Merry Christmas

Well, I thought in the spirit of it all I'd wish all my friends, family and anyone else who happens to read this a very merry Christmas, whatever your faith or denomination may be. I wish all of you a time of joy, love and fellowship.

That aside, I'm suffering the Cape Town heat and trying to decided whether the torrential rain in Johannesburg would make a nice alternative? As an ex-Capetonian I do have a high tolerance for pissing rain, and in fact, I actually rather enjoy it much of the time, provided it doesn't last toooo long (a week) and isn't tooo cold (below 19 degrees C) and preferably when it's over a holiday so I can appreciate it from my bed.

None-the-less the days have been lovely here and I can't wait till the three day family rigmarole is over so I can actually show my boyfriend something of the place!

Despite this, he has been well amused by the vehicle's driven by the younger more testosterone filled members of the Cape Flats population. Whooo wee. It's bad.

Out, out damn spot!

Whoa! Not cool!

I just go stuck three times with a needle in a hunt for veins.

This is partially my own fault. I'm due to donate blood and I didn't want the nice lady Doctor to use the convenient vein I donate from since this will prevent me from donating for an indeterminate period. So after the one I used to use gave no joy she tried the back of my right hand - the veins there being fairly thick and promenant. No joy there either.

(And blimey but does a needle in the hand hurt, both during insertion and afterward.)

Finally we gave up and used the easy one. And boy, did it gush!

I was a little tense after this, but mostly fine. I had enough cute snowmen and candy-cane plasters to make make me look like a chistmas tree and a cool story to make my office mates squirm.

However I was halfway out of Sandton (Daarling) when I noticed that the plaster was feeling a little cool and soggy. I put my hand to it and looked down at my studdenly damp hand to find my fingers squelched with blood.

A brief second of panic and I rummaged in my bag-of-many-things for a tissue. That seen-too I hit upon using my stretchy, beaded bracelets as a make-shift touniquette and I walked to the parking pay-machine feeling now somewhat shaken and a little embarrased.

It's become such a total taboo these days to bleed. Blood has always had a power over the imagination, but ever since HIV and AIDs has become the modern-day bogey man blood has become something to shy from like a poison serpent or a spray of acid.

While I know I'm clean - the re-proving of that being the mission of the day on command from my insurance brokers - the man in the, er, mall doesn't and I'm behoven to try my best not to get blood well, anywhere really.

That said the royal-we are all fine now... except the hand which pulls occasionally as I type. Gym's going to be so much fun!

Call of the dark-side!

I am gradually working toward completing my transformation from chronically uncertain and responsibility-lacking post-teen to moderately-slack pseudo-yuppie.

The step completed yesterday was to sign up for a gym contract with the joys of Discovery Vitality. Cheap contracts! Yay!

Seeing that within limits, I actually like exercise, I don't think going twice a month to keep the contract active will be too difficult. Plus Tony and his friend Brett started going to the gym twice a week and I'm going to join them on Mondays from now on. I'll probably aim to go on my own at other times, especially since I get equal access to 2 other Virgin Actives in the area. I like gymming in the morning, but I don't know that I can face the 5am wake up to do it... not yet at least, maybe if I get addicted...

Meanwhile I've been making friends with Liz, my new physio - since Lala is a little far away. She's been trying to sort out my groin muscles and ankle. Strangely it's the ankle that providing the greatest trouble. It's been 6 weeks since the grading and it's still very unhappy. Admittedly, I did manage to twist it twice after the grading, once very badly 4 days after, and then a mild twist more recently. They booby-trapped me as I was exiting the physio by washing the tiled ramp that comes up to the front door - and there's no second option of stairs...

Next things on the list are, of course, to move out to which purpose Tony and I are currently collecting usefulls. We bought some really nice, matching wine glasses and tumblers this weekend and a Morphy Richards microwave in brushed steel last weekend. This weekend we might invest in the matching apple-red kettle and toaster we saw while shopping for said microwave.

Then once all that is over, I need to start saving for a new car!