Early Morning

This morning was amazing. Still is amazing actually, it isn't done yet! I was woken up with a cat chewing my toes ferociously, so sadly did not get to sleep in as I wished, which I am now quite glad about. I got up at about 6:30am, to see mist closed in around the house. I let Pio out to go to work and made a coffee thinking I could just watch Heroes without him ever knowing ;-)

Well, as I sat there looking out the window in front of the laptop, I realised how beautiful it was. The sun was shining through the mist, which moving in the wind looked and felt like fine rain coming down. It was so crisp and fresh and beautiful, I opened the door to the balcony and sat in this crisp, cool breeze feeling the mist on my face as I drank my coffee. Was absolute heaven.

What a way to wake up, fresh air, cool breeze, and the ocean. It made me feel very lucky and very privileged to be able to experience that, and have these beautiful mornings that I can enjoy almost every day, and all right here on my doorstep.

The Weekend

Well, on Friday we got in our hired X-Trail (Hertz gave us an upgrade and didn't charge us for Friday afternoon or Monday morning bless their cottons, they are stars) and drove to Windhoek. We only got there at like 8:30pm - the road between Karibib and Okahandja is so bad and full of potholes that you hav to drive way below the speed limit to prevent losing tyres. They are also working on it, they have been for 6 months, and it doesn't really look like anything has been done in that time, honestly ...

We spent the night with Vicky and Tiaan - they were having a braai so we got a drink and some lamb chops for the braai and just sat around chilling and talking to everyone. Pio and I were so tired though that we mostly sat there like lemons with no energy and falling asleep on our feet, although we managed to stay up til gone 3am - have no idea where the night went, it completely flew, and I only have these vague recollections of what happened, probably because I was so tired. What did keep us mostly awake though was once most of the people had gone home we got to play King of Beers ... oh dear ... horrendous game ... and at one point ending everything with "in my pants" was just too much!

Saturday morning arrived and I woke up to Vicky and Tiaan running through the lounge - came out of this dead dead sleep to wonder what the hell they were doing up so early in a craoky sore voice - only to discover that it was after 9am already so had to drag myself up, would much rather have carried on sleeping lol. We left at about 10:30am for our drive to Botswana, it just felt like it took forever! We did find this really cool little place on the side of the road that sold Biltong - oh my goodness, it was so nice and fresh and homemade! Fabulous!

On arrival at the border post, we were both rather nervous, as my stamp of allocate days had expired, and because of the nightmare with broken cars and Pio not getting off work and Hertz not having a car for us, we were rather nervous that we would get a penalty for being late. Thank heavens though, we got chatting to the immigration lady behind the counter and she let us right through with no problems - as did the Botswana side.

We drove on into Botswana for two hours - there is nothing on that side of the border for 200 km's, so we had to just keep driving until we got to Ghanzi and found a lodge on the other side of it. Botswana is expensive!!! Tautona Lodge was very nice, although our dinner wasn't - mine was stone cold, and the T-bone steaks we had left ALOT to be desired - we were severely dissapointed as Botswana is meant to have fabulous meat and the last time we were in the country we had the best steaks I had ever eaten. So wasn't overly impressed, and as it was so expensive didn't really help. Our room was nice though, big and a really odd shape with funny windows - it was built on top of two others, so was really interesting. It also overlooked the swimming pool, which you couldn't see because of the funny windows lol.

The return trip was fine as well - we left early as we were being attacked by horse flies and couldn't stand it anymore lol, so got to the border post around 11 / 12pm and went through without a problem again. So once again my passport is sorted for the moment and I can then move on to applying for my next visa. Once back in Windhoek we spent the evening with Dru and Silke - they have such a cute little house and the most gorgeous kitten - Bundy. It was really nice to be able to chill and watch movies and do nothing with them and get an early night. Bundy played until he was exhausted i think then KO'd, but was up and down through the night, on and off and on and off lol. He is gorgeous.

Monday morning I got up early and sat chatting to Dru and Silke about the gardens and plans, until we got ready to leave, stopped by Vicky and Tiaan to fetch the drive, and then hit the road home. Did some banking when we got here and spent the rest of the day chilling at home and watching movies. Got an early night and am meant to be fresh and full of energy this morning ... although I don't seem to be ...

Namibia

Well, it has been quite some time since I was last here. So long in fact, that I am not sure of where to begin or what to write. But seeings as I am so bored and have nothing better to do, I may as well give it a shot.

I am now in Namibia, threw the British passport to the wind and decided to do something crazy - which may very well backfire on me badly lol, but hey, if you don't try you will never know, so here I am trying it out, and it's not easy, but definitely worth the shot.

I flew in on November 20th, 2008. A date to remember really. I have been here ever since, fighting for visa's and passport stamps, as that has been much more difficult to arrange that I expected, but hopefully soon now. Then when I can work and get my life together I think it will be a very different story. At the moment boredom is a major problem!!

It has been an interesting six months, although I am now quite lazy and accustomed to doing my own thing, so it might be hard to get back into working again. Hopefully once I have my visa then I will be able to start my own business and do something worthwhile that will keep me busy and that I can have some fun with as well. Ideally it would be events, parties, weddings etc, so hold thumbs that life doesn't take another random turn!

Christmas here was not nice, but New Year was great. Easter has just gone, and we had friends from Windhoek stay which was a lot of fun. Spent a lot of time on the beach, and got the backache, neckache, headache, and armache from hell after a day on the motorbike. I don't think I will ever get used to that! So not my thing - they all laughed at me when I said I normally balance there wondering just how many bones will break when I fall off the back and land on the tar ... But it is true! It's scary, and I like my bones in one piece!

We spent most of the weekend eating, I have to admit. Braai after braai, prawns and kingklip at the Walvis Bay Yacht Club, snoek on a fire on the beach, Napolitana ... I have come to the conclusion that my life revolves around food. Speaking of which, I am starving ...

Hope and Ian spent two weeks with us, and it was fantastic. It was great having them, we had an absolute ball, and I hope they did too. We went to the lodge, so got to see a huge amount of the country and saw some fantastic scenery. Sadly, it rained rather a lot, so it wasn't a whole lot different from England- wet and green - but it was still fab. The got to see thunderstorms, unbelievable heat, east wind, the Swakop river coming down, the Zambezi in flood, so all in all, a lot of interesting things.

The Pajero of course spent most of its time breaking down and being unreliable, so is still in the garage after the head blew on the way back from Katima, and when it comes out I will be throwing a match in the tank ... This leads to the story of having to load the Toyota to the brim, piling in, and driving 600 km's in a car that didn't have brakes, handbrake, speedometer, windscreen wipers, spare tyres - oh wait, then we had a blow out - and of course the battery didn't work so we had to push start it countless times (and thanks to Pio, push start it with the handbrake on ... Luckily it didn't work :-D properly but it did slow us down ) but thanks to Hope we had a laugh a minute so it wasn't that bad. All good fun, and definitely memorable.

Other than that, life is ticking by. It is only 8 months to Christmas, time flies!!! We are off to Botswana for the weekend, so that should be fun, and the weekend after we have Vicky and Tiaan to stay!! Yay!!

Tired

I am bone-tired. All this work is not good for me I don't think! When my alarm went off this morning it seems like it went off for ages, getting louder and louder as I just couldn't wake up, roll over and hit the button. I was in that dead, dead sleep that I just couldn't wake up from, and almost curled up and went back to sleep. If I had done that there would be no way I would be at work at 9am. Not that I want to be at work, I hate the place anyway.

Work yesterday was ok, it seemed to drag a bit, and the girl (Saadia) that I am working with is always great and has a chat and a laugh which makes it much easier. Nothing worse than working with people that you don't like! We chatted about her going off to University in a month and working in a research lab for the next three or four years, all finally ending up with her making a career in either bio-chemsitry research or becoming a lecturer at one of the Uni's. She is so, so clever.

We also discussed New York and how she has been there recently. She blew away my idea of New York though (although I have to admit, my idea of New York comes from all the countless movies I have watched) and she says it is very dirty and the people dress very plainly and there's yellow cabs everywhere. I have this stupid idea in my head of New York being all pretty and clean with fairy lights and styluish people ... pop gies that bubble!! I still want to go though. I want to drive across America, from one side to the other, to see everything that there is to see. I have read the reviews on it and it sounds amazing. So that is another thing on my To-Do List ...

But for the moment it is off to work to get by and pay the bills. Lets just hope that I get on ok today and am not too tired...

Saturday mornings ...

Are the only time I have off right now, so I intend to enjoy them as much as I can! The only problem is I am exhausted. I want to go back to sleep, so why the hell did I wake up at 7:30am on a Saturday and then decide to get up and put the washing in ... I give up. It seems that I will never be able to sleep late, no matter how hard I try.

The piano turned out to be a dud, but it might be worth restoring it, so I am still debating whether I should keep it. It is absolutely shocking that anyone could mistreat a piano so badly - it has been scratched and graffiti'd and abused. So now I need to find someone that will be able to tell me if it is worth keeping or restoring.

So right now, after the week from hell at work, I am going lie in bed and watch a movie and see if I can go back to sleep!

Piano!!

Well, yesterday was my first day back at work and I managed to stick it out for the whole day. It hurt like hell. It felt like I had a migraine all in one eye by the time I got home. But, sadly, being a mere temp (be it for Audi Press or no) not only do I get paid shockingly badly, I don't get paid for any time off at all. I kind of need the money!!!

Luckily, I have half day today for which I am actually upset as again, money means a lot when you have none, but I have to go for doctors appointments today. 1st one is at 9am with the regular doctor and then there is the eye specialist at 11:15 am and then I can go back to work.

Not that I can drive yet, my poor Mum is being my chauffeur. I can't stand this, this life thing is a nightmare. I feel like my legs have been chopped off. Well, I guess my eye has really. Its still full of blood, its still bruised around the eye, it still looks awful. I don't think it has improved at all looks-wise and the vision has only gotten better slightly. Hopefully the doc will be able to tell me how much longer this is going to curse my life for before improving.

But, on the bright side, I was given a grand piano the day of my op last week and had a mad panic to get it into storage and find someone that would take delivery when I wasn't there and so on and so forth. It was a completely mad morning, but there, I arranged it, and I have a grand piano waiting for me in a container. Today I get to go and see my poor dismantled piano in its container (they had to take the legs off to get it in) and decide what to do with it.

I have wanted a Grand Piano all of my life, so I am hoping that this is in good condition and that I will be able to keep it until I can find somewhere to put it. Which might be difficult going forward as you need a set of double doors to get it into any house.

So wish me luck, lets hope that I can keep my piano!!!

OUCH!!!!!!!

On Thursday I had an operation to correct a squint on my left eye. It wasn't a bad squint, only when I looked to the right did it become noticeable, but I thought that as my double-vision had just been getting worse over time I had better get it corrected. Also, once that has been sorted, I will also be free to go for my laser eye correction so that I can see clearly!

So I had to be at the hospital before 11:30am, and so I got there on time, as always. What they didn't tell me was that I was only going in that afternoon ... so from 11:30am to 2:30pm my Mum and I sat there like lemons. Eventually, just as I was losing my temper, they decided that it was time to take me down to the theatre to knock me out. So off i went, in one of those stupid little gowns with knee-high DVT socks, looking oh-so attractive.

I haven't been knocked out since I had my tonsils out when I was about 6, so it was almost like a first for me anyhow. It was freezing down there so they gave me two blankets luckily lol, and then stuck the little pads on my chest and the other thingy on my finger and finally the anaesthetist came in and knocked me out. I remember him saying to me "You'll soon feel all at one with the world" and I laughed back and said that I could feel it. That was the last thing I remember.

When I woke up it bloody hurt, I was dying of thirst and no matter how hard I tried there was no way I could wake up. they gave me water - there was someone sitting next to my bed, and the blood pressure machine was going on and off on my arm. Then they wanted to out drops in my eye and that bloody hurt like hell. I so can't handle pain at the best of times so this didn't go well at all - I bet they thought I was a complete pussy.

Back on the ward I finally woke up properly and asked what the time was to find out that it was 6:30pm or something around there. I almost had a heart attack as all I wanted to do was go home, so then made a conscious effort to wake up. I had a cup of tea and ate 8 biscuits in a row - the nurses must have thought I was a complete pig. I then sent Mom to the shop to buy me sweets and crisps, which I ate as well. I then felt sick.

It was then I had my first heart attack - my eye was patched up and I was all dosed up so wasn't really feeling anything. But then I felt the eye tearing and it was running down my cheek so I wiped just under the eye pad and there was blood all over the tissue, which gave me a minor heart-attack. The nurse quickly came over and said it was ok, it was normal, and stuck the pad back down so I couldn't get to it. He was lovely.

He also then told me if I didn't get up and move they would keep me overnight - I jumped up, went to the loo, got dressed, and carried on eating my sweets waiting for him to come and clean out my eye and give me the meds, which he did around 7pm. It was some time later before I stumbled out of the hospital, still half-drugged, and went home to Hope's cottage pie.

Friday was the worst I think. the double vision was really bad, the eye was aching. I eventually went to lie down and stayed down for a couple of hours watching Angel on my laptop, still in bed in my pj's. I finally remembered that I needed to put my drops in and so got up, thinking that my eye was feeling funny. When I looked in the mirror I almost died. The far corner of my left eye was full of blood and there was blood on my cheek running out the eye. I freaked. i have never seen anything that freaky in my life.

I phoned my mother and then the hospital as I had no idea what was going on and it was kind of terrifying. The hospital said to apply pressure to stop the bleeding and if it kept on bleeding then to phone back in an hour. I duly did this but it was freaky. The white of my eye was swollen with blood and with the swelling and the blood pushing against my pupil the double-vision was getting worse, so eventually we took a drive back to the hospital.

The doctor there said that it was a burst blood vessel and the blood had collected in my eye as it does in a bruise and that it would take quite some time to go away. Last night I slept flat on my back the whole night as I was too scared to sleep on my side in case it bled more, it was kind of a horrible feeling.

Today has been up and down. My eye is still full of blood and looks like something out of a horror movie, and I am still struggling with double vision and feeling very tired. Because of the double vision its kind of like I am drunk, keep bouncing off walls. Its like a headache in my eye that eventually spreads to the rest of my head by the end of the day. I can only hope that it will be better by Tuesday when I go back to work, as I may not have a job to go to.

I'm Sad

So much for all the plans and the big ideas that I had to go back to Africa. Turns out my boyfriend prioritises alcohol and his friends more than me, so I have called it quits as I cannot take the stress of it anymore. Its just not fair at all. Why does it have to be so shit.

On top of that I am going for an eye operation today, so between these two things I am really kind of nervous and upset. I hate hospitals. Anyways ... off I go ... wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!!

Back to Reality

Talk about coming back down to earth with a very hard thump.

Yesterday I started back at Paragon, where I worked before I left to go Namibia. I popped in last week to say hi to everyone and was still debating whether I wanted a job when I was offered one. I needed the money and so I took it. So I work at the little village shop on Saturdays and Sundays and then in the office Monday to Friday.

I used to work for Nissan Press, and the job I have now been given is Audi Press, so its a lot more hectic than what I was doing before and just not what I want. Audi is all very exciting as its all celebs and royalty and journalists, but really, its not for me anymore. The only good thing I can say is that for the moment it is only as a temp til mid October. Hopefully by then I will be sorted out enough to leave and get on with my life.

Well, I say get on with my life, but due to various circumstances my boyfriend and I do nothing but fight and currently aren't talking. I just give up. Its all just a pile of shit and I am sick of it.

Sunday's

Sunday's are meant to be lazy days, the days where you lie in bed and chill, watch movies with the one that you love, cuddle all day, and rest. It was only since meeting my man that I learnt what it is like to have these kinds of Sunday's, as for me Sunday was always the day to finish the housework, catch up with the family, run around like a mad thing and get the shopping done - things like that. And then we met.

Now, my Sunday's are my days of rest. To do as little as possible, to watch the day go by in a dream and not do anything. Unfortunately, I now work on Sunday's and am really wondering what I am going to do with myself at work when i know half he country is sitting on their butts at home.

Today wasn't that bad. There are a lot of cheerful people that come in and out of the shop, you get to have chat to most of them, you get to laugh at others. There was this fabulous black woman that came in this morning and asked for a pack of condoms - I had to ask her then which particular kind she wanted as we had two. She was quite amazed that we actually stocked two types of condoms and came to lean over the counter to inspect them. She then asked the difference at the top of her voice, completely at ease, and I had to point out to her that one was ultra-fine and the other was dotted for extra pleasure. Needless to say, with shrieks of laughter she took the dotted ones!

I have just realised that I need to specify what kind of shop I work in after that encounter as I am sure people will by now be raising their brows - it is a village corner shop that sells everything from the above mentioned condoms to milk and pizza. These are the kind of encounters that make the day go by so much easier - although we definitely get our fair share of grumpy old gits. One made me very angry today and I eventually was just rude to her - my patience with stupid people only extends so far ...

So there go my peaceful, tranquil, lazy days .... So long, farewell, auf weidersehen goodbye .....