Half day Fridays aren’t quite as fun when you know you need to work over the week, which pretty much made this Friday not that great. I’m still working under great pressure and it still seems like I’m not really getting anywhere. Oh well, I promised myself that I would at least take Sunday off, so I did.
Friday’s work went well as per usual, and lunch time I fled the office and headed off to Bellville, straight through to Ryan’s place to find out if he was still on for the squash session I had organized in order to let off some steam. Unfortunately though he had work troubles of his own to deal with, so I ended up enjoying a nice sandwich and chatting with Mom instead. From there it was straight back to the flat and straight back to work, something I didn’t stir from until deep in the evening. As it was, Chantelle decided to pay me a visit because she didn’t want to spend the night alone in Gordon’s Bay, so she ended up at the flat entertaining herself, drinking coffee and buying us KFC for supper while I slaved on behind the keyboard.
Saturday morning we were both up bright and early as she needed to return for early morning shift while I had rescheduled the squash game for early morning. As it was, Ryan was still busy working so Dad and I put in a couple of games which were all rather enjoyable, particularly because I haven’t been on the course from just about last year I think! They were not the most action-packed, adrenaline-rushed games ever, but they were exactly what I needed and it was a good sweat session in the end.
On my return home I was back behind the keyboard, awaiting the arrival of Terrance and Ryan who were coming through so that we could head out on a quick shopping stop before I was to lose myself in my work for the rest of the day again. Unfortunately the shopping trip didn’t turn up much for me or Terrance (though Ryan got what he was looking for), but I did manage to start my cleaning out operation by dropping off all my old textbooks and novels at the library. The only other, less than pleasant, thing that the shopping trip did achieve though was the breaking of my rear passenger window, as the bracket holding the window broke and the glass disappeared into the murky depths of the rear door.
Luckily the glass didn’t break on impact and with the help of a friendly glass fitment mechanic at PG Autoglass, we were able to rig a home-made repair using steel putty and some prayer. Of course, all this did was managed to delay my programming even more and it didn’t help that I had forgotten to pick up the box tape that I needed, meaning I had to waste extra time driving all the way through to Tygervalley just to get the damn tape!
After all this drama, I did at least manage to get a couple of hours of coding in, but it wasn’t near as much as what I needed to get done. At least the one good thing that I did manage to get started with was the packing up of non-essentials for moving to Gordon’s Bay over the coming month. My plan is to start early and basically every week move some of the smaller items over before the final push come the end of the month.
Evening rolled in and I packed the goods into the car, switched off my laptop (not that I wanted to or actually could afford to of course) and jumped in for the trip through to Gordon’s Bay and my awaiting liefie. One stressful journey later, thanks to a wait that felt forever to turn on the R300, some guy smashing into my side mirror as he tried to squeeze past me and a bloody warning dashboard indicator light that came on just before my destination, I eventually arrived in Gordon’s Bay to perhaps one of the most beautiful evening settings ever.
I immediately grabbed Chantelle out of her flat and we went for a lovely stroll along the pristine beach with the sun setting in front of us, painted on the most exquisite of orange hues canvas. We spent the evening relaxing in one another’s company, accompanied by an old movie called ‘Loch Ness’ which was playing on SABC 3 in the background. Feeling pretty tired after my stressful day, I was in bed fairly early for a change and managed to get quite a few hours of good sleep in thanks to our sleeping in late on Sunday morning.
We chilled around the flat for most of the morning, discussing where we are going to be putting what, etc. before having a quick bite to eat and then heading off to Monkey Town, home of my closest relatives that aren’t Ryan. Now I’ve never been to Monkey Town before, and man can I say I enjoyed every minute of yesterday’s visit! The park is extremely well laid out and holds a huge variety of apes and monkeys, all in very natural enclosures and roaming spaces. We got to see both the baboons and chimpanzees get fed and apart from the potbellied pig that somewhat startled Chantelle, we had a thoroughly enjoyable, rewarding and entertaining trip to Monkey Town. I can certainly highly recommend that place to any animal lover, particularly if you have little children you wish to entertain!
After a refreshing beer and a light snack, it was back in the cars and back off to Bellville in order to check in Chantelle’s mom and pops for our customary braai. We hadn’t seen the folks in over two weeks, so it was nice to catch up on all the happenings again. As always we had some good braai food, but it was Cheryl’s homemade baked cheesecake that most certainly stole the show. Absolutely delicious!
I had to sneak away a little early though, work desperately calling to me once again, but it wasn’t too long before Chantelle eventually found her way home as well and then it was off to bed, another weekend successfully navigated! :)