On Sabbatical in Sandton Gets a Makeover

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I have been wanting to give this blog an extreme makeover for some time now, but every time I tried, the scary back-end of WordPress kicked my butt. Finally, I decided to get help from an expert who does not consider herself an expert but who knows WAAAAAY more than I do. Thanks to a crash course over lunch last week from the gorgeous Blair, I (we) managed to overhaul the look and feel of On Sabbatical in Sandton. I would’ve announced this last week, but Blair and I were baffled by some font issue which my genius friend Richard (one of those clever people who can read and write code) managed to fix. Thanks, Rich! When you want a pretty blog, it’s clearly not what you know, but who you know…

The part of the new look I’m most excited about is the part at the top right hand side of the home page, where you can enter your e-mail address to receive new blog posts via e-mail. Personally, I only manage to follow blogs if I get them direct to my Inbox, so I was dying to add this feature in case any of my readers are exactly like me in that sense.

But now, on to even more exciting things. Like shoes. Check out these super sexy red puppies I picked up at an open day in Bryanston last week:

Melissa Shoes

The picture barely does them justice. They have a tiny little peep toe in the front, where admirers of the shoes can just, at a certain angle, catch a glimpse of the wearer’s latest pedicure. I’ve yet to test them out on a shopping run, but am hoping that because they’re wedges, they’ll hold up more than the 4 minutes I can last in stilettos. Will report back…

On the dieting front, I’ve pretty much stuck to the Food Fascist’s eating plan for six out of the last seven days, so we’ll see what the Weight Watcher’s scale says on Tuesday. This, however, is what The Princess thinks of the regime:

Weight Watchers book gets restructured by The Princess

Speaking of The Princess, we’ve just started looking around at playschools for her for next year. I can’t frigging believe it but the playschool down the road is FULL and I’m enquiring seven months in advance. I know for primary schools, you need to put your kids name down when the little spermatozoids start swimming, but frick, this is frigging playschool, for goodness sake and it sounds like we should have put down an unconfirmed name for her there while I was pregnant. So now I have to start looking further afield… I went to see one playschool a few kilometres away last week and I confess that I actually burst into tears at the sight of two little, holding hands with their little, uber miniature Barbie backpacks on their backs, walking hesitantly into the school gate as their mommy dropped them off. I just can’t believe that might be my baby next year!

Anyhoo, I need to sign off now. I ate all my food allowance in sushi at 5pm this eve (The Husband tried to steal one of my california rolls that I’d painstakingly counted out – he nearly got a chopstick in his eyeball for that) and I’m now basically starving, so I need to get to bed before The Husband’s 400g Toblerone attacks me and shoves its creamy self down my throat.

PS: If you love my red Melissa Shoes, check out their Facebook page (Melissa Shoes South Africa) or click here to find out how to get yourself a pair.

Man Cannot Live By Chocolate Alone

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This is a magnet I’ve had on my fridge for years. I’m starting to think it may have been subliminally fuelling my love of chocolate…

It’s Monday today, which means my new diet starts today. (If I had R1 for every Monday that I intended to start a diet, I would be a bazillionaire.)

I think I need to change this slogan. I need a little inspiration from Little Britain’s Marjorie Dawes, the delightful Group Leader of her local Fat Fighters club. Here’s a quote from the rather voluptous Ms Dawes, who is trying to introduce her members to a new, zero calorie food substitute:

“Dust. Anybody? No. High in fat? Low in fat? Dust…It’s actually very low in fat. You can have as much dust as you like.”

Awesome. New motto:

MAN CANNOT LIVE BY DUST ALONE BUT NATALIE CAN

Granted, about a month and a half ago while I was standing on the Weight Watcher’s scale, holding my breath, sucking in my cheeks, wearing a dress so light it could be mistaken for a nightie… I had officially lost 10 kilograms since 22 July 2011. And yes, I remember that fateful day in July when I stepped onto the Weight Watchers scale and told the Group Leader that her scale was definitely broken as there was no way in hell that THAT number represented my weight.

But since the happy 10kg loss I have backslid somewhat a gained a kilo or so. Now, my goal of losing millions of kilos before leaving for New York on 25 May is no longer possible. Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re stuffing your face?

The Husband’s cycling buddy went on one of those insane diets where you lose like 5 kilos in 15 seconds. You know – those lovely diets where you inject yourself, eat two steamed peas for breakfast, drink a putrifying shake for lunch and snack on dust, air and your own saliva. She lost 5 kilos in two weeks, to be precise and went on to lose 14kg over three months. I know I should be happy for her but I am absolutely GREEN with envy. I decided drastic action was required.

So I checked out her diet and was really keen for a split second, but I’m just not big on jabbing myself daily like a druggie. And The Husband has been known to pass out at the sight of needles, so he’d be no help with my morning stabs. I also have an absolute abhorrence for shakes. Five months of Herbalife in first year varsity means I cannot stomach the smell of a shake – milkshakes aside, obviously. Five months of liquid for breakfast, liquid for supper. (The Herbalife plan allowed you to splash out and eat solids for lunch – YEEHA!). Of course I lost a fortune of weight but the minute I ate solids again – even just a freaking toasted sandwich now and then – I packed on the weight.

So that put paid to the 14kg in five minutes cycling diet, tempting as it was, seeing the results in the flesh.

I then voraciously consumed Tim Noakes’ theory which states that a high protein/ low carb intake is the business. But The Husband’s uber lean cycling friend who lives off things like chickpeas, lentils, wheat free Bircher muesli and fruit (and has body fat of about 7%), told me it was a bad idea. I trust thin, healthy people, so I took his word for it.

Okay, so then I checked out Dr Dukan’s diet on-line (“five million French people can’t be wrong”) but then I remembered reading a blog post last year by Mushy Peas on Toast. She started on Atkins, lost 2kg in a month, decided it was B.S and moved on to the Dukan Diet. Dukan is the diet that Tim Noakes implies Elizabeth Hurley got Fatboy Shane Warne onto. (Apparently Shane Warne is now looking rather ripped, but clearly I’m behind the times because I thought Liz Hurley was married to a Pakistani cricketer – can’t keep up with these celebs).

Anyhoo, so “Peas” from Mushy Peas on Toast tried Dukan with her colleague. Here’s what her colleague said about the experience:

Eating only skinless chicken breasts for 3 days made (me) go on a weekend binge fest that involved making love to vatfuls of cake.

Not ideal. With all the kiddie birthday parties The Princess get invited to I am confronted by alarmingly yummy butter icing cup-cakes. Mmmm.

So I scrapped the idea of the Dukan diet. I then got obsessed by a diet that my new mommy friend from down the road told me about: Healthpoint. I was ultra keen until a Google search revealed that this is an Amway product. I am not buying YET another diet. If I could get back all the money I have spent on diets and pills and shakes over the years, I’d also be a bazillionaire. So there went Healthpoint.

I then walked past the dieticians in Atholl Square and their first opening was this Thursday. Are you kidding me? No ways. First of all, you can’t start a diet on a Friday and second of all, this is freaking urgent, people!!!

Then I remembered a dietician I used to go to years ago. When she first handed me her diet plan I asked if she was trying to kill me. I later discovered that a friend of mine was also seeing her. She was referring to her as The Food Fascist and that set off a recognition trigger in my brain – OMG! Same girl! Aptly named, I have to say. Nonetheless, her very spartan diet did actually work, so I figured I’m going to do a combinantion of Weight Watchers and The Food Fascist’s diet and I’m going to go to my weekly Tuesday weigh-ins at Weight Watchers just so that I have an affordable policeman involved. There’s something about stepping onto the scale under the watchful eye of someone else, that can actually alter behaviour…

On The Food Fascist Diet I get to eat the following: (it’s so spartan, I can actually type it up for you in like 10 seconds).

BREAKFAST: half a cup of cereal with milk, 1 small fruit

LUNCH: 1 tin of tuna OR 2 eggs OR 2 small chicken breasts AND 2 teaspoons of margarine

SNACK: (Yeeha! I thought she’d outlawed snacking): 100ml Activia yoghurt OR 1 small fruit

SUPPER: same as lunch but can substitute with two hand size portions of fish

Veg (and dust) are free, but the good stuff like butternut and pumpkin are limited to one serving spoon full, so there goes my favourite butternut and avo salad from Tasha’s where they give you like half a butternut…

When I did The Food Fascist’s Diet in 2008, I lost 3.8kg in two weeks but I’ll settle for 3kg in 18 days. I’ll worry about the other 5kg post New York when I plan to drink my body weight in cocktails on top of the Empire State building or wherever it is that New York people drink cocktails. Everywhere – if The Sister’s stories are anything to go by.

Sounds like a plan.

Diets are always good in the planning stage.

Fortunately for my master plan, we had date night at DW Eleven-13 this Saturday night – i.e. BEFORE the commencement of The Food Fascist Diet. Oh my greatness, the food was amazing. And original. Normally, I am not a big fan of original and experimental. I like the food I know and like and I want it to taste GOOD. And I don’t want teeny, tiny French sized portions. And that’s what I like about DW. The overall cuisine and influence I would call French but the portions are Saffer size. Not ridiculously huge, but substantial. No room for dessert and side orders if you have a starter and a main which is just how I like it.

Plus, even though the chef and restaurant have won awards they are completely not up their own arses. They are so NICE – it’s really refreshing. When you call to see if they can squeeze you in last minute, they try their best. They don’t scoff and clear their throats and condescendingly tell you to call two weeks in advance.

Divine, divine up-market, fine dining restaurant. I highly recommend it.

Right folks, with the distant memory of DW‘s lamb and porcini lasagne, I’m off to measure out my half cup of All Bran. Eighteen days and counting…

The Princess & Her Playgrounds

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The Father Figure has made friends with the six year old daughter of the owners of his favourite coffee shop in Prince Albert. Her name is Katie. The other day, Katie came bounding over to show him her new pet hamster.

“Where’s his friend, Katie?” the Father Figure wanted to know.

“He doesn’t have one,” replied Katie. “He’s a loner.”

The point of this very sweet story is that we had a resident mouse whom I’m really hoping was a loner too… About a week ago, I thought I spied something scurrying around in the garage. A few days later, the sight of a dark mouse against the kitchen’s cream, travertine, could not be disputed. The Pied Piper was called in and that afternoon, our housekeeper reported a twitching, whimpering Mickey, behind the fridge. Mickey duly went in search of water outside and so, kindly passed on in the garden, but I am just holding thumbs that he operated alone…

Last week was a week of home maintenance and besides getting pest control, I also booked a household carpet clean. Clint, the owner of the business saw our giant canvas of The Princess in the living room and said:

“She’s gorgeous! You’re so lucky to have a little girl. I only have boys.”

“How many?” I politely asked.

I was expecting an answer of two, perhaps three.

“Five,” came the reply.

Wow! Five children!

“We really tried for a girl.”

No kidding, Clint!

“And how old are your boys?” I asked.

“Eight, seven, six, five and three.”

Wow, wow and wow again. Apparently, at one stage he could fit all five of them in a trolley and was somewhat of a celebrity in his native suburb of Boksburg. Not surprising!

Naturally, a few hours after Superman with Five Kids had transformed all our carpets, The Princess decided to crouch down and have a wee. I have warned The Husband that he needs to be pronto about putting her nappy on when she gets out of the bath, but he says she’s so funny to watch, running around naked and showing off in her birthday suit. So, it was really only a matter of time before we had a weeing episode after the bath.

This past long weekend, The Husband went off to Mpumalanga to ride in a four-day stage race and so The Mother Figure flew up to keep The Princess & I company. Over the the past five days, we have been discovering playgrounds across Jozi. At thirteen months and walking, it’s such an exciting time seeing her beginning to climb and slide and crawl through tunnels. Here’s where we’ve been and what we though of each of them:

Mushroom Farm Park (bordered by Daisy & Linden Roads in central Sandton):

Only a few weeks ago, an afternoon visit to Mushroom Farm Park (behind the Radisson Hotel, where the unsightly Hyandai balloon is parked) was not all that eventful. Now, since she’s grown in confidence, she crawls through the swinging barrel and has an absolute ball with the other kids in the giant sandpit. Mushroom Farm is a lovely, central spot with a pristine playground and feels very safe in the afternoons and at weekends when it always seems to be busy. A coffee shop for the mommies would be nice, though. Not a bad idea to take along a bucket and spade and/or a ball/ and or a scooter/ car etc.

Grand Central & other spots on the Melrose Arch piazza

On Friday afternoon, The Mother Figure and I took The Princess and her Barbie car to Grand Central on the Melrose Arch piazza. There are usually plenty of other kids zooming around there on various forms of transport and you do need to look out for speeding older kids. The road is also deceptively close, but far enough that if your child sticks more towards the centre of the piazza and you keep an eye out, you could dash after them if they started heading in that direction. The Princess ran into a crawling little boy from her Clamber Club class who was most interested in her Barbie car, as was another little girl there. The Princess was having absolutely none of it and guide her pink pride and joy with her life, swatting away and violently shouting at, anyone who came near it. Sharing is not caring, at thirteen months!

The Garden Shop nursery in Bryanston

This is a good spot for the entertainment of plant-loving grannies, as well as toddlers. There are heaps and heaps of jungle gyms and sandpits. The only snag is that only one section of the playground is next to the coffee shop and there are so many pathways amongst the flowers to explore, it’s very tempting for little ones who’ve just become mobile, to run amok, so be sure you are energised before heading out there.

Delta Park‘s playground in Victory Park

This is HEAVEN for toddlers and parents of toddlers. We went with friends for a picnic on Sunday afternoon and it was very busy, but there was still more than enough space for everyone. The ideal is to set up camp near the playground, which we’ll definitely do next time. Besides the fact that there is a ton of play equipment, what’s also great is that there are little mini slides and other things for babas who have only just started walking and climbing. The Princess had an absolute ball. She couldn’t get enough of the baby slide and I think just loved the excitement of being surrounded by so many kids having so much fun. At one point, we were standing at the top of the slide behind a seated kid who must have been at least five years old. He was taking ages to slide down because he was waiting for his mother to come over and watch him. The Princess thought this absolute nonsense so she decided to push him. Luckily the weight of her little 10kg body can’t budge a five year old, else we would’ve hand one irate older kid on our hands.

Bambanani Restaurant in Mellville

If Bambanani hadn’t come so highly recommended, I think I would have continued to avoid Mellville for the next seven years. It feels like an area that used to be cool and trendy when you were partying until all hours in your twenties, but in the light of day, in your thirties, it looks…er… less cool. Once inside Bambanani, however, you forget that you’re in dodgy Mellville. We went straight to the play area at the back of the restaurant. The Princess thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Baby slides, toys, mats, baths of balls, things to climb, dolls’ houses, you name it. What I love about Bambanani’s play area is that it’s totally enclosed so you feel as though your child is safe and you can relax, without worrying that they’ll wander off. There are also numerous, wonderful childminders who are on hand to help, while you eat, sip your cappuccino or glass of wine. We didn’t eat but I’ve also heard that the food is actually good – very unusual for a kiddie spot. I just wish it wasn’t so far from Sandton although it’s definitely worth the drive.

Serendipity in Rosebank

The Princess’ very runny nose stopped us from heading to Serendipity yesterday. The last time we went there, The Princess was only ten months old, so I am dying to see how she responds to all the play equipment when we head there tomorrow.

And that, dear readers, sums up our action-packed girls weekend. More fabulous playspots will be added to the list as and when The Princess and I discover them.

Natalie xxx

Wall Art & Hump Back…er…Whales?

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I came across a curious sight just in front of me during a Zumba class the other day. It was a clothing label on the backside of a woman working out in front of me, right in my line of vision. Even as we bopped up and down to impossibly wiggly Brazilian moves, I was able to make out the words:

“HUMP BACK”

Someone needs to tell the developers of that brand that unless one looks like Elle McPherson, one can feel just a teensy bit self-conscious of one’s body in the gym – the place where one would be likely to be wearing one’s Hump Back gym gear. I mean, if anyone said to me…

“Quick! Complete the phrase: hump back… what?”

…I don’t know about you but I’d be really hard-pressed not to say “whale!” Exactly what you want to feel like in a pair of butt hugging, spandex, work out pants.

Speaking of gym, I am working up the nerve to enroll The Princess in the baby care centre at Virgin Active, for those long Saturday mornings and early afternoons when I am a cycling widow. I don’t imagine it’s going to go down at all well with The Princess so that’s why I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to do it, but I’m working on it internally…

Speaking of The Princess, I know this is not only shallow but also cheesy… but I am constantly in awe of how exquisite she is. Sigh. And I’m not the only one. On Thursday, at Clamber Club, a great big 10 month old boy bounded over to her on all fours. She was one of four girls in the group and this “little” (he looks like a mini rugby prop and weighs in at a whopping 12kg at only 10 months) made a bee-line for The Princess. Catching up with him, his mommy whispered to me that he’d gone for the prettiest of all the girls. Double sigh. The pride… I know beauty is only skin deep etc, etc, but there’s something about porcelain skinned babies and their big smiles. Or perhaps there’s something about one’s own baby. Possibly, it’s the latter, but I’m going to soak it up for now anyway. I’m going to sound about 90 years old now, but when I see teenagers, I often marvel at how so many of them make themselves oh-so hideous with their badly dyed hair and their bad, bad, bad outfits.  It makes me feel very much entitled to stare at my beautiful, peaches-and-cream baby in her frilly pink and white outfits for the time being.

On another topic, I am by no means an Arts & Crafts Mom, so you won’t find too many pics of beautiful Etsy-inspired handmade baby items on this blog. I admire anyone who has the time, skill and above all, the creativity for these things. For those moms like me who can’t create themselves, there is a wonderful decor aid out there for us: vinyl wall art.

I ordered the wall art for The Princess’ nursery on-line, from Lara, the owner of Cape Town-based Pink and Posh. Here’s what it looked like on her wall:

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to stick down the fine lines of the bird cages perfectly – I should have asked one of my artsy, crafty friends for help. You need lots of attention to detail and you can’t be impatient when it comes to wall art with thin, dainty lines. If you’re like me and have messy cupboards, you’re super impatient you have no attention to detail, go for thicker, more solid wall art options. Like this design which I successfully stuck to The Princess’ other wall, also from Pink and Posh:

And these butterflies which I recently picked up from The Flower Spot/ The Party Spot in Woodmead to replace the finicky, bird cage wall art which I ruined:

 

So, these are my artsy/ crafty tips for the week… or maybe the month.

And now, for the words that only a South African stay-at-home mom would ever say: “Yay, yay, it’s MONDAY!” (i.e. a clean home and assistance with child-care).

Travel Blunders & Really Bad Regrowth

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I made a SERIOUS travel blunder this Easter. I was convinced we were on the 14:35 Kulula flight to George on Good Friday. I had this in my head because we had originally planned to take that flight but the price had sky-rocketed overnight, so we chose 13:00 1Time flight instead. I just forgot about the latter. And so we arrived at the Kulula desk at 13:05 – 90 minutes before the flight’s departure, like good citizens.

I had a sinking feeling when I heard: “Um, m’am, do you have your booking code because I can’t seem to find your reservation on our system.” I just had a hunch that I had colossally screwed up. A frantic search of my e-mails revealed the truth.

CR*************************P!!!!

One of the busiest travel periods of the year and we were at the airport sans a flight to The Parents-in-Law in George.

Miraculously, there were still seats to be bought on “our” 14:35 Kulula flight – at a very yummy price, of course. I felt nauseous, despite the fact that The Husband was very, very sweet about my monumental screw up.

Then came a potentially positive twist in this nauseating tale. I was scanned the TV screens to figure out whether our flight was boarding yet, when I happened upon an unusual term: “indefinite delay”. It was attached to the 1Time flight we’d actually originally booked and paid for. A quick call to the call centre confirmed that we would almost certainly be granted a refund for “indefinite delays”. (I sent the refund form a few days ago and have yet to see the moola but I’m remaining optimistic).

While we’re on the topic of the airport, there’s a particular bathroom stall door ad that I always see there and it kills me every time. It’s this one:

What really kills me is this: look at the model’s hair. Every single time I see, I can’t help but think: “Honey, with the money you’ll be saving on car insurance, please, for the love of God, go and get your roots done!!!”

I mean, could they not find a model who had been to the hairdresser more recently? Or were they trying to be so authentic that women would relate to the end of month hair roots syndrome so hectically they’d immediately want to save money on car premiums?

On the topic of airports AND travel blunders, we had barely landed in George when it dawned on my that (with a little bit of help from The Husband), I had stuffed up once again. We’d decided to drive to OR Tambo and leave our car there on Good Friday. The only snag was that, in three days time, our flight from George was landing at Lanseria… How long does preggy brain last? I’m sure I never used to be this dumb or scatty…

For now, I’m blaming it all on delerium brought on by lack of sleep. I want my night nurse back. Since Margie left us, I have been wandering around like a zombie, feeling, for the most part, barely alive. I suppose, on the plus side, I could have been feeling like that for ten and a half more months. Now I simply have delayed onset.

Things have very much been looking up, however, over the past four or five days. For ages now, The Princess’ preferred waking time has been around 5am. There were even days when my cell phone read: 04:53 or something similar with a 04 in front. Not pretty. But in the past few days she’s been waking up at 06:00, 06:15, 6:20. What a difference that hour or hour and a bit. At 5am I feel drunk, hungover, half-dead, wanting to cry from fatigue. In short, it feels like night-time. At 6am I feel alive and somehow, just one hour later, it feels like daytime. Dawn, perhaps, but still daytime. Long may it last!

Before I sign off, I wanted to share an amazing deal with all the mommies of babas under two. Since we stopped wrapping The Princess up in a tight, stretchy blanket for the night, she couldn’t keep her blankets on and would wake up cold in the middle of the night. Then The Mother-in-Law gave her a Baby Kaboosh, arms-free sleeping bag. It has been the absolute answer. I wanted to get a second one so I went online to www.babykaboosh.co.za and they’re having a brilliant special for the month of April: buy one spotted or striped “travel bag” (works the same as their sleeping bags) for R300 and get a second one free (worth R300). For Jozi peeps, the 2.5 tog, warmer sleeping bag works from about the beginning of April to around the end of August, else it’s way too hot here. They also have 1 tog sleep sack which is basically the weight of a sheet which I’ve bought to try in summer. Delivery is free door-to-door by courier and only takes around 24 hours, during the week. Here’s a pic from their website to show you what they look like:

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Cheers, everyone. The Princess and I are off to Rosebank to shop, eat sushi and drink baby cino’s.

xxx Natalie

A Liebster Blog Award…Thanks Blairadise

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Yesterday I got a comment from Blair, the fabulous author of Blairadise, to say that she was “spreading some bloggy love” and that she’d given On Sabbatical in Sandton a Liebster Blog Award.

Awesome! Thanks, Blair. Before I say more about the award, let me tell you more about Blair and Blairadise.

Blair is an American girl from North Carolina who fell in love with an Afrikaans boy from Pretoria. They got married and had a baby who was born two days after my birthday and who is two months and one day older than The Princess. I love following her blog, Blairadise, to hear about what’s going on in their lives (Pretoria is so close to Jozi and yet SO far). But besides telling her readers what’s happening in her little family, Blair is also an insatiable, self-confessed Internet-aholic. I aspire to be like her when I grow up. Blair finds EVERYTHING on-line. She shops, she browses, she wins competitions, she gets decor ideas, she downloads party packs. She is my internet hero. My excuse is that in 1996 when I was 17, stuck at boarding school in George and literally didn’t know how to turn on a computer let alone access the internet, Blair would’ve been 14, exposed to the internet boom in the States and the rise of on-line stores and was therefore able to grow up as an internet shopper. I want to be part of the on-line shopping boom, I just feel overwhelmed, don’t know how and don’t know where to begin. But Blair is helping.

For example, I learnt from her that J Crew has started to ship globally and that they’re shipping for free for one month until 30 April – that’s free shipping, free returns and duty free shopping! How cool is that for us, poor deprived shoppers at the southern most tip of Africa? I feel like buying something JUST because the shipping is free. Mind you, we’ll probably be slapped with import duties on this side, so beware of that…

Anyway, back to The Liebster Blog Award and spreading the bloggy love to my top five blog reads.

1. Growing On Up

A superbly written blog about a twenty-something South African girl who recently moved to the concrete jungle where dreams are made: New York City. She is growing on up, looking for adventures, lurve, career satisfaction and drinking a fair amount of New York cocktails in between. A younger version of Carrie Bradshaw, really.

2. Truffle Licker

Also a fantastic writer who’s very funny and totally my kind of writing humour. “Dark Horse” (the author’s nom de plume) moved back to Jozi from London. She’s also a twenty-something girl looking for lurve in between cocktails wine and shopping. She’s a private school Jozi girl who doesn’t leave the Parks and tells it like it is. The sad news is that she hasn’t written a post for millions of months and this is my attempt to get her to get back on the horse, Dark Horse! But go and read her posts that do exist from beginning to end for a really good, witty, intelligent laugh.

3. The Friendly Tour

This is the story of a thirty-something Belgian girl who has got it together to live out the dreams that so many of us have, but never manage to actualise: to quit our jobs, pack a 12kg backpack and travel around the world for twelve whole months. (And not to shop along the way – no space in the backpack! This may have been the hardest part for me…) You will either need to read the language of Voltaire to follow this blog, or you can simply click on the British flag for Google to translate her posts into English. Her world tour ends in mid-May…

4. One of the Boys

I came across this blog when I was perusing the finalist blogs in the SA’s Best Mommy Blogger competition last year. It’s written by a Jozi mom who is an impressively regular blogger, who organises Jozi blogger meet-up’s and who seems to achieve an amazing amount despite working and raising two boys. Lots of baby-related give-aways and handy information for moms and the site layout and pictures always look gorgeous. She has just over 1,000 followers and the Liebster Award is supposed to be reserved for blogs with fewer than 200 but I saw many fellow Liebster bestowers broke that rule once, so I’m breaking it here…

For the fifth winner of the Liebster Award from me, please comment and suggest any great blogs that you know with fewer than 200 followers…

For the winners, heere’s how the Liebster Award works:

The Rules:

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you.

2. Post the award on your blog for all to see!

3. Give the award to 5 of your favorite bloggers (with 200 followers or less).

4. Leave a comment on your chosen blogs to let them know that they have been given the Liebster Blog award.

Thanks again, Blair, for the award :)

Up-date on the Month of March

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Apologies, dear readers, for my prolonged absence from the Blogosphere. Things have been rather busy for the past month.

After returning from Cape Town at the end of February, I had a teeny tiny taste of what life as a full-time, working mom, might be like. The Best Friend invited me to a very impressive two-day conference that she had conceptualised and was hosting in Jozi. I have to say, it was fun to wake up in the morning and peruse my usually untouched wardrobe of beautiful shirts and suits from a bygone era. To meticulously insert lady-links and to pick out a pair of shiny heels and to feel super chic and ready for the day. Of course, my day had officially begun three hours earlier at 5am and so as I was getting ready to leave at 8am, it felt close to lunch-time. Happily, staying awake to listen to conference speeches and staying awake to entertain a small child require similar amounts of caffeine and so I remain well practised in this respect. Of course, when one is a stay at home mom, leaving one’s child for two whole days from 8am to 5pm brings with it all manner of feelings of guilt, to the extent that, on the second day, I nipped back home for an hour for a session of play with The Princess.

My brief return to the world of “work” (sort of) was followed by an two week return to the world of French. My Belgian host sister arrived in mid-March as part of the pen-ultimate leg of her one year around-the-world tour which began in Mexico in May 2011 and which will end in the Ivory Coast in May this year.

Her sojourn in Jozi led us to many historical sites – many of which I have been meaning to visit for years but have just never got to: Liliesleaf Museum in Rivonia, the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill & the Constitutional Court and a guided tour of Soweto. This was interspersed by visits to Parkhurst, 44 Stanley, Melrose Arch, 70 Juta and the Neighbourgoods Market. Ages ago, my Parkhurst friend recommended a great “guide” to Jozi sites and life, when we were breakfasting at Nice: “Spaces & Places: Johannesburg” by Gerald Garner. The author covers all the cute little neighbourhood/ homely spots worth visiting in the “Village Life” section (from Parkhurst to Craighall Park to Greenside to Linden),  he covers a fortune to be discovered in the Urban Life section, especially when it comes to the CBD and “Braamies” and then also does a great synopsis on what’s should be visited in terms of struggle heritage. I think my host sister and I – often with The Princess in tow – did a fairly good job of experiencing Jozi in 10 days, if his book is anything to go by, although of course, there is way more we could have seen and done.

On Human Rights Day, we headed off to Clarens in the Free State, to explore a bit of the rest of the country and so that The Husband could cycle himself silly. We stayed 1.2km away from the edge of the common in the middle of the main street of Clarens. Here’s where our newly acquired Phil & Ted’s jogger came in handy. It has only been jogging once since its acquisition six weeks ago, but with Clarens’ dirt roads, we found an additional reason to justify its existence.

The Princess went on her first hike in the Golden Gate National Park not far from Clarens, safely esconsed inside her Baby Bjorn carrier on The Husband’s chest. The next day we visited a “replica” of a Basotho village – a tourist destination inside the park. We arrived at lunch time so we decided to brave the traditional menu at the restaurant. I convinced my host sister to try vetkoek for the first time, by offering to split a safer option of a toasted cheese and ham. The Husband’s idea of eating exotic food is ordering Italian so he also went for a toasted sarmie. Honestly, I haven’t eaten a toasted sandwich this tasty in about 20 years. I have distant childhood memories of yummy, greasy toasted sarmies where I guess the bread is basically fried and the cheese is oozing out of the corners, but whatever I’ve had in the last decade has tended to be rather dry and bland. Well, the Basotho Cultural Village Restaurant makes ‘em like they used to – worth a visit just for that. And if you’re more adventurous you can drink home brewed beer from a calabash with the advisor to the Chief of the village.

On our final day in Clarens, I suggested that we meet The Husband at the end of his cycle in Fouriesburg. I had never heard of the place but my host sister’s Lonely Planet mentioned it, citing numerous old stone buildings. In hindsight, I think that’s all the Lonely Planet said about Fouriesburg because, well, there really is nothing else to mention. However, I would like to object against any mention of the place whatsoever because it really is a one-horse town with no redeeming features. We were forced to wait there for The Husband – I had bargained on at least an hour of “visiting time”, ten minutes of which we’d managed to deplete by filling up with petrol. For the remaining 50 minutes, we installed ourselves in the garden of a local pub. As there was no-one in sight to order coffee from, I ventured inside. “Inside” consisted of an enormous bar counter populated by white men in long, khaki socks, against the back drop of an old South African flag. The flag was autographed in numerous places but I didn’t get a chance to figure out by whom because I was the only female in the joint and to say that the old farts were looking on leacherously, would be polite. When I enquired about coffees from the owner surveying his territory whilst smoking a cigarette behind the bar, he looked thoroughly peeved that I deigned to interrupt his rugby game to actually try and patronise his establishment. In short, not my favourite town and we quickly changed our plans and headed back to Clarens for lunch.

At the end of my host sister’s two week stay in Jozi, we were joined by her wonderful parents who had hosted me in their home in Belgium for six months in 1997 and who, along with their three daughters, painstakingly taught me to speak French, took me to fascinating and beautiful places and made my stay in their country and home absolutely unforgettable. Now, fifeen years later I could finally “host” them and their charming relatives, if only for one night, on the day of The Princess’ first birthday.

The story of The Princess starting to walk and turning one, will be a story for another blog. In the meantime, happy holidays as the Americans would say and I will check in again after the long weekend.

xxx Natalie

Too Many Dudes, Dude.

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The Princess and I are currently in Cape Town, staying with The Brother-in-law, The Sister-in-law and their one, two, three, FOUR (adorable) kids. Just after The Princess has had her very first bath with her six month old cousin, The Sister-in-Law casually asks if I’d mind babysitting whilst she and The Brother-in-law attend a parent teachers evening at their eight year old’s school. Now, we have every intention of giving The Princess a baby brother or sister one day, so I should be perfectly capable of sticking a dummy into the mouth of my beautiful niece, in the very unlikely event that she wakes up and cries. Right?

Right.

It’s 7:20pm – a full hour since I started giving The Princess her bedtime bottle – and she is still writhing in my arms, refusing to sleep. It’s been a rough afternoon visiting an unwell Father Figure and I am not in the mood for a fight with an eleven month old.

Enter The Princess’ crying six month old cousin.

No problem.

The Princess and I will just go next door for a dummy dash.

We stand next to the cot and a pair of large blue eyes stares up at eyes. This does not look like a baby in the throes of a deep slumber, merely in need of a dummy but I try anyway.

She spits.

I try again.

She spits and screams.

I try again.

Now she’s upset. And really screaming. Very, very loudly.

I panic. In the last day and a half I’ve spent with this little angel, I’ve never heard her cry. But now she is P*SSED off. She’s woken up in the middle of the night and she’s got some stranger who is NOT her mommy trying to shove her dummy in her mouth. Not happy.

So I pick her up and sink into the feeding chair next to her cot – The Princess in one arm and her cousin in the other. The Princess is smiling sweetly at her crying cousin and even reaching across to her as if to console her. It’s adorable but it’s not helping at all. Her cousin is going BALLISTIC now.

As my eight-year old nephew is roused from his sleep and walks in, offering to help, I realise I have failed dismally trying to take care of two small children and I ask him to please call his baby sister’s live-in nanny. Thank God for her. She’s in the bath but she’ll come as soon as possible.

Enter my darling little niece’s nanny and she stops crying immediately.

Phew.

I return to The Princess’ room and at once, the sweet, consoling older cousin version of her is gone and I am left with a screaming eleven month old, nearly an hour into her bed-time, refusing to go to sleep.

Finally, after what seems like years, but is “only” one hour forty minutes, I put The Princess down. She stirs and almost sees me standing near her cot, but she somehow doesn’t see me and she seems to roll over and at least attempt sleep. This leaves me on all fours, hiding behind the darkened side of her camp cot as opposed to the see-through, net side, trying to crawl silently to the door where freedom awaits…

I manage to make it out, collapse onto my bed and pick up my phone to read a mail just in from The Sister, newly settled in NYC. She’s forwarded me her party invite for this weekend:

Subject: heads up for Friday night
I’m having a few friends over to Le Parker Meridien near 56th and 6th Ave, 7pm – 10pm.
Heated rooftop pool + fun little suite. Cocktails and swimming etc.
Please come and bring a girl-friend. We have TOO MANY DUDES.

The Surfers Half Marathon (Walk)

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You may remember me shooting my mouth of on this blog a while back about the Surfers Half Marathon in East London. About how I was planning to run it. I think the rush of blood to the head lasted for about a month before the running training just fizzled out…

However, when I found out that there was also an official walkers’ race that followed the same route, I was newly motivated to take part. And so, about a week ago, The Princess, The Husband and I, boarded a flight to East London. Visiting my half-sister and Surfers’ walking partner and her family was really the main motivation behind the trek to the Eastern Cape. The Princess was an immediate hit with her 13 year old girl cousin and just as much of a hit with her 11 year old boy cousin. I really didn’t imagine that an 11 year old boy would be interested in a 10 month old baby, but boy, was I wrong. Very, very cute to watch them interact.

On the morning of the race, The Princess bellowed her good morning cry at 05:10 – an ungodly hour in anyone’s books but some days I have a cup of coffee and I feel like I can cope. Last Saturday just wasn’t one of those days. I woke up feeling so exhausted I just wanted to collapse in a heap and cry. But The Princess was well rested from her ten hours of slumber and she wasn’t interested in how I felt. I confess I even tried putting a cartoon on – something I am obviously trying to delay for as long as possible – but that didn’t impress her much.

Somehow, she and I made it through to 8:30am. Then, when The Husband left for the gym, I put the Princess down and crawled back into bed, still in my pj’s.

At 1pm, my half-sister and her support team (husband and son) arrived, and my support team (The Husband and The Princess) and I were ready to go.

By the time we had parked near the start of the race, The Husband confessed to intense feelings of jealousy. He explained that it was “unnatural” for him not to be participating in a sporting event. (For me, it’s unnatural to be participating). While I was to spend the next four hours waiting for the race to start and then racing, he’d be solely taking care of The Princess. As I kissed them goodbye and prepared to make my way down to the beach for the start, The Husband gripped my shoulder and looked at me with fear in his eyes.

“What if she poos?” he said.

And on that note, I bade farwell to my support team.

The runners went off at 14:30 and the walkers followed ten minutes later. The first 6km or so, I must say, were not the easiest. We were trying to walk as fast as we could and the sand was really soft – so much so that I felt as though I was walking hunched over to try and propel myself forward out of the “sinking sand” so as to maintain a reasonable pace. There were also a number of stretches where we were walking over beds of tightly packed, but movable, pebbles. Not the easiest to do quickly, I have to say.

Eventually, we reached our first river crossing. This is where you are literally submerged in water – running shoes, clothes and all – and you cross the river mouth by pulling yourself along on a rope. (There are strong-looking lifeguards on hand which is very reassuring). Although the river crossing is nice and refreshing, you don’t necessarily want to walk a further 12km with squelching shoes and socks. I was wearing my lightest lycra pants, purportedly of the “quick dry” variety, but before they had a chance to dry off, things went severely pear shaped. Basically, it felt as though someone had lit a fire between my butt cheeks. My sister had told me that I should put vaseline there, but I’d ignored her, never having experienced butt chafe in my life before.

The next 5km or so were on a tarred road, so it should have been plain sailing but with my squelching shoes and my burning backside, I was battling to see the funny side of life.

Just past Gonubie, at about the 8km mark, I couldn’t help perking up when my sister and I came across our support teams on the side of the road. The Husband got really into it and basically jogged alongside us with The Princess in her stroller. It was awesome to see them. Not a word was mentioned about poos, so I presumed everything was fine.

For the next several kilometres, I was really struggling to keep my sister’s pace. After a while though, the race turned back onto the beach where we would remain until the finish. On this beach stretch, though, the sand was much much harder and there were no rocks to contend with (or none to speak of) so I slowly got my mojo back and managed to step up my pace. We had started out quite near the back of the field when the race set off and it was impossible to overtake for the first several kilometres, because of the crowds and the fairly narrow paths above the beach. Now that things were far more spread out, you began to realise just who was “beating you”. For example: that old man pushing seventy in his teeny tiny jogging shorts. No way! That middle-aged woman carrying an extra 30kg. That teenager walking in a pair of drenched jeans with an arse the size of a Boeing. Hell no! It all served as inspiration for me to pick up the pace.

Finally, after yet another river crossing (fully immersed in water, Garmin placed on head, inside cap so as not to be destroyed), we reached the finish. According to my Garmin we had walked 18.3km and not the 17.5km the race advertises itself as.

My sister’s husband and son were waiting at the finish for us. Just as they dropped me off, I wondered out loud if The Princess had made a poo that afternoon.

“Thankfully not for your husband’s sake” my brother-in-law informed me, “he kept checking and he looked pretty stressed about it”.

Very strange for The Princess to go the whole afternoon without pooing. I was starting to wonder whether The Husband had managed to procure some baby Immodium and doused her with that…

All in all, the Surfers is a beautiful course to walk, or, if you’re really fit and talented, to run. I believe there is also a paddling race alongside the running/ walking course. I think if I did it again, I’d walk a bit slower, just ensuring I made it within the fairly generous cut off time and I’d take in the beautiful scenery. Oh, and I’d take a little backpack with a HUGE tub of vaseline to apply after the river crossings…

Besides catching up with family, the highlight of the weekend was The Princess taking her first steps! We definitely cannot say that she is walking – not at all. But it was so exciting to be in my sister’s living room with her two cousins, her aunt and uncle and us and trying to coax her into taking a step or two. Her record was three steps – very unstable, but three steps nonetheless. Watch this space for tales of her tearing around soon enough.

Hope everyone has a great week. The Husband is off to London tomorrow night (sniff, sniff). It’s his first trip in three month so The Princess and I have grown very accustomed to having him around. No prizes for guessing who he’s going to miss more! The Princess and I will be heading to Cape Town next week while The Husband is away. Can’t wait to see The Princess interacting with her three older boy cousins of four, six and eight and her little girl cousin of six months.

New York, Crispy Cassava Snacks & Kit Kat Singles

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The Princess first started to display signs of separation anxiety around 7 months or so. I think around 8 months is text book or something, so I wasn’t too surprised when it happened. Yesterday, however, her separation anxiety reached new heights. I literally had to go to the toilet with her on my lap. Her reaction was so violent when I tried to put her down that I thought she actually might injure herself if I laid her on the floor – albeit right in front of me – with her toys.

Fortunately for me, around the time her separation anxiety started, she became a Daddy’s Girl through and through. There was about a week where she would cling on to me and then she started putting her arms out for her Daddy while I was holding her and refusing to come to me from her Daddy’s arms. Part of me is mortified by this, but in many ways it makes life easier. For example, the guilt at jumping on a plane bound for New York will be cushioned by the fact that she will be having a ball with her Daddy for the four days I am not here.

Yip, for four days I will be trying to keep up with The Sister’s glamourous new life in New York City. On Saturday, I got an e-mail saying that she was about to head off to a private party in a loft apartment in Tribeca and that she thought she’d wear her leather pants. My knowledge of New York has been almost exclusively gleaned from Sex & the City. I don’t know where Tribeca is and I don’t own leather pants. When I started writing this blog, it was 11:49 on Sunday morning and I was still in my pyjamas. Not because I went clubbing until 4am that morning but because The Princess and I were embroiled in a battle of wills from 8am to 11am. She was supposed to go down for her morning nap at 8 or 8:30 at the latest and she finally, finally passed out at 11am. That’s a three hour long sleep battle with a ten and a half month old and I felt as though I had just run a marathon. I can’t imagine anything more exhausting. I can’t imagine that a 17 hour trans-Atlantic flight and four-day jet lag can come close.

So, in some ways, I am very ready for New York at the end of May and in some ways, I am so far from being ready. When I booked my flight, I set myself a goal to lose 8.5kg in the 17 weeks before leaving for New York – an average of 0.5kg per week. Sounds healthy and feasible, right? But it’s now three weeks later and whereas I should have lost 1.5kg, I have  lost only half of that – 800g. So now I have exactly 14 weeks to lose 7.7kg. I may need to move the goal posts a little but many kilos are going to need to be shed before I see myself in leather pants…

Enter the dieter’s version of crack cocaine:

1) Crispy Cassava Snacks from Woolworths.

1 small 20g packet = 1 point on Weight Watchers, out of a daily total of 20. Not bad, right? The bonus is that there is so much sh*t on these bad boys that one tiny little packet burns the living crap out of the roof of your mouth, thereby making further eating for the day somewhat painful. A dieter’s dream. My personal faves are the “Cream Cheese & Chives” variant. I find the “Vinegar & Lemon Pepper” flavour tastes like a lemon and I’m also not such a fan of the “Lightly Salted Flavoured” type. Lightly Salted Flavoured: sounds wrong, I know, but that’s what it says on the packet.

2) Kit-Kat Singles.

1 “finger” = 1 point on Weight Watchers. Totally worth it to satiate those chocolate cravings.

I was about to eat the whole bag bag on Sunday as I sat in my pyjamas, hair unbrushed, feeling totally mangled by my sleep fight with The Princess, while The Sister must surely be tottering home from her Tribeca loft party in her heels, ready to sleep off a hangover until midday. Fortunately, for my waistline, The Sister called just then. She said the loft was amazing, there were waiters serving French champagne and little canape thingies. It was, however, mainly populated by thirty-something New York women, looking for husbands. (Evidently, you can say this when you’re 28, you’ve just moved to New York and you’re blonde and hot). Unfortunately for all females concerned, men were apparently thin on the ground and the uber eligible bachelor owner of the amazing Tribeca pad was firmly up his own arse.

And it is armed with this information about the trials and tribulations of New York singletons, that I find the strength to put away the packet of Kit Kat Singles, brush my hair, slap on some make-up and walk to Tashas with The Princess in the Jozi sunshine.

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