I have a confession to make…
Eight days have passed since my last Blog. While far fewer people seem to be prepared to actually click on the full story in Facebook which has been a little disappointing, it is certainly not the reason for my tardiness.
If you have been following me for any length of time, you will know that I don’t have a TV that I watch each day. But that certainly doesn’t mean that I am not interested in following all sorts of documentaries, the odd movie or true crime story on my I Pad through YouTube!
So imagine my surprise when my friend told me about a series on Netflix called Lucifer, and suggested I give it a go.
It wasn’t something that I would ever have looked at without her prompting. I mean, a series involving the Devil, God, Demons and other celestial beings, is so far out of my realm as it could be.
But, to please her, I decided to just watch one episode. Well, this is the reason for my giving the Blog a break. I have spent an awful lot of time watching 5 Seasons of this program – some seasons having 23 episodes! I guess you can say I have really enjoyed it.
Mind you, I have also been rather busy…
Our Tuesday Tenpin get togethers have continued and give us a chance to let our hair down and have fun. I have also played in the second league game, which was very exciting. My score has continued to improve, which is heartening, and I am happy that I have rejoined.
Weekend away …
Priscilla invited me to go away with her this weekend. One thing that I really do miss is not having family around, and this invitation was to accompany her to her family in the Uvongo area.
A sister in law had arrived to visit from Australia and the rest of the family were going to meet for a meal on the Saturday night.
On the way there, with me driving, we saw that the opposite side of the highway close to Umkomaas had subsided with the April storms and was still not repaired. Much like the section here in Amanzimtoti, which is causing havoc with our traffic each morning as people have to negotiate the problem.
Priscilla actually pointed this out to me and mentioned that she was caught in a traffic jam there, it was a few weeks before. It didn’t affect our trip to Uvongo however.
The weekend was absolutely amazing. I met such a super family, some from Pietermaritzburg, others from around the area. Tracey, the sister in law was so delighted to be reunited with everyone and a great time was had by all.
Wayne and Helen live in a lovely home, but like many of the coastal residences, they have a driveway that I would NEVER ever attempt to drive up. It is so steep that as I drove down towards the garages at the bottom, I worried that the car might flip over! OK, an exaggeration, but truly too steep for my comfort.
The home, a face brick dwelling, was built in such a clever way to accommodate the sloping land. The bar area was up a flight of stairs to the left which had a super large balcony overlooking their swimming pool a floor below.
On that floor, Mike, Wayne’s father has his home. Then the rest of the house is built on two levels, kitchen and lounge downstairs with a staircase leading up to the master bedroom and two further bedrooms.
We woke up the next morning to the sound of the coastal birds, the sea was visible from our bedroom window and we were able to see whale breaching and splashing not all that far from the coast line. There are the tallest tree ferns that I have ever seen growing on their fence line.
These reminded me of those I had that grew in my patio area in the U shape of the courtyard when my boys were growing up. I had an abundance of orange Clivia growing below them. Lovely memories.
The following day we stayed until around three in the afternoon when we said our goodbye’s. Wayne drove Bianca up the driveway, and I took over from there.
Traffic jam …
Well, as I mentioned in the beginning, there was a section of the road that was blocked off after the storm. Priscilla suggested that we return to Amanzimtoti via the old main road, and avoid this obstacle. But she was not insistent, and I thought I knew better.
It was Heritage Day weekend and that old road goes through a very dodgy area with many people who I thought might have had too much to drink and might be dangerous on the single road. She was very accommodating and allowed me to go home on the highway.
Well, this turned out to be a really bad mistake. We did get caught in the traffic jam for over an hour. Bumper to bumper, barely moving… I felt terrible. Especially as she had warned me.
But let me tell you, this turned out to be a really interesting time as strange as it may seem. You are all aware of the Taxi’s that believe that the yellow emergency lane is meant for them to speed down?
It started when we became aware of a young boy of about 14 years old getting out of a smart NU registration numbered car, two in front of us in the left hand lane.
He ran towards another nice car that was virtually opposite us, also in the left hand lane. These two families were obviously travelling in convoy. He knocked on the window, asking to be let into the car, but the driver, as most men would do in this situation, wouldn’t allow him in.
Of course we were in hysterics watching this poor guy, who I think was hoping the earth would swallow him up, to put him out of this embarrassing situation.
Well, this drew our attention to these two cars. Eventually the poor lad was allowed in and that should have been the end of a good 10 minutes of fun at his expense.
But that was just the start of the next set of excitement that kept us entertained for the rest of the traffic jam.
The car in front became aware of a taxi hurtling down the emergency lane followed by a long line of other stupid drivers, so he just very casually pulled his car into that lane and stopped the onslaught. Within a few minutes, it was obvious that he had absolutely no intention of letting them through.
This was fantastic. He knew that when he got to the bottle neck, his friend behind, would allow him access to the lane, so he had nothing to lose.
You might think this is a silly thing to have done, but believe me, it wasn’t. By him stopping all those dare devils from using the emergency lane, it permitted the traffic to flow so much faster. As I went passed him once our lane started moving, I gave him a big thumbs up, and he returned the gesture.
So although we had an hour longer trip than it should have been, we were well entertained. We were home before dark, so all ended well.
