Winter blues!

Its at the stage of Winter when I start to feel like I really need a holiday. I feel like all I do when I'm at home is clean up and make food. I like to bustle about at home when I get home from work but with it being dark by the time I get home, there's no chance of that. I get to watch maybe one programme on tv while I eat supper and then its back to soccer. And at work, my office is freezing. I have to be warmly dressed every day. The boys get to hang out at home under duvets all day watching tv and drinking coffee. No fair! Anyway, my mom told me that mid Winter day passed on the 21st June (shortest day, longest night) so it should start turning around from now. I think I'll take a day off tomorrow and make it a long weekend.

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Well, I wrote the above on Thursday without posting it and I did in fact end up taking the day off on Friday. The day went well until lunchtime. I relaxed, watched tv, just pottered around and then we loaded up into the car and went down to Durban. From the time we entered Durban at about 2.15pm, my irritation levels started to rise. I went in one direction - the roads were blocked off. So I had to join all the traffic going in the other direction. My car's cooling fan was going on and off but I wasn't happy about making 'her' sit in the traffic. I started to rant to the boys about them 'making' me come to Durban on a match day. I was doing the mommy thing. The request to do it had come from Bradley but I find if its something I really don't want to be doing, if one thing goes wrong, they are going to hear about it. Then two big busses from Gauteng, travelling in convoy, jampacked with jolly soccer fans, squashed into the queue. They were sticking close and this made the traffic even worse. Eventually after some creative manoeuvring, I managed to extricate myself and headed off in another direction to the city centre, which was relatively clear. As I entered the city on the 'new' bridge which I hadn't used since it was build, there were traffic police blocking a centre lane and tragically, as we passed this blockade, we saw what they were protecting - a body! A young Indian lady with tear stained face crouched next to the prostrate form which although covered, I could see was lying face down. She was a victim of the craziness of the big city, on a work day which was also a Friday and a soccer match day, probably an older lady obviously not crossing the street fast enough for the speedsters and that was the end of her life. That made my mood even blacker. There was only one entrance road to the beach area. We were making for the fan park on the beach. Eventually, the boys decided to jump out and walk as we were close enough to the beach but I was still crawling along in traffic. I entered the beach road and travelled along but discovered that I could only go so far and no further so I went back to the only parking area available, parked behind some cars to let my car cool off and just waited for someone to come off the beach. Not more than 10 minutes later, my wish was granted.

With my car safely parked, I shouldered my bag containing juice and popcorn for the boys and set out to walk to where the fanpark was situated. I strolled along the beachwalk towards the big screen in the distance. 20 minutes later and I was there!

I couldn't get in as food and drink of any variety was not allowed in. The boys came out, looking for me and we decided to walk back to the car to leave the food and so the boys could see where the car was parked. Dael was also looking for a vendor to buy a cigarette. With all this accomplished, we walked back to the fanpark. You can imagine our surprise when we arrived back after the long walk to find that they were not letting any more people in. Honestly, the whole of Durban is sewn up like Fort Knox at the moment. Parking areas are only available to those with permits. Roads are closed. Its really a big money making racket at the moment. We were all feeling somewhat weary after all the walking. Dael couldn't see his friends. It was getting dark and we weren't able to see the match. We decided to cut out losses and make for home.

As we neared Pinetown, my car decided that it was just too hot and the oil buzzer started to come on.

Not the best leave day in history. Bradley was disappointed. Dael and I were irritated and that was just the beginning of the weekend!