January mutterings

The weather has been quite strange; forecast tells us sunny, it turns out grey. Forecast tells us grey and dull, it turns out scorching! But in general it is pretty good I must say and I am sure it is better than in Scotland at present! I have been preparing for our visitors; David and Jen arrive on Sunday 20th, it will be great to see them both again. Then on Sunday 3rd Feb, Janie and Peter arrive! So I might not be blogging for a while as I try out my tourist guide skills!
We haven’t been out and about much since Les went back to work. I bought some things for the gym; what a waste of money! I went to a recommended shop for the yoga mat as mine is still in Scotland. Then I spotted one for less than half the price three days later! But worse still I bought “aquasocks” for the water aerobics and I was a slippin and a slidin all over the place in them. I thought it might improve when I got in the water, but it was worse! I ended up in my bare feet. I was so mad to have spent the money on such a pile of rubbish! But I am enjoying the classes so much! I now go three times a week to water aerobics and have met some really nice ladies there, we went for coffee today and are planning to “do lunch” on Thursday. There are about fourteen ladies “of a certain age” in the class; three of them are Scottish and two are English, isn’t that amazing? One of them has a sister who lives near my sister in law’s holiday home in Dunoon. What a small world.
I had a great meeting last week with another librarian, so hopefully we will get some links up and running between our schools once her term gets under way.
We have a satellite TV system much like Sky, called DSTV. I can even get Extreme Makeover Home Edition much to Les disappointment. We keep up to date with the UK news on Sky News and often watch BBC Prime which shows things like “New Tricks” and “Prime Suspect” The local stations are OK but some broadcast in Afrikaans and some in Xhosa or Zulu so we need to pick and choose. The new hot favourite here is a comedy series called “The Coconuts”. It’s about a white family with a black domestic worker who have a spell cast on them so that they turn black and she turns white… Not very politically correct for UK but perfectly acceptable and getting rave reviews here! We also watched part of a drama all about a village girl who gets into trouble with her family because she wants to marry a man who is not a member of the same church as her family. It lasted three hours. We were brain dead after the first thirty minutes so sad to say I cannot tell you the outcome. But if it is ever repeated…There is also a lot of American TV such as CSI, Nip Tuck, Desperate Housewives and so on.
Tomorrow the painters are coming to repaint the entertainment area as the owner is putting furniture in there for us for our visitors. She doesn’t think the current colour will go with the furniture so it is to be redone. The furniture is scheduled to arrive on Friday but that could mean Saturday or even Sunday, the day D&J get here! She has bought a three piece suite (so we will have three suites in total!!) and an 8 seater table and chairs (so we can seat 16 plus 6 outside). She also replaced the garden fountain today. One of the pots had been leaking and Les had a great time emptying it, patching the crack, painting it and filing it. Honestly, it kept him busy for about five days at the New Year, it was great. But she wasn’t happy that we had had the hassle and took it all back to the suppliers. She has ordered a new one but said as we were having guests she needed another immediately, so they have lent her a huge bowl with a nude lady pouring water from a jug. Hmm. The original was quite tasteful, a series of square pots with pipes dribbling water down into a low pebble pond. Hopefully the new permanent one will resemble that rather than something from a Tuscan villa! Now I need to find something else for Les to potter with to keep him out of my way at evenings and weekends!