Travel

Leaving Las Midlands

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We left Karkloof Spa on Saturday 6 March. But not until The Husband had been brutalised by the resident Thai masseuse. She was fresh off the boat from Ko Loon Poo or wherever, which I guess is supposed to make the experience doubly authentic. Only snag was: she was still trying to come to grips with basic English. Statements such as, “STOP! That HURTS!!!” apparently only illicited giggles from her. She was also unable to understand: “No, not leg massage – back massage, yes?” At this, she apparently nodded and giggled and made all the right noises to indicate that she understood, but then merrily continued bashing The Husband’s back.

Eventually, The Husband decided to try a different tack. It went like this: “Su Lin. I go shop….. I ask milk….. I get Singha beer….. I say ‘NO!’…….. I say: ‘I want milk’……. Again, I get beer……. I shake head….like this (husband shakes head vigorously)….. I say ‘MILK!’ …..Finally, man give me milk…… I happy…..I smile….(husband smiles)….. You understand, Su Lin?”

The universal metaphor of the in-store milk and beer mix-up. Of course. I always forget that one.

And The Husband’s wonders why I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time.

Amazingly, though, Su Lin did actually understand. She grinned, giggled and nodded (as one would expect by this point) and then promptly began pummelling his thighs.

50 minutes into his 90 minute massage, The Husband limped out of the Spa. His right leg was in such a spasm that he asked me to start the drive back to Joburg. Just to explain: this is not normal behaviour. Unless we’re on our way to a big cycling race and he doesn’t want to “strain his legs”, he drives. Always. He is such a shocking back-seat driver that I’m perfectly okay with the arrangement.

“Fine,” I said, “but I’m blind-folding you.”

Since he took up cycling, I’ve started carrying one of those aeroplane eye-masks in my handbag. One peep about my driving and I threaten to whip it out and make him wear it. If he refuses, I threaten to get out of the car. Very mature all round. But it usually shuts him up. For about 15 minutes – but it’s 15 minutes of bliss.

On this particular car trip, he had the post-cycle-race munchies. After he’d finished every Jungle Bar, banana, piece of biltong and anything else he could lay his hands on, he passed out. When he woke up about an hour later, he started moaning for Nando’s. I promised to stop 113km later at the big petrol station outside Harrismith. He whinged for a bit and then passed out again. And then I managed to miss the bl**dy turn-off. It’s really badly sign-posted when you’re travelling north, I’ve decided. Plus there’s nowhere to turn around once you realise you’ve missed it. We were trying to get back to Jozi as quickly as possible to see The Sister for 24 hours, before she jetted back to London, so I starting thinking I should just laugh off Nando’s…

Eventually, I decided the risk of a hungry Husband was far too great and I managed to turn around. With an espresso and a chicken burger in his belly, The Husband rediscovered his sense of humour and we continued our drive to the Big Smoke in peace.

As a born and bred Southern Cape girl, I’ve always struggled with the Highveld landscape. I love the city, but I can’t quite get used to the geography. On this particular Sunday evening, however, Gauteng honestly looked gorgeous. (Yes, I do realise how hilarious that sounds). We were on the N3 and I think we were around the Heidelberg off-ramp. It was about 6pm and the sun was this incredible bright orange ball in the sky. It created the kind of light that photographers dream about. Even the usually boring, barren landscape looked beautiful as a result.

Best of all, it wasn’t raining and there was no mud.

Bring on the Big Smoke.

Travel

Produce of Prince Albert

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After a few days in Prince Albert, The Sister and I discovered that the only thing that moves quickly in this town is our 90 year old grandmother in her motorised wheelchair. Visitors to the town are advised to look out for an elegant, pearl-wearing figure, careering across the main street to make it to the post office on time. Otherwise, you are advised to check in and chill out.

A typical day in the Karoo town may start out with an English breakfast at the Lazy Lizard, where you’ll be served by one of the many members of the charming local clan who own the establishment. If you’re feeling energetic, you may decide to visit the Lazy Lizard’s gym before breakfast. I decided to do just that, one morning. My main objective was actually to check up on the Father Figure at his bi-weekly pilates class. I was given special permission to attend as it’s normally reserved for 65 to 85 year olds. The instructor is a physiotherapist who enjoys a good joke but who takes no nonsense. Slackers are immediately chastised, model students are praised and the Class Clown is indulged so long as his glutes are doing as much work as his mouth is. Cutting class is forgiven for things like medical excursions to the big city (Oudtshoorn) but I soon discovered why attendance by these old grandpas is so good: the very next class is attended by a couple of extremely attractive twenty-somethings. They apparently come in from the neighbouring farms for their daily exercise, looking super sexy in their figure-hugging spandex gear.

After pilates and breakfast, you may wish to wander down to the Swartberg Hotel & Coffee Shop to pick up a loaf of the best freshly-baked seed loaf I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. It won’t be ready before 9:45 but don’t arrive too long after the loaves leave the oven, as they soon sell out. Thereafter you may head to Gay’s Dairy for your milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt. The authentic dairy odour takes some getting used to, but it’s worth taking a deep breath and making your way into the cheese tasting room, where you can sample some black pepper gouda or the award-winning Prince Albert cheddar. Your hostess can also explain all the varying maturation times of the different cheeses.

If you went to pilates in the morning, you may have been invited to come and gather up fallen mangoes in the garden of one of the students – a retired diplomat, to be precise. You may then wish to climb into your pool which you’d only exit for a delicious lunch consisting of your locally-sourced produce. Then it’s either back to the pool or straight to your bed for a well-deserved siesta.

A late afternoon cappuccino or a glass of home-made lemonade might then be enjoyed at Prince Albert’s Country Store – a delightful coffee-shop-cum-collectibles-outlet. Here, you may need to share your chair with Fred, the resident Basset hound. If you’re in need of some reading matter, you can browse through their lovely collection of second hand books. After coffee, you might nip across to the local butchery for some biltong. On one such excursion The Sister enquired about ostrich meat. In response, the butcher pulled a face in disgust and said, “Het jy ooit daai goed geryk? Dit STINK!”

When The Sister replied that she understood that it was supposed to be significantly healthier than beef, the butcher was still having none of it.

“’n Mens moet mos dood gaan van iets. Laat dit maar vleis wees.”

Beef biltong it is, then.

By now, the guilt of English breakfasts, full cream yoghurt, bread, cheese and butter may be getting to you. If so, you could part with R20 per person to go and play some tennis at the Prince Albert Tennis Club. Or you could take advantage of the beautifully graded gravel road and head eastwards out of town for a little run. From here, you’ll get a gorgeous view of the town and its pretty church spire, as you turn around and run home.

Then you’ll settle down on your stoep to watch the sun set – a glass of wine in one hand and some locally grown olives in the other. Finally, if Meiringspoort hasn’t been closed due to flooding and if the George Airport is operational, you may make your way back to the Big Smoke at a leisurely pace.

On Sabbatical

Alarms and Shorty Pyjarms

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I have to say that being on sabbatical after a December holiday really helps the back-to-school blues. Despite having trouble keeping track of the days of the week when I got back to the Big Smoke, I managed to rock up for my bi-weekly personal training slot.

At 9am.

I’ve had this decadent, late morning slot for the past 6 months but have struggled to find a training partner – go figure. So when The Iron Man (my personal trainer) asked me whether I’d like to join his A-team of female clients at 6am in the morning, I found myself saying ‘yes’. The word just flew out of my mouth without any instruction from my brain. I think my brain may still have been on South American time, which tends to be a little “behind”.

In order to make the red-eye slot, I calculated that I’d have to get up at 05:30. I also calculated that to get 8 hours sleep (another New Year’s Resolution which is danger of being struck off the list for non-implementation) I’d need to be asleep by 21:30. And so, on Monday night, I dutifully climbed into bed really early and willed myself to sleep. I then fell into a a state somewhere between slumber and alertness, with my mental alarm going “FIVE THIRTY! FIVE THIRTY! FIVE THIRTY!” Needless to say, when that delightful hour finally rolled on, I felt like I’d been hit by a TGV. It was, after all, the crack of dawn so I figured the gym would be a morgue and I figured I could roll out of bed and stumble through the doors without so much as a smidgeon of mascara.

Apparently not.

Who would’ve thought it but Melrose Arse was positively heaving. Even the normally ultra-calm Iron Man was in overdrive. I was hustled to the step machine with the A-teamers and told to “warm-up quickly!”

Jeez, dude. There was none of the customary “hey, how’re you doing, how you’re feeling”. Which was just as well since I would have launched into a long lament over my lack of sleep, how the red eye slot might not be for me after all, etc, etc, etc. But none of the A-teamers had spoken a word so far, so I felt compelled to shut my mouth and to try and imitate their seemingly effortless pull-ups. Each of the girls was even tinier than the first and when The Iron Man did eventually initiate some conversation it was about their marathon training programmes.

“Ja, you need to be doing about 20-30km per day,” he was saying. WTF? (Mind you, I have also heard him say that he “chats to Lance” (Armstrong) on Facebook, so perhaps some of his assertions need to be taken with a pinch of salt.)

Then I learned that super sexy A-Team Member 1 has given birth to two kids and that A-Team Member 2 is in her early forties and five-months pregnant with her third kid. I think the three of them (2 A-teamers plus 1 unborn baby) collectively weigh less than I do.

Suddenly, in my semi-sleepless hungover state, I got the Iron Man’s plan for me: competition. I decided to chill out and just enjoy the work-out. The great thing about Melrose Arse is that no matter how gruelling one’s programme, the characters that frequent the place provide you with priceless entertainment. My current fave is what I’ve termed the “shorty pyjamas”. A few of the guys wear the tiniest, teeniest little pairs of shorts imaginable. I’ve seen similar proportions on Clifton beaches, but these are even better, because they’re nice and loose – they let the breeze in. And then a loose T-shirt is worn so it’s impossible to tell, for sure, how high the shorts have been pulled up. The whole ensemble is just a beaut. The best is – it cracks me up and improves my mood every single time. Bring on the pull-ups!