Ok it's 10th Jan now, I've been posting everything into a wordpad document which I'm going to copy and paste now. I'll add stuff in another post if I feel like it LOL
Ok, what all has been going on since I last posted properly...
After flat-sitting for about 2 months, finally someone took G's flat. In those flat-sitting hours which were from 17:30 to 19:30 every weekday and from 9:00 to 11:00 every Saturday (almost like detention but at home), I got a lot done on Warpy. I'm nearly finished the first half, his face, which seems the more time-consuming half because it's all blending and different colours. The other half, his neck, is mostly shades of white. With hand-prints. And a feather. I'm so amped to get the face-half done! Wanted to finish it before the end of 2006 (that's LAST YEAR already!), but that was *rather* optimistic.
With 2 weeks til the end of the year and no place to go, G heard of a place through his previous/at-the-time rental agency, and we went to see it. I have blogged about it already, and am going to post pics too. We decided to take the place with (for now) a 6 months lease, in case it turned out to be dreadful and we wanted to move asap. So in the 2nd last week of the year, we got the keys (it'd been vacant) and moved G's stuff to the new flat. Was a mission carrying boxes and boxes down 3 flights of stairs; my legs felt so rubbery after that! Luckily there wasn't much that we ourselves couldn't move, all that was left was the bed, cupboard, drawers, 2 bookshelves, a desk, 3 couches, a tv-cabinet, a kitchen countertable and a bar fridge.
G's gran was down from Jhb for Xmas, and we had Xmas lunch at his parents' place. Was lovely - a delicious lunch and all smiles. Got cool gifts too! G's gran also told us she was going to pay for a removal van to transport our stuff, rather than us battle with it. Ah, grandparents! Organised that and got them to take G's furniture, and my wardrobe, bookshelf, desk and drawers. The rest of the stuff was small stuff or full of non-vital stuff and not particularly useful to us in the new place (stuff I'd need to sort through at some stage - procrastination!!).
We'd had Xmas eve celebrations at my place, basically gift-opening and stuff, and then we'd had a 2nd Xmas lunch on 26th Dec. M and J came too. More DELICIOUS food and fun!
Ok so then we'd finally moved everything in to the new place but we were sans bed and, since the fridge is a bar fridge and we were going to get a bigger (proper) one soon, we didn't plug the fridge in. So we were all but moved in.
Went between my place and the flat to move stuff and basically everything is here now.
Went shopping a few days later, and bought a big bed and a big fridge. It was to be delivered the Friday. We stayed over at my place the Thurs night, and left home quite early to be there when the stuff was delivered. We waited the whole day. G phoned at about 16:30, and heard that the Town deliveries only go out at 16:00. Nice, after waiting the entire day! We waited some more. He phoned a few more times. We sat outside in the warm evening air as it approached 19:00. "They'll be here at about 20:15", according to the person on the phone. We waited some more. And more. It was going on for 22:00. We were staying over at my place again that night, and decided to leave then. I was basically packing my bag when G announced "guess who's arrived". At 22:05, our fridge and bed were delivered. If they'd come 5 mins later, we'd have left already. The "excuse" for coming so late? "there were roadblocks". Sure, *that's* credible… but only if the delivery note didn't say that the items were checked out at 17:48 for delivery! So basically, when G phoned the first time, they hadn't even bloodywell sent it off yet. Nice one.
Thinking now, about what else to blog about. The neighbours... or now (thankfully) EX-neighbours. Lovely people. The days that we'd been delivering things and packing stuff in the flat, we had heard kids shrieking and going on like mad. All day long. Not a WHISPER of a "shhh" from either of their parents. They would bounce a massive (about the size of a basketball) inflatable tennis ball ALL AROUND THE ENTIRE BLOCK OF FLATS! Around and around and around! For hours on end. If they weren't doing that, they were running around the entire building, running past/under our bedroom window which is on the same side of the building as their porch/balcony-thing. Oh yes, and G's car is parked just across from our bedroom window, and it's on a raised level so it's about 1.5m higher than the ground by the building. The kids would bounce their ball against the little wall/edge of the raised bit G's car is parked on, and it'd inevitably bounce up, and it bashed his car's grille and I heard it bounce off the bonnet at least once! That's just the kids. They'd also throw a toy helicopter or something up in the air and watch it crash down onto the bricks. Over and over again. Mesmerising entertainment. And that'd go on ALL DAY. Well past 8pm, which was MY bedtime when I was a kid. Or at least Mom would come and tell my sis and me to quieten down, "it's late and time to settle down now". Nope, these people had no concept of "other people".
That was clearly visible when they were packing. It seemed, WONDERFULLY, that they were moving out. They had a little bakkie parked in one of the bays and were loading stuff on it when someone in one of the other flats arrived with stuff to be delivered. A wash machine and a couch. The man of this lovely neighbour-animals group STORMED across and started shouting at the driver of the little truck to "use your fucking brains a little! how the fuck am I supposed to get out here? What the fuck are you thinking? Fucksakes man! How the fuck are we to get out? What the fuck!!". Totally unreasonable. For one thing, he was still busy PACKING, so no URGENT need to get past, for another thing, the truck wouldn't have been there longer than about 5-10 mins, and another... HE COULD HAVE MOVED SO ASSHOLE COULDA GOT PAST!!! Hardly as if he was stuck... but assholes like that just overreact completely.
A bit later, when we were sitting outside enjoying the evening air and warmth, he walked past us after going out to buy something and muttered to us "enjoy your stay here, you're going to have fun staying here!". Almost seemed like a threat. BUT...
THEY'VE MOVED OUT!!!!
YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's peaceful now, no screaming shrieking banging shit! YAYYYYYYYY! It's awesome now. I think if they hadn't moved out I would have gone nuts very soon. It's hard to live with inconsiderate bastards like that. Imagine: this man stands outside and shouts into the house to his wife... charming. Swears at his kids. Lovely. But anyway, not our concern anymore - YAYYYYYYY!!!
Yesterday, G's parents came to my place to fetch the fishtank and bring it carefully to the flat. It was a MISSION to catch all the fish, one of the black neons somehow went UNDER the undergravel filter plate and hid in the muck with 2 of the kuhli loaches. Little sods! I had to dig up all the gravel that was on top of the filterplate and lift it up, dislodging all fish poo and muck in the process, and try to catch them despite not being able to see much in the murk. Lucky I got them quite easily. Easier, in fact, than catching all the others ABOVE the gravel! For being such a little bugger, that black neon got to enjoy the ride to town in the kuhli loach bag *see previous post about kuhli loaches* All the other fish were separated according to species, except for him! I also had to separate the male and female congos cos they're just too big and skittish to fit into one bag.
Drove to town, offloaded the tank & equipment & brats, and G's parents had a look around the flat while they were here. They also love the place. We're having a flat warming tomorrow evening so they'll see the tank now that it's set up. Everyone will see the place! So exciting.
Ooh I haven't blogged about NY's yet! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok after saving that post yesterday and coming back to it today (6th Jan 2007), we’re waiting for 19:00. The flat-warming is tonight! So exciting! It’s gonna be great to see everyone together.
The fish are completely at home, no problems whatsoever. I’m dying to get a bird, maybe a canary or something like that, but it’d be quite lonely during the day. And birds’ sounds carry. Although (pleasantly) surprising in this place, neighbours’ sounds don’t carry so much. There are a few people who have little dogs here but you NEVER hear them, except when they’re going through the stairwell area on their way (excitedly) for a walk. Good, that, not having much noise (specially after those un-neighbours!). Sometimes we hear junky music coming from the flats opposite, which are above a restaurant, but that’s for about an hour hehe, so it’s tolerable. Just means that we close the windows/door when we’re playing music here, cos their music just clashes with ours. Yes, it IS that loud to interfere, but not if the windows/door are closed!!
It’s 18:10, I’m hungry. Mustn’t get tempted to start on the cheese puffs………………….
I’m starting to get anxious about the GI&GS order… I haven’t had any email replies (emailed twice) and still haven’t had an email confirming that they’ve been shipped. The transaction has gone through… but it’s a month later and still nothing. The moment we get our internet connection (after posting this LOL), I’m going to yahoo-phone them, to try to find out what’s going on.
My hifi is very frustrating. Its CD player lens keeps going off focus/blind/cannot read the CD. So you put a CD in it, and sometimes it plays, other times it reads how many songs there are and the playing time, but doesn’t manage to find the start of track one nor any other tracks. Sometimes it cannot even read the tracklisting or running time and spins the CD superfast and then throws it down again into the tray still spinning – CHARMING!! Time to get it serviced, AGAIN! It’s been a problem with this hifi since I got it, basically. I dunno, maybe a temperamental hifi, generally LOL.
Ok I think I’ll save this now, see if there’s anything that still needs preparation for nownow. Don’t think there’s anything. Would be nice if Fe and Te were coming, but sadly they’re all a plane-trip away now!! Miss you guys, see you soon!
Ok signing off for now, will add more to this later... Oh wait! I didn’t blog about NY’s! It was at W&S’s place, a bring ‘n braai. Basically the whole Anti-Social Society was there, as well as (obviously) W&S, and also X and L. Had a lekker time, chilling and chatting and joking and talking shit and having a ball, and having nice nice drinks. Mmmm nachtmusik and cinzano and something else. OMG did that have a sting in the tail! All the “power” sank to the bottom so you had a super-whammy when you got to the end of the drink! I felt RATHER wonky!! Got to witness the eye-toy, wasn’t up to playing with it though cos I think I might have wobbled a bit too much! Saw in the new year watching the countdowns on TV and well, each channel we tuned into had theirs when we tuned to them, so they were almost staggered hehe! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!..... ummm… HAPPY NEW YEAR PEOPLE!!..... oh ey, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! ….. YAY HAPPY NEW YEAR…. Ermm…….
Ok signing off for real now, to be continued….
And I’m back. It’s now Monday 8th January 2007. The party was WONDERFUL! Thanks everyone for coming and making it such a special evening!! Caught up with everyone, at first we were all in the lounge and then the guys all basically ended up outside and the girls indoors still, then more people went outside, then I kinda rounded everyone up and everyone was outside. It was actually quite warm in the lounge and it was refreshingly cool outside. As the night settled in, it got colder and it was nice and warm indoors again, but by then people were starting to leave... time is abstract hehe, it was already later than it seemed!
Friday was B & N’s flatwarming/farewell/birthday party/get-together. Went to their place for snacks and chatting. N is leaving for UAE to work there. 2 months there, 1 month back... or something to that effect. I’m sure that’s going to be very trying at times, but they’re staying positive about it. Luckily “in this day and age” there are so many ways to communicate hehe!
Yesterday (Sunday), we went to my place and took Sis out for lunch with us to a lovely little restaurant/art gallery, Tibetan Teahouse. I had Thukpa Soup, VERY yum! Then G and I went to his parents’ place, to fetch *the curtains*! Friday we’d bought one curtain, to divide in half and put in the lounge cos those two windows are a bit small to warrant a curtain each. So on Saturday, G’s mom took the curtain and divided it and made it into two curtains for us! It was already ready very early on Sunday, hehe! Sounds like she’d worked overnight or something but apparently this curtain had a very simple construction which made it quick to do. We had supper at their place, and as soon as we got home we put the curtains up. They look STUNNING!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today was a rather mellow day for me. G went to work and I stayed at home, being still on leave. I washed up, vacuumed, washed my hair, read about [theories about the universe] and dozed a bit in the little sunny spot in the bedroom. Ended up going to nap properly in bed, it was so nice!
My list of things to do is something like this:
Study for my learners, and do the test, and go about doing driving lessons to get my drivers license
Stitch
Read
Ok it doesn’t sound like very much to do, like un-goallike, but that’s all that I feel like setting for myself at this point because on Monday, my new job starts, and I want to see how that affects my life first. Hopefully not too much. I think it will cut out my blogging/surfing/MSNing though, because at the ‘meeting’ the bosses and I had, they mentioned they were getting an IT co to assess our computers and needs, and they’re going to restrict which computers have access to the internet, most of them only being able to email. Basically I think they’re going to replace all the computer stuff. Which is a bloody godsend! First up I hope (although it will no longer be my problem) the (to quote many previous posts) FUCKING FAX PROGRAM!!!!!! OMG that HAS TO GO!! But I think I’ll be getting a decent PC, if not a new one. And hopefully I’ll get internet, being a secretary to HBBM and maybe needing to do online bookings/etc for him. Etc. I’ll see what happens. Anyway, yeah, I might not be able to MSN anymore during working hours, which is crappy but I reckon I’ll be busy enough with work hehe!
I’m getting amped for our internet connection to be installed here now, to post this stuff, and to catch up on my usual surfing! Dying to know what’s been happening on the pond, and I want to check my emails properly too... and also (of course) chat!!!
Ok I’ll save this for now... nothing much to post, I’ll start blabla’ing about nonsense in a min if I don’t stop!
Cheers for now, peeps!
***************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment