Marie's wedding

So, another member of my close family is lawfully married. Cousin tied the knot on Saturday and became a Bayhack in the process. The Friday and Sunday was rainy so even though the pastor was multi-denominational he must have had a favour to cash in with the big G. It was so amazingly beautiful and Cousin was so stunning and Cousin-in-law so handsome I just had to post some pictures and commiserate with the world of single men (and women). They're taken!

The Friday was wet - would it clear up?

Then Saturday dawned sunny but cold

The bridesmaids got to enjoy breakfast with the bride

It was pretty nice

At 4 o'clock, the bride walked down the aisle with Olof, the father and my uncle. It was freezing cold and there was snow on the furthest mountain tops!

And then they were married. Have you seen such scenery?

Who needs flowers???

On right is bride's brother Henrik

Some more family - uncle (on mother's side), mother, cousin and father of the bride

Everything brought tears to the grooms eyes this day, but this is during the best man speech so it's more likely to be tears of pain. Follow through indeed!

Beep beep beep

I've an idea for a new product. It's like the alarm that protects my flat against intruders, but with some additions. You will be able to programme it so it checks that when you set the alarm, all the things you mean to bring with you out of the house are on you - keys, wallet, phone etc. It would save me a lot of time and grief, and the planet come to think of it, seeing as much petrol is wasted driving back from work/school/whatever to your home to retrieve missing items.

This morning, for example, I remembered to bring my phone and lunch box to work. But it happened at the expense of my gym bag and remembering to take out the rubbish.

My father will agree with me that the adult mind can only carry three, perhaps four things in it. Add another item and one of the first will fall out. This state of affairs will guarantee the success of my product, and I will get swiss scientists at the institute of Cosmoceutics in Basel to back me up on this one.

Speaking of lunch box, what I remembered to bring this morning was less that and more 'lunch bowl'. In it, I transported soup. You might think it foolish to drive down a steep hill with a bowl of tomato soup in the passenger seat wrapped only by a Pick'N'Pay bag - and you'd be right! Faster than you can say 'ketchup' there was not so much a bowl of soup as a bag of soup in my car, splashing around threatening to flood everything. The whole scene took on something of the absurd, and I remember thinking that this is exactly how accidents happen as I tried to right the upturned ember.

Another difficulty I am facing today (see, I'm procrastinating - I must be on deadline) is how to shake off Victorian prose for Guardian-speak. I'm writing a profile about this HIV scientist in Durban, and have to check myself from describing her as 'casting her gaze langorously after the tall, handsome stranger over by the water cooler'. You see, I was reading Jane Eyre into the small hours last night and these things always rub off on you. Damn. Or Deuce, as Mr Rochester would have had it. At least there are no insane spouses locked up in my attic. Or is there????

Yours, &cetera, &cetera

It's Chico time

So, I've been getting some stick about this blog lately. Apparently all my posts are about how horrible it is to live on a beach where it's sunny all the time and the air is clean and so on and so forth. So all right then I'll write about something a bit more upbeat. How about, I dunno... love?

Yep, I've fallen in love down here. It's a strong bond that I fear nothing will be able to sever. And it's a bit shameful to admit it here, now, in full view of the whole Interweb but here goes.

I LOVE MY CAR. I love it so much that I would like to marry it and have little android children with it. It doesn't have a name. It doesn't need to. It is THE CAR. And i love it.

Ok I know i know I KNOW that this will give ample ammo to all those people i've harrassed for owning an automobile in the past but OK fine, that was when I was young and foolish and... hrmpff...

Everybody in Cape Town has the same car - a white CitiGolf

I LOVE my car. I love that it's so basic I dislocate my shoulder every time I try to parallel park. I love that it coughs and splutters and bounces like a gangsta car after a cold night (read 14 degrees, I wonder how it would fare in European winters), I love the feeling that it's about to tip over when I speed round the bends of De Waal drive at 2 am. And the fusty smell that lingers since that night I didn't take my gym clothes in - dammit I love it too.

There are some people down here that don't drive. Actually, strike that. No South Africans can drive. They all have fake licenses. If you want to get a license, you need to queue for a test, then queue for a learners' license, then put up with no end of bad tuition before you realise it's all a load of crap and go down the local forgery office and get one printed then and there. Just the other day, the star of the SA blockbuster Tsotsi was caught and fined for having tried to get a fake license. Everybody's at it!

In fact, I'm surprised how many people down here get by without cars. OK so I'm talking here about people who have loads of money and live privilieged lives so don't nit pick. But they either have to be very, very charming and have very patient friends - or be bulletproof, or something.

Oh, and issue 11 is in the bag - as of Wednesday this week. It was the usual nightmare to put together but then it always is and I promised not to whinge in this post so there we go.

Now I'm off to invest a few grand in carbon sequestration technology.

An offer I can't refuse!

Look at what I found while flathunting. I mean, I suppose I just turned 28 so I only just qualify but... those pudgy cheeks! that freshly moussed hair so moist it's almost still under the shower! It's an offer a girl can't refuse, I say...

http://www.gumtree.co.za/capetown/07/9153307.html

Posting no 101

Why thank you to those kind souls who offered to help with my cousin's hen night in exchange for petty travel expenses. Much obliged, of course, but in this case XXXX did not mean to say "full monty strip tease" but... Well, I can't say can I coz it's a surprise. And flights from the UK are very expensive so if I did acquiesce that would have to be one HELL of a show...

First day at work after my holiday hit like a ton of bricks and I'm still reeling from the impact. Turns out Deborah's visa application has gone tits up because of a problem with the application - it's taken too long to get together from the date the job ad was posted. Well, of course it took a long time, the bloody rules of Home Affairs made it thus! So now a good scenario is an acceptal after some coaxing by an (expensive no doubt) immigraiton lawyer. A bad one is having to go through the whole hiring hoo-haa again - posting an ad, doing the interviews, getting education qualifications compared and approved etc.

April press day is Wednesday next week, which is too close to bear to think about - so I don't. Instead I get on with what should be done by today, which is sending out cajoling emails to all contributors asking them to send me their stuff. The "Or Else" email will go out on Thursday afternoon.

Feeling a little out of touch as may be expected after 2 weeks out of the loop. Seems stuff's been happening but I always feel I get a very eclectic mix (bordering on random) when I sieve through the outputs of various organisations. I did a couple of the 'in the pipeline' stories that I'd been waiting for a while to do for the last issue, so I need some solid new stuff for this one. I've asked Deborah to write a piece about how scientists are faring under the circumstances in Zimbabwe - that should be interesting reading if it comes through.

The title refers to the number of posts I've so far made to this site. One hundred and one. A week ago, it was my 1 year anniversary for working for Research Africa. I've only got a year left. What to do then? Well, I have some ideas... Won't tell you yet but some of you had better measure out those sofas. I'm 1.74 cm in my socks - but I'm sure I can squeeze onto a two-seater if needs must.

Every day should be a holiday

People inhabiting colder climes might wonder what it is like to permanently live in a holiday resort. Does one ever get bored of the beach and the pina coladas. The answer, to tell the truth, is no. The beach is always a treat, no matter whether you go there every day of the week. The sea views never lose their lustre, the mountain is always glorious.

I'm on holiday, as I mentioned before. After a touring the Garden Route for 6 days I'm now back in town. Free time in town is what I most need and, consequently, what I savour the least. I'll explain: When I'm beavering away in the working week I have so many immediate concerns that I don't have time to think about the bigger worries - the dentist, my soon-to-be homelessness, the still-gaping hole left by my sister in my flat, the past, the future and all the in-between. On a faraway holiday these things also fade into the distance. But here and now, with time on my hands in my own flat, they come to the fore and beg to be taken care of.

I started today by making a list. This is what I should accomplish by Friday, when the whole town goes on holiday and most of my friends with it.

- Book XXXX for Cousin's hen night
- Book dentist appointment
- Write a profile for the Guardian
- Get my tax reference number
- Organise the invoice for my $1000 Nature piece
- Buy silver shoes for Cousin's wedding
- Book accommodation for Cousin's wedding
- Varnish my outdoors furniture
- Do laundry
- Clean the house
- Buy food (my fridge holds 3 beers, 1.5 litres of Gin, 1 litre of Vodka and nothing else)
- Organise summer holidays in Europe
- Arrange to cut off electricity and alarm when move out
- FIND A NEW FLAT
- Get a cat to stop feeling lonely at home
- Write outline of novel thought up while out of town
- Watch Citizen Kane
- Book haircut
- Organise something for my birthday (its on the 7th April, FYI...)
- Work out all the whys, the whats and the wherefores
- Go to the gym (a lot)
- Bake my own bread and learn how to cook with lentils
- Relax (the biggest challenge of all)
- Write a blog

TICK...