with the parentals and it was a lovely time (although my pasta wasn't great the chocolate mousse cake made up for everything). My mom, who has the flu, seemed to ilke her presents, which is good seeing I chose the one from TSC and I and then told my dad and brother what to get her when they each phoned me from the mall on Saturday ;-)

Off for coffee with Damaria now. Chat to y'all tomorrow.

Happy 21st birthday, Justin

It's my brother's birthday today. We had his party on Saturday night at Prosopa and it was lovely. The restaurant is beautiful. We were in a curtained off area and the service was good, the food divine. Greek salad, spanakopita, fried brinjal, keftedes and dips were served as starters. I picked the prawn curry as a main and the Lindt chocolate mousse for dessert. Divine! Hats off to my folks for organising the event and to my mom no her speech that was just the right balance between touching and embarrassing.

In honour of my bro on his birthday, here are 10 things I love about him:

• He gives amazing hugs.
• He's incredibly loyal.
• He shares my twisted sense of humour.
• Although we fight like cat and dog, I know that if someone else were to threaten me, he'd have my back.
• He's a very good teacher (he has given me a squash lesson or two and has helped TSC with maths).
• He believes in me (despite not having read much of my work, he tells me I'm a good writer).
• He lets me call him Schmee.
• If I ask him to, he will generally give me a hand with whatever I need - whether it's carrying something heavy or procuring the latest series of How I Met Your Mother.
• Although he's allergic to cats, he loves them and he will get down on the floor to play with my Marble and Sapphire. It's cute.
• He makes an effort to get along with TSC and I love to listen to them chatting about cars or engineering together.

Of soundtracks, suppers and stress

This weekend was like the damn interval training programme on the step machine - up and down, up and down.

Friday we tried to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs at Fourways Mall. Don't ask me why. It seemed like a pretty boring movie, made infinitely worse by the fact that the soundtrack was warped. The music constantly sounded like a stretched cassette tape. Not cool. We complained four times and when they still hadn't fixed it, had a little discussion with the manager. He tried to tell me it was supposed to sound like that. Whatever, dude. We're not stupid. I think he reckoned if it had been that noticeable, other people would have complained too. But most of the other people in the theatre were about 10 years old ;-) Eventually we got vouchers from him and headed home to watch a dvd instead.

I spent Saturday in my garden, happily planting and trimming. The veggie garden is finally beginning to look like the jungle I want it to be. I'm not one for things planted in neat rows. I like Jane's Jungle Style of gardening much more.

Went to Papachino's at Crowthorne for supper with TSC and my folks on Saturday evening. We had such a nice time! Good wine, great food and enjoyable company. It was probably the highlight of my weekend.

Yesterday was the ushering team thank you function I'd organised. I had specifically asked everyone to be there by 1.30 latest, as the show starts at 2pm sharp and you need time beforehand to order drinks, have your picnic lunch and socialise.

At 1.30, there were two people there aside from TSC and I. In the end, three people still hadn't arrived when the show started and came in during the first half. Two people didn't pitch at all.

The show was excellent and I sang my heart out enjoying all the musical hits I love so much, but I must admit my day was seriously dampened by the stress. I know it's silly, but I felt downright panicky when it was 1.45pm and there were only six of us out of 23 people. Anyway, at least that's done now.

I also had a row (such a quaint word) with TSC about him taking up more responsibility. We supposedly lead the ushering team together but I actually do everything on my own. I think he got my point, so we'll see how that goes from now on. Poor man - he looked so bewildered when I got all upset about it. I think sometimes we women forget that men don't catch our subtle hints - we have to actually spell out what the problem is.

In other news, I've decided that in order to make a little Christmas money, I'm going to have an open house to sell some of the jewellery I make (and various other crafted stuff) on 5 December at my place from 9am until 1pm. So if you are interested in selling your wares or in coming along to do some Christmas shopping, please drop me a mail at doodlesofajourno at gmail dot com.

Have a good week, everyone.

Updated, 11.20: THIS is the best post I've read in ages.

Happees

• It's Friday!



• I have the Jason Mraz album playing instead of Roo's usual blaring pop radio station.



• Went to a great new restaurant last night, Arzoo, serving "Incredible Punjabi Cuisine". They unfortunately don't have a website, but if you're keen to try their AMAZING chicken tikka marsala or lamb gosht badami, they're in the Bryan Park Shopping Centre and their telephone number is (011) 706 9345/6. The food is great, the lighting is... unusually and amusingly kitsch and the service is by far the best I've had in years. New favourite!



• I have finally decided what I'm going to buy with my Kalahari voucher from Angel and Glug. Thanks again, guys!



• I won tickets to Taste of Joburg from the competition on Glad to Be a Girl. How awesome?! I am so excited that I could jump up and down at my desk. Instead I'll just bounce on the exercise ball I sit on at my desk like a five-year old on a sugar high. Wheeeeeeee!



• Some of my favourite bloggers have been saying nice things about me and giving me awesome awards. Yay!

I got this pretty one from Angel and Louisa...

This one from Helen, for all the *ahem* honest scrap on this here blog thing...

And this specially-made one from Paula...

Thanks, guys! You really boosted my spirits!

I know I'm supposed to pass these all on, but I can't keep track of who's got them already, so I'm just going to dish out Paula's awesome "blog I read with my morning coffee" award to: Phillygirl (I know you don't do awards, but yours is one of the blogs I read first every morning), Slyde (I have a feeling you're also not an awards-fan, but tough) and Louisa (I smile every time I see your blog in bold in my reader).

I'm also supposed to write 10 random things about me, but I write random things every day (almost) here, so I'm going to skip that bit and just say...

Have a rad, fab, mad *insert other three-letter adjectives here* weekend, everyone!

Good times

I can't believe it's Monday again. It's a horrible way to spend a seventh of one's life ;-)

I'm actually in a fairly good mood today, despite it being Monday, probably because I feel like I eeked out every bit of weekend goodness.

Friday afternoon, I got home from work and picked the peas that were weighing down the plants in the veggie patch. I had enough to give five bags away. Pretty impressive. I also picked some spinach, cherry tomatoes and cabbage for my folks. I can't send them on holiday to Zanzibar like they did for us, but I can keep their fridge well stocked with green things!

TSC arrived home shortly afterwards and we got ready for supper at Die Boomhuisie (translated as the little treehouse) in Krugersdorp with Phillygirl, Varen, Louisa, Yvette and her hubby and little baby Sienna. I wish their website was working so I could show you some pics and the menu!

We had such a good time. What a hilarious, lovely bunch of people and what an awesome place - the decor, food and service were all great. I highly recommend the lemon condensed milk cake. Mmmm...

On Saturday we were up early to get through to Pretoria. I dropped TSC off at my folks place, dropped our year-end financial documents at our accountant and then met one of my best friends, Toni, at the Irene Village Market.

When we got home, I got busy in the garden while TSC worked on varsity stuff, planting some wild irises I got from my mom and digging some straw, compost and bone meal into the one patch where the soil is like clay. Good workout, I must say.

We headed to our great friends Brett and Kim for Brett's birthday braai. Such legends. We couldn't stay long because TSC had so much work, but it was good to catch up a bit and meet some new people.

On Sun, TSC was up early again and on the PC. I slept in for a bit and then we went to Lifestyle Garden Centre for the first time and had brunch at Primi Life. What a different experience to the pathetic service at Primi Extreme! The coffee was brilliant, the service and food were really good and we enjoyed sitting in a patch of sunlight enjoying the Sunday spring weather.

We then headed to the nursery where I stocked up on some new plants - vygies, gazanias, osteospurmums, purple alyssum and some more pansies. Big thanks to Phillygirl for my birthday voucher for Lifestyle Garden Centre, which introduced me to one of my new favourite places in Joburg!

We got home just in time for the F1 race at Monza, which was interesting from start to finish, despite the fact that my team (McLaren) didn't do very well. Kovalainen disappointed once again, finishing sixth. He just doesn't have the winning spirit. And Hamilton may have too much of it - he pushed so hard that he dropped it on the last lap and crashed out of the race, losing the six points he would have won from third place.

Sutil of the Force India team moved up into fourth place. I was chuffed for him. For those of you (most of you) who don't watch, Force India has always been one of the least likely teams to be anywhere near the front, so the fact that they had a driver on the podium in the last race (who is now driving for Ferrari) and in the top half of the points-paying positions this week (drivers up to eighth place scores points) is like... The Pumas beating the Blue Bulls, Sharks and Lions (in other words, a Disney-movie type of "underdog wins against all odds" situation).

After the Grand Prix, I planted all my new flowers, trimmed, dug and generally tidied up the garden (which took a couple of hours and gave me blisters on my hands to match those on my feet). Tired but happy, I cleaned up and TSC and I headed off to church to end the weekend.

How was your weekend?

Random bits again

I have no logical stream of thought today (do I ever?), so here's bits of what's going on...

We finished off TSC's birthday with supper at Coco Bongo at Monte Casino. Having browsed around on all of Phillygirl's restaurant posts, I was planning on taking him to Soulsa or The Attic, but both are closed on Mondays.

I'm glad we ended up at Coco Bongo though. It was the best choice for my meat-loving man. He's long been raving about the "perfect steak" that he had nearly three years ago on our honeymoon and how no steak has ever matched up to it. Until now.

I had a bite, and I must admit (despite the fact that I don't ever order steak out - too many other more interesting things on the menu)... It was really good. So were my prawns (the Monday and Tuesday night 1kg of prawns for R100 special). The service was also really good, so despite the fact that it's inside Monte Casino (not my favourite place with its OTT Tuscan theme and permanent twilight), we will definitely go back for a second visit.

In other catch-up news, the weekend was full of highs and lows. Lows first...

• Had to trek through to Pretoria on Friday in horrible traffic to sign-off our company's year-end financials. When TSC and I arrived at the office, it was deserted. They forgot to tell us they'd moved, so we had to get back in the car, head back into traffic and trek through to the other side of town. Grrr!
• Fell down a full flight of stairs at Menlyn shopping centre on Saturday. My useless shoes that have no grip let me down. The whole right side of my body is a mess. I pulled a muscle in my back, hurt my elbow pretty badly (still sore even to the lightest touch), skinned my ankle and knee and ensured that my whole hip area is now a painful and violent dark blue in colour. The worst bit? I sleep on my right side, so I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Sat.

The good bits win through though:

• Friday night we had a birthday supper for TSC with my family at a new restuarant in Brooklyn, Pretoria. Kream is very swish... It has gorgeous decor and an interesting menu featuring things like Avocado Crayfish or Bone Marrow as starters and Duck Confit or Sirloin Aubergine as mains. I must say that my duck was way too salty, but everyone else's food seemed good and the service was superb. The best things, however, are the desserts. The (dark) chocolate mousse is a treat and the Blondies & Brownies are absolutely excellent. I had worried that the place would be a bit pretentious, but we had a great time. Thumbs up for Kream.
• Getting seriously stuck into our home office. I bought us a beautiful secondhand corner desk that we can both work at together (so we don't have to fight for legroom anymore). On Saturday we moved it in and sorted through the various craft, work, varsity, admin and other crap that had made the place almost impossible to get into. It looks like a new room! Now if I can just get TSC to pack away his neatly sorted piles of paper into some sort of filing system, I can take photos to show you.

Must go follow up on useless clients now. Have a great afternoon, all.

More sunburn and some yummy Mythos

If my sunburn on Saturday wasn't bad enough, I decided to work in the garden in my bikini on Sunday morning. Seeing it was quite early and it looked like it was going to rain, I reckoned I wouldn't need sunblock. See, I figured I'd only be busy for about half an hour before rain set in.

Instead, the sun came up, I got so involved in planting a new bed that I forgot the time and I ended up with a luminous pink back and my usual pale white front. I actually took a picture, but decided for your sake not to post it here.

It didn't hurt until Sunday evening, when it started to be all hot and prickly. But now it hurts like hell on my one shoulder (the other one mysteriously remains pristine white) and I struggled to sleep last night, especially seeing TSC kept creeping onto my side of the bed and (unintentionally) elbowing me in my sunburn.

If that wasn't bad enough, my cats decided that they'd investigate my bathroom cupboard and ended up knocking my make-up foundation off the counter so that it shattered on the floor, waking us up with a huge fright.

Cleaning up base is no fun. Especially early in the morning when you should be asleep.

Needless to say, I'm a bit bleary-eyed this morning. And I'm running out of clothes that don't chafe my sunburn.

Sunday afternoon I ended up wearing a sleeveless poloneck shirt so that my mother wouldn't yell at me for getting burnt. Normally I practically bath in sunblock before I go out thanks to her training.

It was her birthday and we went to a restaurant called Mythos in Bedfordview. There's actually one in Design Quarter in Fourways, which is much closer, but my mom had been to the Bedfordview one and loved it, so she booked there for her birthday lunch.

As the name suggests, it's a Greek restaurant. The decor is gorgeous - walls lined with stacked white pebbles and tables with holes in the centre that had (very pretty) fake olive trees "growing" out of them. It looks much better than I'm making it sound, I promise.

My mom's best friend Anne shared a meze platter for two with me. Kleftethes (Greek meatballs), lamb and chicken souvlaki (kebabs), prawns, grilled calamari, yiro (thin-sliced beef strips), tzatziki (cucumber and yoghurt dip), taramosalata (fish roe dip) and pita bread. Yum! So good.

For dessert I had the grilled halva topped with peach, which was sublime. When our budget is less stretched, TSC and I will have to try the one that's nearer to us and see if it's as good. That's something to look forward to ;-)

The lunch went well and my mom liked her prezzies. Now... to figure out the next gift for the anniversary...

Sushi and sunburn

What a cool weekend it was. Well, not literally. We finally had some sun, and of course I wasn't prepared for it and toasted my fair Irish skin to an alarming shade of pink.

But let me backtrack to the beginning of the weekend... Friday evening, TSC and I decided to try the Japanese restaurant down the road from us called Tsuyu for an early supper. It had been highly recommended to us and seeing we were both really hungry, we liked the fact that it was so close. At 6.30pm it was already packed, and we could only get a table on the sidewalk, which wasn't ideal, but we decided we'd put up with the nosy shoppers checking out our food as they passed for the sake of some good sushi.

They have some interesting things on the menu - proper Japanse dishes, not just the tame version South Africans are used to. TSC decided he'd like a hot meal and went for a rice dish topped with pork and egg. I thought it was really good, except that it arrived 30 minutes before my sushi did!

By the time my food arrived, TSC had tired of trying to be polite and had stopped waiting for me. He'd long polished off his rapidly-cooling food when my sushi eventually appeared. And it was the wrong order, so back it went.

When the correct order eventually made it to the table, I was so hungry it probably would've tasted like heaven-sent manna even if it had been old and soggy. But that said, it wasn't. My tuna nigiri was fresh and super-yummy. The crab California rolls were average, but my deep-fried-chicken California rolls (apprently for those who want to try sushi without the "eww" factor of raw fish) were a delicious surprise.

But all in all, I think we'll stick to the other Pinslopes sushi restaurant. I can't remember it's name, but it's next to Billy the BUM's and it's the best sushi I've had in Joburg. Plus, Tuesdays are buy two plates get one free. Yum!

Saturday was a spontaneous day - we had promised to entertain our British friend Ephraim from church, who has been in SA since Nov 08 and has yet to see any of the sights. He doesn't have transport and hadn't told us that he had been spending weekends and evenings sitting home alone. So we took him to the Joburg Zoo along with our friends A and R. Off we went, with a picnic packed for afterwards.

We had a cool time walking around, eating snow cones and trying to spot the animals (most of which were hiding in dark corners from the hot noon sun). But I must say, the zoo was way cooler when I was a kid. We had a picnic at zoo lake afterwards and I realised I'd once agian managed to get a weird-shaped sunburn. It looks like someone drew a semi-circle on my shoulder in sunblock, coz I'm burnt everywhere but there. Bizarre!

Then it was off to my boss's birthday drinks with Ephraim (poor boy) in tow, where we were accosted by several hammered people who each tried to convince us to do Jager-bombs with them. No thanks - hate Red Bull, hate Jagermeister. Not going to happen!

And then we went to see Rock n Roller, Guy Ritchie's latest film. It's not up to the standards of Snatch (one of my favourite movies ever). But since divorcing Madonna, it does seem like Ritchie is back on track and this flick way infinitely better than Revolver.

Anyone else seen it? It so, I'd love to hear what you thought. And your favourite quote form the film. Mine must be Johnny Quid: "Don't worry. He can't defend himself - he's got no head."

Still giggling over that one.

Restaurant review and random question

There are some weeks where I seem stuck for blog material and there are other weeks where I don't have enough days for all the posts I have in my head. This has been one of the latter. Today I decided to write about something that is old news, but I feel like getting it out of my head and onto the screen...

I went to a restaurant with my folks and TSC last weekend (Friday evening, to be exact) at the Irene Village Mall in Pretoria called Ala Turka that serves Turkish, Lebanese and Greek food. The place is beautifully decorated and even has a little shop inside that sells belly dancing clothing and so on.

We had tried to find the restaurant's details to make a booking beforehand, but seeing they had recently relocated to the centre from somewhere else, they weren't listed in the phone book. We decided to pitch up and try our luck anyway, and they told us they had a space for us upstairs. What they didn't tell us is that there is a live belly dancer on Friday and Saturday evenings and a R20 charge per person surcharge to cover this entertainment.

While the belly dancer was BRILLIANT (at one point she dances with a plate full of candles balanced on her head), I think we should have been told about the extra cost. Furthermore, every time she came out to dance, the music would be turned up to an almost unbearable level so that we couldn't hear each other across the table, even if we were shouting (it was quite embarrassing when the music went off and I was still busy shouting).

The room was also so dark that we had to take turns taking a menu to the bar area to try to read it under the light and make a decision. We eventually had our order taken. I chose the Sheikh Al Mihshi - a Lebanese dish. It's an oven-baked aubergine stuffed with lamb meat, herbs and spices, cooked in a tomato-based sauce, served with yoghurt and pilaf. TSC opted for the fillet with the house "special sauce". My mom had a meze platter and my dad ordered the lamb kofte.

Over an hour later, our food arrived. By this time, hunger pangs and loud LOUD music had made everyone rather grumpy. Thankfully, the food was amazing! My aubergine dish was like a little slice of heaven on a plate and TSC's fillet melted in my mouth. I didn't taste my folks' food, but I believe it was also very good.

So I think I'd go back to Ala Turka. But at lunchtime. When there's daylight. And no pumping music.

Now onto my random question... Any ideas what I can get my parents for their 30th wedding anniversary? I don't have that much money to spend and they have pretty much everything anyway. I've done photo collages, scrapbook albums, personalised calendars, theatre tickets and family photos before and I am stumped! The big day is 24 Feb, but they'll be away in Zanzibar for the week, so I've got a bit of time. Suggestions would be welcome.

Schmodels...

So yesterday was my dad's bday. And one of my bestest friend's too.

We went out for supper to Blueberry Grill in Kyalami. Since hearing the name I've had that song Blueberry Hill (is it by Chuck Berry?!) in my head. My folks arrived late, after being given faulty directions by someone who works there, so they were a little peeved to start with. Then we sat down at our table in the non-smoking section. The room was empty and freezing cold. They had those patio gas heaters, but none of the were on, so we asked them to turn them on. No gas, apprently.

They said they'd move us to a warmer area, which turned out to be the passageway between the non-smoking and smoking scetions, directly outside of the toilets. My dad promptly threw his toys out the cot and called the manager (and he says I get my attitude from my mother?!).

Suddenly, they managed to produce a full gas bottle out of nowhere, so we moved back to our original table. Once we were warmer, things were far more pleasant. The food was actually really good. I had sushi (yum!) and hubby had oxtail (double yum). And we got dessert on the house (although my creme brulee was not particularly fabulous. They do mych better creme brulee at The Brasserie* in Irene Village Mall. But then again, all of the Willoworld restaurants are cool).

And our waitor, Eugene, really did try hard. He joked with us and made sure everyone was happy. So, despite bad beginnings, it ended up being a good evening.

Here, then, is a funny for today: