Each week thus far I have no doubt you think to yourself “bets on – this week it will be about Lockdown” – after all it is the subject of the moment, besides COVID (Sigh Sigh). And look at that – we have got to BLOG 14 and only now we going to chat about it. 😊 Last Thursday I had my second vaccine, now this I have realized is an extremely touchy subject – it is like politics, religion AND talking about the Vaccine – so we won’t!
I am sure we all remember “that” week before – the scary unknown of lockdown – and now frikken hell we are in the – I saw last night – think it was – wait let me check on my phone as of course I was messaging all in sundry in case they have forgotten how many days it has been! Ok found it – flippen hell after looking through allllll my chats Dizabeth remembered she had actually posted it – yip you guessed, on Facebook. I am sure everyone needs reminding what day we on – erm – NOT! So, yesterday it was day 530 – so, by the time I finish this blog and publish it, it will no doubt be day 1530! I know sorry I am so slack – I don’t mean to be – as I do indeed adore this BLOG and all of you. Truly life is so, so busy and I am not complaining as a busy life is also good – right?
So, back to lockdown I can recall so vividly the lead up to the lockdown. Those rumours were frikken worse than a runaway fire. In fact, I hate to say this, but it’s almost become a trend – and the trend I am meaning – (dramatic drum roll – and scary music in the background) fake news. Oh, my giddy aunt, how rife and hectic is that? Who can ever forget the toilet paper saga, which spread faster than any wildfire all across the globe I mean come on? Americans, Brits the first world countries literally “crapping” themselves in case they ran out of toilet paper! And no, nooooooooo I definitely didn’t stock up on toilet paper….
“Sorry? erm, what was that you asked?”
“Time. Did I stock up on time?”
“Nope that was readily available and …. ohhhhhh wine, did I stock up on wine? Hmmm maybe, maybe not. Pshhh, of course I did dear readers. It wouldn’t be Dizabeth if she didn’t stock up on good ol’ wine!”
so going back to that lead up week.. Oh, my word the panick of running out of food (butcher shelves were so, so, so empty and in fact if we had run out of food, we wouldn’t have needed the toilet paper) it is actually crazy how us as humans can be! In fact, it’s – let’s face it – it is a bit embarrassing. We frikken the brains well, supposedly and yet we acted (ok, ok not all of us – sorry) but some acted like it was back in 1999 and the clock was going to roll over to 2000 the next morning. Computers and cars would blow up, anything robotic (computerized is a better word here Dizabeth) would fizzle and freeze.
So here follows another Fun fact brought to you by Dizabeth (actually Google brought it to you):
They called this the great Y2K scare. The scare consisted of the fear that the entire computer systems were going to fail on New Year’s Eve 1999. This is because computer memory space was pricey then and memory was saved by using two digits for the date instead four. For example, a date representing 1995 would be saved as “95.
So, there you have it!😊
Back to the future we choof, choof …. ahhhhh nooooo do we have to go to 2020? ☹ I for one had SUCH hope! I swear to you I bought three diaries – yip I am an old fashion girl in that department. I still, every year buy a hard copy diary and write in it each and every day. No, no, not my personal adventures but rather my work to do list. When I was a young girl for many years’ I did keep a diary, what I would do to find those now! Ah no wait a minute, Charmaine and I used to play with our Barbies, fib about going to the Sands Disco and my dad would save the day lifting my friends in our (hm look at that she said our) I mean his big black Thunderbird. I would imagine my diaries are all pretty boring, probably in the same category as any Mills & Boon or dare I say this, sorry my lovelies I am going out on a limb now but even a Danielle Steele maybe? Digressing again Dizabeth. So, I bought three diaries the one I settled on finally was a dark beautiful night sky with stars in abundance splashed across the night sky and written in gold was “2020 Make a wish” ….
See what I mean. It was a lovely cover hey?
Well, I will leave it at that!
Getting back to the night before, I recall there was a horrendous storm here in Nellies. Sjoe! it was hectic a real angry storm, with very, very dramatic lightening and thunderous thunder followed by huge, I mean huge splats of rain drops! Since we didn’t know how long this would last (in saying that though let’s face it us humans are pretty clairvoyant, we all in the back of our minds knew it wasn’t going to be a two-week stint). Gary, myself and the whole of Nelspruit treated ourselves to our “last” takeaway. We all were on a pretty tight timeline as the take-away establishments closed at 9pm for obvious reasons. How crazy now it’s a way of life and we all so accustomed to establishments closing at 9pm. (Although Uncle Cyril has changed this – Level two think its 11pm). Back in the day (Pre COVID) if it closed at 9PM we were like Whaaaaat??? So, Gary and I got our takeaway, arrived home sopping wet from the big splats of raindrops. I remember we sailed home, never drove as the streets had turned into rivers. We were looking forward to pouring a glass of wine, chillaxing in front of the TV whilst we ate our take-way. (Back then we had noooooo idea how bored we would get with just pouring a glass of wine, staring at the television and it just being me and you). At this stage we were still “treasuring just the two of us hey Babe.” Anyhow, so we walked in the front door to THE most horrendous, I mean horrendous stink. As it had been storming, we had locked all the dogs inside. Now, Meeka our German Shepherd really wasn’t that fond of storms – and since this storm had been a dusi – yip you guessed. That stink – well Meeka the dear darling had deposited everything she had eaten that blady week all over the lounge, kitchen and then just for fun she deposited some more in the dining room! So, bang went dinner and out came the paper towel roll(s). The end result, I am not kidding you, there was so, so much to scoop and put in the pooper – I kid you not – the toilet blocked up! Little did we know that night but throughout the initial lockdown we would get to a stage where we were unable to even use that toilet. Remember we were basically stuck – no one was allowed in or out or anywhere. So, yip we had a serious blocked toilet all that time. Initially, me being me, it couldn’t have been that bad surely, so I continued using the toilet, flushing, flushing and flushing again – until it said ENOUGH! I remember the time it said “enough” I flushed the toilet and the water instead of diminishing – it rose and rose and rose…. I was watching and thinking – I reckon it is going to go down any minute, any minute now it will stop rising …. well just to bugger me around, it was just about to spill over the toilet lip when it decided “ha we got Dizabeth we will stop now” and it did and so did I – I closed that toilet door and that was it – until it wasn’t it. Oh, my word – this is a horrendous bit of the tale. That night – so that same first night. Dizabeth had deposited more than a fair share of soiled paper towel down the toilet. After tidying up, eating cold take-away (shucks I am not even sure that I even ate after that??) I literally slurped my glass of wine and replaced it with another – and then another. We called it a night and off to bed we went. As I drifted off to sleep, I pondered on what “new world” we would awaken to tomorrow as I listened to the rain still falling heavily. And yes, it was still those huge splats, lots of them and falling at quite a rapid pace. At around 2amish I dreamt that Gary and I were in this boat, and it was flooding, no kidding (trying to set the scene as one does when watching a horror movie in
This picture …. No words necessary 😊
fact not just a horror movie any movie I suppose). Anyhow, I woke to Gary telling me in quite a hysterical tone that the house was flooded. I rolled over, placed the pillow over my head and hoped like hell I was really dreaming. Nope, Gary’s voice was still booming so I lazily kind of stretched, pulled the covers back and stepped into a frikken river of water. In fact, river is the incorrect description – Lake – I stepped into a lake! What had occurred dear reader, that same blady drain that I had managed to block – I still actually am not 100% sure what the reason was – but the continuous rain outside somehow blocked the drains and the water started rising and spewed out of our shower – the shower where the blady toilet was. So, my closing the door on the problem did not stop the water slowly rising. And whilst we blissfully slept, it crept up the pipes, and spewed out into every possible floor space in our blady passage. Of course, it couldn’t just leave it at that – nope it had to creep its way into every room! Gary and I wadded through the passage looked at each other and said, “F this! – more is nog n’ dag and since we aren’t going anywhere – this can wait.” We woke the next morning (obviously) now remember this was only day one – and we frikken mopped and mopped and mopped. Now Gary, I don’t know if I have mentioned before. Gary is truly the, I mean the laziest person I swear I have ever, ever met! So, he did a bit of mopping and then said he needed to go – shucks I can’t remember where he went – but went he did! But, but, but before he disappeared dear reader, he said that he felt we needed to let the floors “dry” – DRY!!!!! I thought I was going to plutz – not only was it an overcast day but the frikken floors were knee deep (exaggeration) in water. I was livid. Livid isn’t description enough I was befokked and obviously continued mopping and moving furniture and flooking Gary like I had never flooked him before! It was at this moment, I was moving the TV stand with the TV on it, there was a lake surrounding this scenario and yip you guessed it, I slipped and literally fell into the TV. Once I had retrieved my sopping, damaged self I hastily checked to see if Gary’s beloved was ok. I scooped it back onto its stand, checked the screen – no cracks – all good – Bobs your uncle I continued mopping, and mopping and mopping (and flooking and flooking aannnnnnd flooooooooking Gary). When he finally returned, I told him my tale of slipping in the water and “nearly” knocking his beloved off its stand. Later that evening I heard Gary screeching like one of the blady witches from Macbeth. I knew instantly what it was about. His beloved had a perfect screen, but the LCD works within her were kaput! We ended up having one of our most prolific fights ever! As dearest Gary said I had purposely broken his beloved! Yip I had purposely done it. Now dear reader, I am sure it is by now very, very obvious what a movie/TV fan I am – so I will leave it at that. (Yes, and I love YOU). For the records he never spoke to me for three days. Yip three days!
Whilst we on the subject of flooding. The other crazy “incident” we experienced during Lockdown. Gary tended to retire earlier than he did pre-Covid. I was watching TV (of course Dizabeth was!! In the entrance hall we have (had) a gorgeous, it truly was a stunning very stylish, huge goldfish bowl with three little goldfish living in it. At that time, they were tiny, and I always used to say they lived in a mansion. So, Gary had just tootled off to bed. There was the most awful smashing of glass, and at that exact time water gushed across the entrance hall as glass tinkled to the ground. I screamed for Gary (I did sound a bit like a banshee I have to confess) who came running through stark naked, with a hockey stick at the ready. He thought a home intruder had smashed our glass front door. What had in fact happened, a frame above the goldfish’s mansion chose to fall off – hit the edge of the mansion and shattered it into a trillion pieces. There I was frantically wading through broken glass, pebbles and plants trying to rescue the goldies. I picked one up – thought he was dead – dropped him back on the wreckage desperately seeking the next one to rescue. Turns out all three survived – today they are way bigger and have no, well none that I know of side effects from their world exploding. And yip for those wondering – Gary tootled back to bed, hockey stick now down beside him in a relaxed position – and me – yip you guessed – I mopped up the tsunami that had occurred.
When I wasn’t mopping – which dear reader you will note I did a lot of! I started off with all good intentions – like all of us – be honest – very few of you really did keep up the whole exercise regime.
Another extremely self-explanatory photo 😊😊😊
I started off, dusted off the exercise bike. Placed a cushion on the seat (why the heck are all bicycle seats so frikken hard?) rigged my phone with headset – downloaded a movie (which I never finished – reason being never exercised long enough!) even put on some gym clothes – well, they not gym clothes per say but close as damn it. There I was peddling – peddling and peddling – and this was only about 2 minutes’ worth, and I would stop – then would start again – anyway the jist of the story even the Netflix movie I was watching – it was actually Nicole Kidman in the life story of Grace Kelly. Well, that didn’t distract me enough from knowing I was exercising. Soon I was pretending I didn’t notice that lonesome exercise bike as I walked past it – I started walking around the pool – then I did an exercise routine via ZOOM with a friend each day – needless to say – none of it lasted! Fun fact, that bike had since acquired a new owner who doesn’t ignore it.
Now we go onto all things Illicit – wine. In all fairness to me it wasn’t supposed to be longer than two weeks. I had worked out my wine rations perfectly – until they weren’t perfect. Uncle Cyril extended the lockdown. What is that saying “n’ boer maak a plan” well we certainly did. I won’t mention the name of my friend who came to the rescue. But she knows and I salute you dear friend. I remember this same dear friend, when Gary wasn’t speaking to me for the three days solid (I broke his beloved screen). I snuck out on the pretense I was going to the shops. Instead, I snuck to her house for a good ol’ chat and therapy session. Across the road, unknown to me lived a family who were well connected and had the police as their friend. We were sitting in her lounge chillaxing and her son casually mentions the police are in the road. Now only a guilty mind would plutz as badly as I did! The thoughts racing through my mind faster than Hamilton winning a grandprix. They would notice that this car wasn’t one of the families. As we sat there, I was so sure they were calling in the arresting unit – and, and, and……. And as you can see – all turned out well. He in fact was also doing illicit actions – he was there for a visit too!
I have mentioned Violet & Rose in a previous BLOG. They were (are) amazing. Each day for a month they had an inspirational post each day. You were encouraged to write what you were thankful for that day, or to share where you saw the beauty that day. You get the idea dear reader? Each day there would be a R500 winner. This they continued for the month and beyond when our lockdown was extended. It was truly amazing. And yip I don’t recall if I mentioned it in my winnings BLOG, but I was extremely blessed to win here too.
Melissa Skinner 079 036 9889.
And in actual fact it inspired me so, that I also did a fantastic writing course through the Writers college which I thoroughly enjoyed. When I wasn’t working (discovering the wonders of ZOOM), mopping, watching TV, exercising (tsk tsk!) reading (not so much the YOU as it was a tricky one to find each week so books) drawing, or sleeping I was baking! I must add at this point, I also found it amazingly awesome catching up with friends I hadn’t had ages long chats with that was extremely special. It was lovely as we were and still are all on the same sea but steering different boats. It was refreshing to realise we all could and would do this (and are continuing to). Right, as I was saying I am not a baker, never have been but hey I was willing to give it a try. I remember when the boys were young, I would bake their birthday cakes! I recall the one year baking a train for Ryan – it turned out more of a train wreck. So oh, another thing, I only ever bake box stuff – you know what I am meaning – you go to the baking section, check out which flavour box, vanilla, chocolate ….hmm think that is about all there is flavour wise – so I would bake the box (no man not literally bake the box – the ingredients provided inside the box) oh sometime as in the train these don’t turn out as I envisioned them either! But upward and onward we go! So, I got extremely adventurous and moved away from the cake boxes aisle and moved on to Lemon tarts, cheesecakes and then……. Rusks! Yip dear reader – rusks. Well, I was as proud as punch of my builder blocks as Gary referred to them. They may have looked intimidating but shucks they tasted yummo – and let me share with you – I don’t even like rusks! I need to confess my scones; hmm they didn’t work out at all! In fact, I threw a major tantrum and threw the frikken flour across the kitchen (its already a crappy kitchen so now it was a white crappy kitchen!). Scones are always my go to when I am at tea or feeling bleh so why wouldn’t I bake some for myself? Well because I blady couldn’t! That frikken dough stuck on my blady fingers all sticky and flour everywhere, I salute all of you that can make scones – well blady done.
Certainly, no where near what my scones even got close to looking like ☹
Lastly the week leading up to our lockdown – I had just had to get a puzzle, now in the real world I hate puzzles! I DON’T enjoy cards, games and puzzles. BUT I searched it also had to be the prettiest puzzle. I recall now as I type I have mentioned this blady puzzle in a previous blog – can’t imagine why it is getting such attention since …yip I know you now know …I hate puzzles! It was a picture of a stately library anyhow I did try it – put all the pieces that were the same colour together – blah blah blah…. I never completed that – in fact I reckon Fraidy Cat had way, way more fun with the puzzle pieces than I ever did.
Interesting, I haven’t baked again, the puzzle is at a friend’s house. And that dear readers as they say in the baking world – is a baker’s dozen and this week’s blog is baked and ready for publishing.
Please stay safe and healthy out there.
To my dearest friend who passed last Saturday. R.I.P and know you will always be in my heart and remembered. Love you Tersh.
Thanks to all of your lovelies for your continued support and love.
Happy week ahead till next week.
Mwah mwah
PS – The title of this week’s blog. In the end I did venture into town – always a bit scarily – but yip I did 😊 you know what they say about a change of scenery? Even if it was only to the blady shops! (ok, ok ….and to my friends house!)