Obviously following the stress of Friday evening, Chantelle didn’t have the best of nights sleep, but I on the other hand couldn’t really complain. I got out of bed eventually after Chantelle finally managed to convince me that it was okay for me to go ahead with my original plans for the day, snatched a quick cup of coffee with some of her delicious rusks, and then headed out to meet up with Merkaba for our trip to the Readers Den comic shop in Claremont.
Back in the day when I was in my comic book reading/collection frenzy stage, Readers Den used to be my hangout of choice. I would have any excuse to make the trip through to their old store in Long Street Cape Town, to spend hours browsing all their comics and graphic novels. But I’ve been out of that scene for quite some time now, and this was probably the first time I’ve been to the shop in a good 3 or 4 years.
After an eventful trip involving a phone call from Draegs in England, a discussion over rugby ticket collection with pops and narrowly knocking a unfortunate Vespa driver over and turning him into street pizza (Merkaba was driving), we finally made our destination of Stadium on Main in Claremont. And I must say I wasnt disappointed. The shop has become so much more classy than in its original days, losing a lot of the dingy underground subculture it used to carry. Its still a small shop, but it is well lit, beautifully organised and presented – a real professional joint at last :).
Theyve scaled down on the amount of comics they carry I will admit, but they make up for it with a huge amount of manga and figurines that they now stock. We didnt stay all that long, but I did walk out of there proudly clutching a copy of Cowboy Bebop #1 and Real Bout High School #1. Merkaba on the other hand actually restrained himself for a change.
(I also met an old friend from varsity days there which was rather nice. On my return I found out that Claire and Riley had been involved in another minor car accident – which obviously was not so nice.)
After spending some time with Chantelle at the guesthouse while a replacement DVD/VCR system was being installed, I hit the road once more, this time my destination being Newlands Rugby Stadium. Pops was in charge of JP Morgans box suite for the 15:00 WP game against the Valke, meaning free tickets for us. Nice padded seats combined with lots of good food, beer and scores for Province made for a rather enjoyable afternoon out.
With Chantelle still not comfortable leaving the house on Saturday evening, we opted for DVD night, picking the rather decent Constant Gardner as our viewing material for the evening and stuffing our faces with Steers. Well, actually only Chantelle had Steers – I was so sick from having overindulged at the rugby that I could hardly move.
No penguin could ever match my stuffed waddle!