On Thursday I was invited to join a friend at the Yard, a restaurant come boutique, in Rockview Road.
This building is shared with my hairdresser, so while there, I popped in to make an appointment for my next cut.
I have decided, an the advice of Wendy, to grow my hair again, so it will be a while before I will actually have it in a good style again, but it fortunately seems to grow like weeds, so she will shape it in a fortnights time. Up till then, the fringe will be a worry to me as it is already long enough to reach into my eyes.
Jane arrived and we were seated inside. The layout of the little shop has been changed and now they have a designated section for seating on one side of the shop, the overflow goes outside behind a screen made out of bamboo. Their food has always been interesting and very tasty. I tried their savoury scone which was served with grated cheddar cheese and butter. It was large enough to ask for a doggy bag to take half home for lunch. Jane settled on a strawberry cheesecake which she said was delicious.
While there we were joined by Pat, who lives just across the road. It was lovely catching up on all the happenings since our last get together. Amanzimtoti is not actually a very large town but I can remember how, when I was working, that I could go into town over the weekends and never see anyone I knew.
This has changed. I don’t think there is a day that passes when I am away from home, that I don’t bump into friends and acquaintances. What a pleasure this is. I just love my ‘home town’.
It was a lovely weekend, spending a lot of it on my own and in the confines of my flat, but that never is a problem to me.
There is always something needing doing and with no one to tell me when to do it, I feel there is no pressure at all!
Sunday was fun. Two of my friends arrived at mid day, one carrying the largest pizza box I have ever seen. It was her turn to supply lunch before we sat down to play Mexican Train. She had bought the two pizzas from Romans and they were truly delicious. The one was a Hawaiian with pineapple and bacon and the second was a rich tomato sauce base filled with feta, bacon and avocado. There was enough for us to share the remaining slices after the game. I had the one for dinner and then pigged out on the second one after breakfast this morning.
We had great fun playing the game again, but at one time, when we were totally confused at a situation which we had not encountered before, I actually got out the rules to read! Of course we should have done this before playing it last time…. Now we know for next time! I find the fact that there are no cards to keep shuffling a good thing, as normally this task falls on me to do when we play Hand and Foot and when one uses six packs, it gets a little tedious.
I mentioned a while ago that I had changed my Telkom contract from 80 gb a month to uncapped. With this package came the bonus of 300 voice call minutes a month - Telkom to Telkom.
I was so excited about this as there are numerous times that I have had to phone a ‘local’ number, such as the bank or insurance company, and have had to hold on for ages, this eating my voice data on my cell phone contract.
So I was really miffed when on Friday I dialled an 031 number on my landline phone, got through without a problem, only to be cut off. I redialled it again and the message said, ‘insufficient’ something or other. Well this made me mad. I looked at the data available through Telkom and there were still 298 minutes to use during July. Of course, trying to phone Telkom is a nightmare, so decided to rather go in and see them today instead.
It was a good move. Although the beginning of the month, there were only 5 people in front of me. After a while I was called up to the counter and explained the situation to a very pleasant guy. He got onto the system and then took a while just looking at the screen. Eventually he explained my problem which is simple to understand once one is aware of the situation.
Unfortunately one can no longer ‘surmise’ that all the old Telkom numbers starting with 031 are still Telkom numbers!
Apparently companies have kept their old Telkom numbers but have changed their supplier to another of their choice. So as he explained, if I dial any number from the land line and it doesn’t get connected, this will be the reason.
Life with the emergence of all the fibre companies, technology and improvements is becoming a difficult minefield to negotiate. No wonder my mom was so confused with everything when I tried to explain the iPad and cell phone to her when she was in her 90’s.
After visiting Telkom in the Galleria I popped into Game to buy some key tags.
You know the little ones that have a place to write a name on them? I am needing them for all the owners in the block who are to give me a spare set of door and security keys to keep in the case of any emergency.
I had been to Salujees during the week to purchase them, but thought that the cost of them was too much. Anyway, to cut a long story short they were exactly half the price that Game wanted, so I drove back to Salujees to buy them on my way home. While there I had a little walk around the CBD area to see what was going on there.
When I arrived here 17 years ago this centre was the shopping hub in Amanzimtoti. There were bank branches, a Wimpy, The Hub and many other wonderful shops all surrounding a grassed area that was well maintained and clean. Over the ensuing years it has become derelict to say the least. The corner leading into the courtyard had drunks and hobo’s sleeping under the overhang of the building and the outside ablution block. It was not at all safe to walk there and I felt very sorry for Stevens Stationers who were one of the few remaining tenants.
Today it is very different. The dirty places where the homeless slept have been cordoned off and the internal courtyard is once again looking beautiful. There are a number of rather kitchy statues erected along the outer edge and they are truly trying to improve it. I took a few photographs just to show you. I do hope that they are able to attract nice shops into the centre again. Salujees tell me that they have decided to incorporate the entire top story of their building into a craft shop. This will be absolutely fantastic.
They have already got the largest selection of all types of wool and cotton there at a fraction of the cost of other shops in the area. This is hard for the little haberdashery shops, but very good for the hundreds of old people who spend many hours knitting and crocheting.
Morné FaceTime’ed me on Sunday night at about 8 pm. I love these impromptu calls from him.
The family were at the Summer Cottage in Darla Jarna, the day was nearing an end and he was out fishing on the lake. We spent the next hour fishing together.
This is such a special time for me. We talk about everything that is going on, I watch him catching, while seeing all the familiar places I know having spent so much time with him when on my numerous visits to Sweden.
He and Luke had built a little wooden cottage as a bird box to be hung in a tree. He sent me the photos of this. It is so quaint and lovely. I hope it attracts plenty of birds to roost inside it.
