Take me home...

That fine-looking pad is my Home Sweet Home. Flying back to good ol' Joees tomorrow night for a weekend of family time.

It's my birthday next week. I turn the wrong side of 25 – not particularly something I want to celebrate. Or advertise. Mother has enthusiastically labelled this my 'Birthday Weekend', told all her friends, and mine, and has assembled a birthday schedule for me, including large drinks party on Saturday evening, following a day of various hair (highlights at last!) and beauty (ouch) appointments, birthday shopping (Zara!!) and family meals.

Mother rings on Tuesday night:

Mother: Oh we are just so excited to have you home, Darling. Aren't you excited?
Olive: Reeling.
Mother: It's going to be such fun!
Olive: Mum, I'm rushing out to dinner, can't really talk..
Mother: Have you packed?
Olive: It's Tuesday.
Mother: What do you want to do on Saturday?
Olive:  Sleep in, tan, watch TV.
Mother: Oh. And Sunday?
Olive: Sleep in, tan, watch TV.
Mother: How about we go to the market.
Olive: There's a market in Cape Town.
Mother: Let's go on a walk?
Olive: My legs will be on leave.
Mother: Well we need to go buy drinks and food for your big drinks party.
Olive: Champagne should be fine.
Mother: What about food?
Olive: I don't understand.

Basically mother soon realised that I won't be lifting a finger at home, as usual, and that I intend to sleep, tan, eat and socialise from my deck chair from Saturday through Sunday. And I can't wait!

I shall return refreshed and ready for a week of birthday festivities.

More cheese, please

So I often do restaurant reviews. Food and writing are my passion… as are the free meals. I try organise them at the end of the month – when money's tight and the only thing in my fridge is a bag of frozen peas. Last night I took my friend to a new wine and tapas bar. It was a lovely little spot indeed. So, generally, reviews are free – a complimentary 3-course dinner during which I am treated like royalty, offered every dish on the menu by the Chef himself, and 9 bottles of wine. So naturally I assumed this last night.

Friend and I listen to and ogle handsome young waiter as he recommends wines and brings us various tasters. Thinking they were being so kind offering us so many free glasses we truly seize the moment and knock back a good four or five. Come the time to order food and handsome young waiter recommends various cheese boards, charcuterie boards, breads and spreads. We order them all. As one would do at a review... when you don't need to pay and you want to really get an idea of the food. Three boards of cheeses and meats, bowls of olives and nuts and all the wine later...

Olive: Wow that last dessert wine...
Friend: Amazing! Did you see the price tag on that baby.
Olive: I couldn't look directly at it.
Friend: Ok, so how does this work?
Olive: Well, I usually just say, 'Thank you for a fantastic evening, we're going to head off.' And then we get up and leave.
Friend: Excellent.

Waiter: Did you enjoy your meal?
Olive: We loved it... Thank you so much for everything, the food was delicious and it was such a wonderful evening. We're going to head off...

Friend and I start to gather our things.

Waiter: Ah, it's our pleasure. Was lovely to have you. Let me just grab you the bill.
Olive: BILL?
Waiter: What?
Olive: Er, I said if you will... That would be great.

Waiter leaves.

Shit.

Olive: Should we make a run for it?
Friend: Don't be silly.
Olive: Silly? We ate everything on the menu! I can barely afford the bowl of nuts.

Waiter: Here we are. We look forward to your review! (Walks away)
Friend: Jesus, were they chicken nuggets or gold nuggets?
Olive: The price of the bloody wine is the same as the year it was made in!

We hesitantly hand over our 'savings' cards and strip them of their worth. I felt sick. I'm pretty sure with the amount we paid they could go ahead and extend the balcony, and hire a horse and cart to tranport customers to and from their cars. I don't feel like writing about them anymore. Won't be eating till payday. Well, except for those peas.

Family Jolly Holiday

Mother decides it's time we did a big family holiday over Christmas (we haven't done one since 2009 when we rented a palatial villa in Turkey) with myself, my two brothers, my two sisters and Step Daddy. Since we are based all over the world, we receive a communal email and the replies slowly flood in over the course of 3 days:

Mother: 'Bonjour La Famille. I am going to organise a family holiday, from Christmas till just after New Year. Any ideas?'

Brother 1 (SA born and bred): 'PLETT!'

Brother 2 (from the UK, so any coastal town will do): 'Isn't there somewhere called Hermanus?!'

Sister 1 (loves the mountain): 'As long as it's not far from Cape Town.'

Sister 2 (getting married so doesn't care): No response.

Me (over enthusiastic): 'Mozambique!!! Or how about Mauritius? NEW YORK?'

Step Daddy: 'Who's paying?'


Mother gets back to us a week later.


Mother: 'General consensus seems to be staying in the country. Let's do Hermanus?'

Brother 1 (SA born and bred): 'Are you even allowed in without a Zimmer Frame and a colostomy bag?'

Brother 2 (from the UK, so any coastal town will do): 'Sounds good to me.'

Sister 1 (loves the mountain): 'I don't think I can get leave.'

Sister 2 (getting married so doesn't care): No response.

Me: 'It's social suicide! Can I bring a friend?'

Step Daddy: 'Who's paying?'


Another week later.


Mother: 'I've booked a house in Hermanus'

Brother 1 (SA born and bred): 'An old-age home?'

Brother 2 (from the UK, so any coastal town will do): 'Sounds good to me.'

Sister 1 (loves the mountain): 'I'll try drive through for a day.'

Sister 2 (getting married so doesn't care): No response.

Me: 'It's ok, everyone breathe, I know someone who's going...'


Step Daddy: 'Who's paying?'


All of us (to Step Daddy): 'YOU ARE!'

...

Step Daddy: 'Bring your own meals.'


My family is very difficult to please. But I guess, like all families, we're all absolutely mental and could holiday in a wendy house in Uzbekistan and we'd still have a good laugh as a family. So after Xmas am off to Hermanus. If by any God-given miracle you're going too, pop round for a braai! We're surefire entertainment. Just remember to bring your own meat...

Santa's Workshop

Er, ya. That's me. But contrary to what you are thinking (where can you buy a Lurpak apron too?), I actually did learn something on my 'Festive Cooking' course. I learnt that you shouldn't BBM while watching the cooking demonstration. I also learnt that Woolies now sells Mulled Wine. And that it's very difficult to de-skin a chicken (turkey) after 4 D-cup sized glasses of it.

But Oh My Santa's Sack I was just SO EXCITED to have Mulled Wine again (haven't had it since I left London over two years ago) – it's such a British Christmassy thing. All I needed was a brown bag of roasted chestnuts and some carol singers and my Carnaby Street Christmas Eve would've been complete. After my third refill the guy decided it best to just put the whole jug in front of me.

Four hours later, Vivi&Lola and myself arrive at the dining table (late  – we had a very temperamental chicken (turkey) who refused to let go of its skin... he was obviously pretty uptight when he died), maroon-stained lips, gravy-splashed tops, with a fabulous-looking Christmas main course:

Safe to say it was delicious. We didn't catch salmonella. And we are still awaiting calls requesting our culinary expertise in Christmas Party catering. Maybe we gave out the wrong number....?

Unfortunately we were focusing so hard on finding 'Paul the wine guy' while cooking, we can't for the life of us remember how we made the stuffing. Or what went under the chicken (turkey) skin. And what was that on the cauliflower again?

Dins was followed by scrumptious Christmas puddings of Mince Pies and Christmas Trifle...

Definitely do this course next year if you live in CT! And don't worry, I left a note in the suggestion box (which I made myself out of an old Disprin box) recommending they play Christmas music and hand out compulsory Santa hats on arrival.

A cracker of an evening ;)

AA

Sitting at my desk, very busy and important...

VIBTRATE VIBRATE VIBRATE .... VIBRATE VIBRATE VIBRATE

Me: Hello mother.
Mother: Darling! Are you busy?
Me: Believe it or not these are my working hours...
Mother: Well I've just booked our flights for December. Now get a pen, Darling, and write this down...
Me: Can we chat later? I'm going into a meeting.
Mother: We land on the 16th at 12.00 so maybe you could fetch us from the airport and we can go straight to lunch, or you can take us home to drop our bags and then we go for lunch? Or we can get a taxi and you fetch us from home and then we go to lunch...
Me: I really can't talk about this now... I have a meeting.
Mother: Then on the Saturday I thought you could fetch us at 12 and take us all to your sister's wedding and...
Me: I'm sorry, what???
Mother: You can drive us to the wedding...
Me: There's been some mistake.
Mother: But then we don't have to pay for a taxi. It's a free ride!
Me: There's also free Champagne!... And I intend to take full advantage of that.
Mother: Are you an alcoholic?
Me: If you keep asking me that I soon will be.
Mother: Maybe you should go to an AA meeting.
Me: Maybe you should let me go to my work meeting!

Silence.

Mother: Oh bugger.
Me: What's wrong?

Frantic rustling in the background.

Me: Mum? Are you ok?
Mother: Oh God. It must've been stolen...
Me: What?
Mother: Oh no. Oh dear.
Me: Mum?!?!
Mother: I just had it?... Christ!

Mother becomes more frantic. She even drops, God forbid, a small swear word.

Mother: How could I be so stupid?
Me: WHAT'S HAPPENED!?!

Mother: I've lost my cell phone!

 Me: Mum... You're on it.


Mother: Oh.
Me: Looks like someone else needs to go to AA. Alzheimer's Anonymous!

Ps: I did it again. I went to gym this morning. See what happens when that happens...

"I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes..."

Christmas!!!!

"I don't want a lot for Christmas... There is just one thing I need... I don't care about the presents, underneath the Christmas treeeeee..." 

Er, actually I do. What's Christmas sans gifts? And frankly there isn't just one thing I need. There's two. I want a GHD. And a gold bracelet. Is that too much to ask?!?!?!?!?! Because I've been asking for the same two things since 2006 yet my desperate pleas have remained unnoticed. Or rather, just ignored. Ok given they don't come cheap but the amount of clothing I have been given since 2006 could probably buy me (a very crusty, very small, 19th-hand) private jet. So a GHD and a gold bracelet are certainly doable.

(Oh, and yes, I did watch Love Actually on the weekend.) 

I can really feel it! I can really feel Christmas! Not so much as I do in London (especially since the Santa I grew up with is British, not Afrikaans, and he eats cookies, not biltong), but I really feel it in the streets, in the shopping centre, on the radio... Mumsy and I have already planned the date and time of our traditional mince pie-making session once I'm back in Joburg, and Step Daddy and I are already fighting over who's going to make the Brandy Butter this year; and there's already a family debate over who's coming to Carols by Candelight and which church service we're going to attend on Christmas morning. Christmas is the best and biggest day of the year in my family. And right up until Christmas Eve we are frantically running around like elves on E to ensure everything is story-book perfect. Which it always is. Bar the lack of snow in SA and the fact that we can't put a wreath on the front door without it being stolen. 

Was contemplating changing my ringtone to 'Rocking around the Christmas Tree', but decided it's about a month too early. And that I wouldn't mind still having friends by New Year's Eve or I'll be celebrating solo.

  

To keep in the spirit of things, Vivi&Lola and I are going to a 'Festive Cooking' course on Wednesday at the SA Chef's Academy!! Am so bloody ecstatic I asked Mum to send down my Christmas Tree earrings and Santa hat but realised it's perhaps a little too over-enthusiastic since the course will probaly primarily consist of a bunch of newlyweds, gay couples and the odd geriatric who really want to learn. We're just there to get pissed and be merry. Am ready to whip up a gourmet Festive Feast while slogging back free Christmas wines and whistling 'Frosty the Snowman'.

It is my birthday first. Maybe I should be focusing a little more on those celebrations!

Decided on weekend to finally clear up erupting skin mass breakout once and for all, so took out a loan and booked a Dermalogica facial – so pricey I was half expecting to be carried to the room on a red cushion and placed in a rose-petal bath while topless bronzed men worked on my face simultaneously performing hand and foot massages and feeding me Champagne through a 19-carot gold straw. This was not so... Five minutes in and my overly sensitive skin (raw from excessive use of prescription zit-eradicating gels) felt like it was had been scraped off by sandpaper then plunged into a pool of citric acid. I lay squealing in pain while flustered facialist tried desperately to clean off whatever she had put on. Everything hurt. Eventually she gave up and I emerged from said treatment room resembling a burn victim – swollen, red, blotchy and puffy, too sore to even smile. My tears stung. Everything stung. And I spent the day lying on a couch behind closed doors spraying my face with a 'soothing spray' at regular intervals, sipping bubbly through a straw. So much for that idea... 

Have finally accepted Dermo's request to put me on antibiotics. Maybe I'll go back to school for a few weeks too. At least I'll fit in. 

'The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humour'

Wooooo. I have knees again! And can finally walk around without looking like I was dropped on my head as a child. And I didn't even realise they were better until I was unconsciously rocking out (as I do) on the elliptical trainer to Christmas tunes (too early?) at full speed ahead, backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down... then pumping iron, and I came out sweating and pain-free! And – for the first time in 3 months – I felt like I'd actually had a proper workout, rather than a stroll round my living room. I sure showed my knees a thing or two.

Mind you, after two excruciatingly painful injections... if they weren't feeling better by now someone would've had to answer to... my dad (I generally try and avoid confrontation) ---> Dad is furious after funding my knees, and he shouted down the phone last week: 'Why not just get a new bloody pair. It'll probably cost the same!' Poor physio and surgeon got the brunt of my frustration. My liver got the rest. As a result, have had healthy week of early nights, no alcohol, lots of exercise, lots of being lost in thought (aka being antisocial), and lots of fish and vegetables – who knew that the cost of a microscopic slither of salmon (about enough to satisfy a small fruitbat) was directly proportional to my monthly electricity bill. Needless to say I now eat with the lights off.


Weekend awaits... As done my couch and Season 4 of Sex and the City (by now you must've realised that I'm having an affair with the SATC boxset). Am saving and keeping healthy. Plus I have the energy levels of a brussel sprout. I'm that boring person this weekend, with takeaway boxes strewn round the house, eyes glued to the tele, hanging on to Carrie Bradshaw's every last word...

A few SATC quotes to take into the weekend with you:

“I'm thinking balls are to men what purses are to women. It's just a little bag, but we feel naked in public without it. ”

“After a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh."

“I like my money where I can see it, hanging in my closet.”

“Do any of you have a completely unremarkable friend or maybe a houseplant I could go to dinner with on Saturday night?”

“The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don’t. But, in the end, they’re the people you always come home to. Sometimes it’s the family you’re born into and sometimes it’s the one you make for yourself.”

“Maybe you’re only alloted a certain amount of tears per man; and I’ve used mine up.”

Charlotte: “How are you gonna swallow all those?” [referring to Samantha’s handful of pills]
Samantha: “Have we met?”

"Will you please not use the f-word in Vera Wang?"

Miranda: "After years of odd men, God is throwing me a bone." 

Carrie: "And possibly a boner as well."