She emerges

I’ve escaped briefly from a black hole whose vortex is my work. I eat, sleep, breathe and talk work for most of each day. Ugh. But that will change, hopefully sooner rather than later…
In my lengthy blogosphere absence, too many things have happened to recount in any detail, so here are a few general thoughts/observations from the past week and a half:

1 – as much as corporate life sometimes succeeds in wearing me down, I have realised that so nature reconstructs me. I went away for the long weekend (work in tow, of course) to a game lodge in Mpumalanga, also bringing along my wine files and a wide variety of bottles of wine (for more explanation, see point 2). I’m no nature expert (every bird is a LBJ as far as I’m concerned), but there’s something about the serenity and the realisation that that ecosystem has existed almost unaltered by humans for thousands of years, that gives me a great sense of peace. On a far less spiritual level, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and braai-ing (sp?) for each meal with great company is also a great way to while away the hours. One of my friends had the ingenious idea of starting a wildlife blog for this nature reserve (something that everyone with houses on the land would probably read with interest – eg. at 6am this morning two female lions were spotted crossing Duiker road in an easterly direction). I had the even more ingenious idea that we should fake it, to up the excitement factor (I’m thinking along the lines of “waterbuck, crocodile and tree squirrel caught in the midst of a steamy mating orgy” or “new species of luminous pink leopard discovered”) – I think that would get far more readership, personally.

2 – did both my wine exams this week (2.5 hours of theory on Monday night, then a series of 7-minute blind tastings on Tuesday night). This brings me yet a step closer (many, many more to follow!) to owning a wine farm in Chile one day… I really feel it is my duty to the local wine industry to dispense some of my knowledge to all of you, and believe me, one of my upcoming posts will do just that (theory’s all good, but ultimately, the true joy of studying wine is of course in its drinking – preferably with good people, but alone if none are at hand). Coerced four other wino’s to join me for an ad-hoc after-exam dinner, so we went through to Roseboys, and ate… four bottles of Merlot (they have an extremely limited wine collection, but then I guess we’re a tough crowd to please!), and some snacky things that were provided free (olives, chips). Followed that with a ludicrously expensive visit to the Park Hyatt with one classmate (R387 for two whiskies, two ports, two espressos and one Earl Grey), and I still had wine stains on my lips on Wednesday as a result of the night’s extensive drinking activities.

3 – why have the damn birds not emigrated for the winter??? My car gets guanoed out on a regular basis at the office. No one else’s does, I never see the damn LBJ’s anywhere (although I can hear them at 5am outside my bedroom, too), but they definitely leave evidence of their presence on poor Max, whose paint is getting slowly digested away…

4 – Third Flatmate has joined my company for an extended vac work period. Given our tendency to um, debate a lot (Third Flatmate is also bolshy ex – the one who reduced me to tears over an argument in the Natal Midlands last year), it will be an interesting exercise in restraint on both our parts in not tearing each other apart in front of my colleagues. So far, I’m not sure we’re succeeding in creating an illusion of harmony. To top it off, I took a bet with him that Croatia would win the World Cup (thanks to some perhaps misguided insight from ATW), and am now in imminent danger of losing both a lot of pride and a little money over the matter.


5 – in the almost four years that the Gilb and I have been together, our parents, who live all of 7km apart (far, far closer than we do these days) have never met. That fateful event will take place on Saturday evening. How’s this for a recipe for disaster: 1 x highly conservative, right-wingish, reserved Afrikaans father, blended with 1 x fat, gossipy, overwhelmingly extroverted Italian father? Faithful vino will come to the rescue, I trust – I have 24 bottles stored at my parents’ place, and I’m not shy to use them. (The Moms will actually enjoy each other’s company, I think – they both remind me of field mice). We do have a buffer family joining us – one of the Gilb’s friends’ parents, who are a healthy combination of Afrikaans and Italian ancestry – my Dad met the Gilb’s friend (C) by accident in Wales in December last year, and together they devised this scheme to do the formal parents-meet-parents thing, using C’s parents as a go-between. I’ve had my Mom develop a heavenly menu to at least seduce their tastebuds, and over the course of the past week she’s being doing trials run on some new recipes in preparation for The Meeting. No doubt there will be much to relate on Monday…


And finally, happy birthday Jen-Jen! Hugs and kisses to youuuuu…