Jozi, limo rides and best friend's ex

Well, I'm back in the economic powerhouse of Africa, feeling rather strong withdrawal symptoms from my magic mountain that loomed over my skyline permanently. My mates saw me off with a farewell drinking session, followed by another drinking session, followed by dinner and drinks, followed by another drinking session (just Earl Grey the third time around).I decided to come back to Jozi on Saturday morning, rather than lurk about in Cape Town and risk making another impractical hefty wine transaction (which I did on the Friday afternoon - it happened so fast, I didn't realise what had happened before I packed my car to rail back to Jozi, only to find the boot was too small to fit all my wine cases in it). Oh, and considering my recent spate of bad luck with cars, you'll find this pretty amusing - I, on the other hand, can only hope that I'll look back on it and laugh, because currently I'm ready to cry - I heard on the news this morning that yesterday there were problems with trains being derailed from Cape Town to Jozi; yes folks, you guessed right, my car was on a train to Jozi yesterday. I haven't plucked up the courage to call and find out whether my car has dismantled itselfspectacularly over the Karoo landscape or not. oh well.

Anyway, back to Saturday: I arrived in Jozi shortly after midday, spent an entertaining afternoon with the boyf (so nice to know you can hug him today, tomorrow, the day after that, the day after that, etc, if you so desire). Reluctantly kicked him out for my social butterfly role that evening -had to join my italian society committee for a limo ride around the Sandton elite's playground -started at 1886 for drinks (a quaint, pseudo-pretentious little Rivonia restaurant with a maitre d' who calls you 'Sweetie' and fondles your love handles. Drove through to Chef's in Motion, whose reputation has preceded itself all the way to Cape Town, where I eagerly awaited trying it. Food is like R30 cheaper per dish, service is about 100% better, location - well, location leavessomething to be desired. Out in preppy Lonehill, nestled between industrial parks, claustro-house complexes and unsightful office parks. When one travels in a limo, dessert simply has to be served at another venue, dahling, so the poor ordinary-vehicled people can ogle on. We drove through to Melrose Arch, for cinnamon chilli ice-cream at Orient, then went back to Rivonia, where the stupider among us - myself included, goes without saying - decided to fork out R100 entrance fee for that rather average trendoid hangout, Taboo. The scene tries more or less to emulate Cape Town's much more appealing Hemisphere, except entry's double the price, without the view (and no-one brave enough to venture to hit on you!)

But enough about that. The most eventful thing that happened over the course of the couple few days since I last wrote occurred last night, at 21:34 (while I was still slogging away in our client's office, in deepest darkest Pretoria, mind you). The phone rang, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Timmy. So he begins this mundane conversation, I'm thinking "you're a bad telephone conversationalist at the best of times, what arb reason are you calling me for?" And then, my life changed - back to the good old way I was comfortable with before the ominous whiney cloud that is Lindi descended on it. Yip, he's acknowledged she was not for him - him being an intelligent, stimulating, entertaining, generally awesome person, and her being the polar opposite. Of course, I responded with cool, calm, collected interest rather than the true glee I was feeling. So, yay! Got my best friend back the way I like him - all to myself (except for the minor glitch that he remains in Cape Town and I'm more than just a stone's throw away).

So, it's been eventful, I guess. Who said life in Joburg was boring?