Okay, so maybe you are wondering why I’ve got the weekend pegged at three nights instead of just the usual two in my subject line – well, it is simply because the weekend that we return to Caledon Hotel was finally upon us, and in order to make the most of the weekend, I simply had to take Monday off as well! :)
The day at work actually didn’t go too bad to be honest. Varsity is nice and quiet now that all the students are writing exams and after having put in a major push on my SAN Access client and finally releasing it on the network, it turned out that work wasn’t my topmost priority and I ended up mucking about with my portable drive for a large chunk of the day! I managed to grab about 30 odd gigs off the DC++ network, a nice total for a change, and finally succeeding in bringing home all that anime I had been stockpiling there for a while now. (And ICTS wonders where all their bandwidth goes sometimes!)
Seeing as Friday happened to be Mr Storbeck’s 27th birthday as well, our plans had shifted slightly, leaving Chantelle to spend Thursday night in Bellville (she had been visiting there for the day) and me travelling straight through to Bellville after work, arriving there just before 16:00. Seeing as there were a couple of items I needed to pick up, my first port of call was Tygervalley, a place I hadn’t been to in ages. The shopping trip was rather successful for a change, and as per usual, I walked back to my car with a wallet that now felt a LOT lighter :)
From there I popped around to see if Chantelle’s parents hadn’t murdered her yet, and instead found a very content C lying on the couch and watching DSTV. Seeing as there was still quite a bit of time before the Storbeck Visit, I sneaked back out and went to my mom’s place, having heard that Ryan had just come back from purchasing an extra Xbox 360 controller. Having convinced Terrance to quickly loan him PES 2008, Ryan then proceeded to whip me black and blue at the soccer while I struggled to get to grips with this foreign controller’s layout and then continued by hitting me in the balls with Rockstar’s brilliantly executed Table Tennis game.
Chantelle eventually arrived to see why I was so quiet, and we quickly corralled her into picking up the controller and trying this table tennis thing out. Oh my goodness! I have created a monster – looks like my next big purchase will have to now be a Xbox 360 bundled with table tennis! :)
Anyway, we darted off to Karl and Pat’s place to meet up with Terrance and them for some of Pat’s famous triple threat cake and coffee in celebration of Karl’s birthday. Now as it is, I didn’t have a single brainwave in getting him a present this year, so I stuck to the tried, tested and loved Musica gift voucher, but I did at least have the perfect packaging for the little card – a nice big, sensual, bold white La Senza gift bag! Needless to say, I think he was quite relieved when he finally unwrapped a gift that was far less pink and frilly than what the packaging had suggested!
Sjoe, we hadn’t been to Karl’s pad in months, and I must say the place is looking pretty good – particularly the inclusion of one monster of a flat screen television that he has inherited from his father. Admittedly, it is rather hard to push television jealousy aside, especially after he demonstrated the system by popping in a Lord of the Rings DVD – much to Patricia’s appreciation of course!! I also finally got to see his dual purpose, 650cc BMW motorbike for the first time in real life, and man it is a big red beauty. (Of course, seeing the bike in real life has only excited Chantelle even more now – guess I’m going to HAVE to learn to ride one of these days!)
We ended up having a thoroughly enjoyable evening of small talk and useless chatter, catching up on all the important news that we’ve missed out on seeing as we don’t see each other nearly half as often as we used to – for instance, the fact that Patricia had just quit her new job and is starting up as a freelancer was a particularly good bit to learn of! :)
And of course, what would a birthday coffee and cake evening at the Storbecks be without mention of Patricia’s family secret recipe triple layer cake and I scoffed down my piece with sheer abandon, going even so far as grabbing a couple of dollops of extra icing sugar on the side – heaven I tell you! Anyway, the night went on until well after 22:00 when after a number of hints from Chantelle, I finally realised that it was time to leave, because we still had that bloody long way home to go. :(
A pretty uneventful trip later (plus one side trip to the garage along the N2 for fuel), and we were back in Gordon’s Bay, bashing at the door of the hapless McDonalds who had done the dastardly deed of closing an hour before they were scheduled to! Luckily Total Garage’s Bonjour shop could help us out on the supper front by providing us with two delicious pies, which we finally managed to sit down and savour after passing unscathed through the police road block that had been set up literally 20 metres from our complex!
So after a midnight supper of pie and ice-cream, it was time to hit the sack and get that much needed rest before the Caledon Weekend officially started!
Oh, almost forgot. We came home to yet another dead fish. This time it was one of the original goldfish that had finally kicked the bucket :(