Dear Santa

Yeah, it’s me...that little girl who cried her eyes out on Christmas morning 1979 when the “Baby Doll In A Rocking Cradle” turned out to be just a crappy cradle. Somebody (no names mentioned) didn’t bother to check the box for its full contents. Do you have any idea what type of elaborate yarn my parents had to spin by me to explain the absence of Baby? Apparently Baby was not well and had to stay in the Babies’ Hospital until after Christmas....conveniently around about the time the shops reopened. When Baby did finally come home, she’d grown blonde hair. I’d specifically requested a brunette Baby, coz, even at the age of 5, I was sick of all the blondes having all the fun.

That was when I first started wondering about you, Santa....you were supposed to be perfect and yet how could you make such a fundamental error? Attention to detail and all that, you know! Most unprofessional! And another thing that bugged me about you as a child was if there’s only one of you and you lived in the North Pole...who were all those Santa-lookalikes, one in every department store? Remember, this was long before they cloned Dolly. More awkward questions for my parents...apparently those other Santas were just your helpers, after all the North Pole is a long way from tropical Africa. They couldn’t quite explain why you brought the rich kids so many more cool toys though...

Anyway, not to dwell on the past, bygones are bye byegones and all that....I’m writing to you this year, Santa, with just one request. It’s quite a Biggie, but it’s not just for me. Here goes...

Could you please get rid of cancer....like eradicate it! It’s really messed up the past year and nearly took my dad away from me twice. Luckily he’s a great fighter and he’s with us for Christmas, coz it was a bit touch and go earlier this year. But now cancer’s picking fights with a lot of my friends’ families too. I know you don’t tolerate bullies and I’d say there’s no bigger bully than the Big C.

And if you possibly have a bit of space in that great sleigh of yours, any chance you could hustle up a pair of witty, intelligent, good-looking guys to fall in love with a couple of equally fabulous but strangely single ladies that I know?

Thanks, Santa!

Have a very merry Christmas
Nat
.....




Happy Christmas to all those who celebrate it and Happy Days Off to those who don't. Hope you get to do many fantastic things...

I'll be back posting more random drivel in 2010, provided I don't loose my fingers in a freak frostbite accident in Norway or get eaten by an Abominable Snowman.

Always look on the bright side of life....

The White Stuff

It sure is pretty outside.....

Odious

A few Christmases back, thanks to an online grocery shopping malfunction, I ended up with 3 kilograms of Brussels sprouts. Why in the name of all things sane and logical I was ordering even one single Brussels sprout eludes my memory. I can only think I got carried away by all the subliminal advertising messages of the season...

MUST GET BRUSSELS SPROUTS....CHRISTMAS IS NOT CHRISTMAS WITHOUT SATAN’S GREEN BALLS.

No one in my family eats them...so come Boxing Day, I was faced with a wheelbarrow load of sprouts...some cooked, some not, some half chewed and spat out. Tempting as it was to dump the whole ugly lot, my conscience pricked...people are starving, dontchaknow? And you’re throwing food out! As I was not in possession of the postal codes of the ravenous masses and therefore could not ship the nutritious little bundles of joy to the Blessed Hungry, I was going to have to come up with a plan....

[Tada, drum roll, fanfare, etc.]

Disguise them as something edible! I cooked up cauldrons of beef stew and vegetable soup, popping the offending articles into the pots when I hoped my taste buds weren’t looking. Good in theory, piss poor in practice....nothing on this earth can blanket out the rank nastiness that is a Brussels sprout.

The end result: foul tasting stew and even fouler soup, both completely inedible. So, instead of consigning a few dodgy veggies to the compost heap, I now had to dispose of several kilograms of stew and a vat of soup....and invest in some heavy duty air fresheners to take care of the pungent odours that filled the house.

Nat's Ode To Brussels Sprouts

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways

I loathe to spy thee lying on my plate

All small and green and round

I detest thee, soggy vegetable

I abhor thy sulphur scent

Boiled or roasted, steamed or fried

I hate thee for thou bitter taste

It makes me gag and twist my face

And later I hate thou even more

When two hours on, the air turns poor.

OK, poetry is not my strong point. But why do I hate Brussels sprouts so much? According to reliable sources, a gene that modern humans share with Neanderthals makes some people super-tasters of a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). Substances similar to PTC confer the tart taste to Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage, and, as they are also present in some poisonous plants, having distaste for them makes evolutionary sense. For those of you that love the little devils, Go Ape!

Christmases Past

The very first thing that I learnt when I came to live in the UK was: Never use the word "pants" when refering to your trousers, as this can lead to embarrassing situations. For example, on a windy day, saying "I'm glad I wore pants!" (as opposed to a skirt) implies that you would typically Go Commando. On the other hand, if something is described as being pants, it means it's going horribly wrong, as in "This weather is pants!".....which brings me nicely onto the second thing I learnt.

British people have a love/hate relationship with the weather in general, and in particular with snow. It doesn’t actually snow very often (at least not down in the south), so there is great excitement when the white stuff does make a rare appearance. That excitement is pretty quickly replaced with collective annoyance as the country rapidly grinds to a halt....airports close, the transport system packs up shop and Davina McCall is forced to spend the night in her car, her fingers frozen to her iPhone as she bravely “tweets” through adversity to reassure loving fans she is still alive.

Nonetheless, snow at Christmas time is highly desired... but most years, the bookies profit while the nation’s hopes of a Dickensian scene are dashed. This year, expectations are greater than usual ...the snow that fell three days ago is still lying on the ground with more predicted to be on the way. Will this be the year we finally get to experience a "white Christmas"...or will all our dreams turn to slush?

After growing up in the southern hemisphere, where Christmas lands slap bang in the middle of summer, it took me a couple of years to get used to this reversal of seasons. Christmas days of my childhood were likely spent gathered around the pool, and lunch was typically cold ham or chicken and salads, or a barbeque/braai, depending on your cultural leanings. My family often spent Christmas on holiday in South Africa, on the southern KwaZulu-Natal coast. For landlocked Zimbos, going “Down South” was lekker, man... a holiday of sun, surf and sand and the opportunity for a shopping spree. In the early 1980s, everything was scarce in Zimboland...toothpaste, light bulbs, toilet paper (I shit you not!). People horded basic goods and everyone knew someone who had just returned from South Africa and was selling tins of sardines or Oil of Ulay at inflated prices.

My parents had a Citroen DS,  like this one....

Equipped with a massive boot, spacious back seat and hydropneumatic self-leveling suspension, the DS was perfect for carting goodies back over the border. Laden down with all our Christmas presents and a year’s supply of tinned fish, dried fruit and toiletries, it’s a wonder the weight of the car didn’t break Alfred Beit Bridge, landing us all in the croc-infested waters of the Limpopo.

One of the most traumatic events of my early life occurred during one such shopping spree, at a large department store in Durban. My parents went off to buy our Christmas presents, leaving me in the care of my older brother....only he wandered away in search of Scalextric cars and I was suddenly all alone.

Terrified, I started running up and down the shop aisles desperately looking for my Mummy....and ran straight into the arms of a burly shop assistant. He took me, screaming and struggling, to the store’s office, where the store manager tried to find out my name so that he could send out a message to my parents over the PA system. I was offered bags of sweets, but I was having none of it.....didn’t my mom always say I was not to talk to strangers? Well this candy-touting dude looked pretty strange to me and I took my mom’s instructions to heart (at the age of 6, I punched the doctor who was trying to examine me as my mom also said I was never to let anyone touch me).

Eventually, the store manager made an announcement that a little girl with long dark hair, wearing pink shorts and a purple top, and refusing to talk is looking for her mom and dad. Luckily, my parents immediately realised that little girl was me and were over to fetch me in seconds. As for my errant brother, he was unperturbed by my absence and then highly disappointed that I’d turned down the offer of unlimited sweets.

Aren’t brothers just the best?

Friday's Funny Feline Foto

Yeah, yeah....I'm destroying the last vestiges of the Queen's English with my F-Word thing going on here, but...

It's Friday.....lighten up!

Warning! Contains Nuts

As today is our eighth year wedding anniversary, I’m going to indulge in some nostalgic thoughts with my take on this meme that’s been circulating in bloggersphere....

1. Where/How did you meet? As students, through a mutual friend (who now entrusts us to be godparents of his youngest...little does he know we’ll be relaying stories of his wild youth when she’s ready to handle them). We met at dinner, B opened the conversation with an insult, I retaliated and we haven’t let up since as both of us are determined to have the last word. Suppose whoever outlives the other will finally take the crown....

2. How long have you known each other? Almost 15 years.

3. How long after you met did you start dating? A couple of months.

4. Who asked whom out? It was a vague agreement. There were a lot of crossed wires at the time...

5. Where was your first date? Cavendish Square, Cape Town.... a movie, “Shawshank Redemption”, followed by KFC....he sure knew how to treat a lady!

6. What is your song? Bryan Adams, “Summer of ‘69”....can you believe Cheesy Disco Man played that at my office Xmas do? Suppose it is a rather cheesy song...

7. How long did you date before you were engaged? We were officially shacked up together after two years...engaged four years later.

8. Who proposed and how? It was a mutual agreement....he’d brought up the possibility a few times but I wasn’t ready until the end of my student days was in sight. I did make him go down on one knee and ask me properly in the end...

9. How old were you when you got married? We were both 27.

10. Where was your wedding? The Wild Rose Country Lodge, Noordhoek. We were married in the herb courtyard under a baking hot sun.

11. How many people were in your wedding party? Just two – best man and best woman.

12. Are you still friends with them all? Best man is the best friend anyone could ever have...he flew out to Cape Town from London for our wedding and then put up with us squatting in his flat for 6 whole months when we first moved to the UK.  We don’t get to see him often enough...he has a lot of clocks to wind...oh, and a newborn son to look after.

Best woman remains a special, faraway friend.

13. How many people came to your wedding reception? We kept it small at 40, just close friends and immediate family.

14. What did you serve for your meal? We got married early in the morning, so it was breakfast...as in fruit, muffins, pastries, bacon, sausage and eggs, with champagne and orange juice followed by tea/coffee and cake.

15. What kind of cake did you serve? Carrot cake covered with butter icing and fresh cherries and strawberries. I baked the cake myself, but as there was no time to make it fresh the day before the wedding, I made it the month before and froze it. I did a trial run first though, just to be sure....baked the cake and froze it for the same length of time, then defrosted and got everyone to taste. Yes, a tad OCD...but that’s me.

16. Most special moment of your wedding day? It was all special...great to have all family and friends from near and far all together.

17. Any funny moments? I’d guessed correctly that my dad was going to bring up the issue of lobolo as a joke during his speech. He said he’d calculated that B owed him as least 10,000 head of cattle (or nearest cash offer) for his bride. B responded that he’d done some of his own calculations; based on the exchange rate to the Zimbabwean dollar (which was about one thousand billion million to the British pound by then...and it hadn’t hit free fall yet). So he reckoned “a tenner should just about cover it”, and pulled out a £10 note. To this day, B still harps on about "buying" me for £10 and he thinks he may have overpaid, etc, etc.

18. Any big disasters? Does half of the guests suffering sunstroke during the ceremony qualify as a disaster?

Minor panic when the Marriage Registrar arrived with his wife in tow, despite telling us she would not be able to attend the reception...luckily there was an extra place setting as one of my friend’s husband became an ex-husband between the time of invitation and the wedding, and he decided he would not grace us with his presence.

19. Describe your wedding outfit. I wore a powder blue suit...skirt and fitted jacket with silk camisole and silver sandals.

20. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? Some friends got married two days before us and they donated the flowers from their church service (two huge arrangements of white lilies still beautiful and fresh) that we placed in the courtyard for the ceremony. My mother-in-law arranged little bowls of red and pink Namaqualand daisies, interspersed with reeds sprayed with gold paint for the tables. I carried a dozen roses.

21. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We spent the night at the Wild Rose, then went back to our flat to pack up our sparse belongings and hand over the keys to the new owners. A week later, we flew out to London to start our new life. Six years later we treated ourselves to a fortnight's “honeymoon” in the Maldives.

22. Greatest challenge as a couple? Probably moving over to the UK, trying to settle down and find jobs, etc. Thankfully, we had loads of support from Best Man.

23. Greatest strength as a couple? We complement each other...he’s calm but can be grumpy. I panic and worry but remain upbeat. We make each other laugh... a lot!

I did warn you this post contains nuts!

Christmas Karaoke

It's that time of the year again when Christmas songs from decades past fill the airwaves....the gravelly tones of '70s Glam Rockers Slade, Pretty Boy Pop in the shape of Wham (when George Michael had a perm and was still pretending to be straight), a medley of squeaky clean tunes from Sir Cliff, and Band Aid in all its worthy forms are dusted off and given their annual airing.

Bad hair and clothes were big by Christmas 1973, and this song ruled. I was in utero at the time and would grace the world with my presence in just four short weeks' time....



In recent years, there's been no contest for the UK's Christmas Number One spot....it's been a given that the single of the winner of X Factor (its release conveniently timed to simultaneously line the shop shelves and Simon Cowell's pockets the week before Christmas) will go straight to the top.

But this year, X Factorite Joe McElderry's cover of 'The Climb' (Miley Cyrus) is facing some unprecedented competition from Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name', thanks to an anti-X Factor Facebook campaign that already boasts over 40,000 supporters.

So which would you choose? This one......



Or this....?



Personally, neither! My favourite Christmas song is this one from The Darkness - I love the way these guys just take the piss....

The Early Worm

Savage Chickens found HERE

The Seventh Deadly Sin

SLOTH!

It's been a bad week on the Getting Fit For Norway front.... a walk on Sunday post the Christmas party binge really doesn't even count and I'd be exaggerating if I claimed I've done half an hour in total on the bike.

I'm not looking for excuses for my complete lack of self discipline...well, actually, sod it!...I am...

1. Having a lingering, hacking cough that's been keeping anyone within a 5 mile radius awake at night has not been condusive to me hauling my (sizeable) lazy ass out of my warm bed in the morning to face the arctic blasts outside (OK, it's about 5C at the moment but its dropping daily).
2.  A bit of extra padding will be handy for keeping me warm in the subzero Nordic temperatures and the fatter the ass the softer the fall onto it....and I'm sure I'll be spending quite a bit of time on my rump in the snow.
3. Sloths are actually cute creatures...

A Bad Bout of Hypochondriatis

Savage Chickens found HERE

 

To say that my granny was obsessed with her health throughout her 80 years on this earth would probably be an understatement. For most of the time I knew her, she was never a very well person and she was on a potentially lethal cocktail of drugs for a multitude of ailments. In her last days, she was really ill with a failing heart, and was almost bent double from osteoporosis, which I now realise was thanks to her not getting HRT after a full hysterectomy aged just 34. But hey, it was the 1950s and what did they know?

I think my granny was actually quite a lonely person, and her preoccupation with illnesses filled the void and earned her some much craved attention. By the time my grandfather passed away and granny came to live with us in the mid 1980s, she had only two friends left in the country...all the others had either emigrated and lost touch or popped their clogs. One of those two friends was a former Follies dancer, now almost crippled with arthritis and not able to move out of her care home, but still lively in mind and spirit. The other old dear was quite mobile, but shared my granny’s passion for all things relating to bad health. When the two of them got together, they would talk for hours about ill they had been, were currently and expected to be in the near future.

I reckon you can talk yourself ill.

One day, my granny had been to the doctor for her monthly check-up....always a bit of a highlight for someone so keen on discussing her own health. She came home in particularly high spirits that day and announced that the doctor had told her she had malaria. We were puzzled...sure malaria is rife in Zimbabwe, but not in the capital city where we lived....and definitely not during the dry season (and the dust bowl pretending to be a garden was a bit of a giveaway that the rains had yet to arrive).

My granny was adamant she had a tropical fever: “I feel all hot one minute and cold the next!”. Naturally concerned, my mom phoned the doctor to confirm. He was as astonished as we were, “Malaria?! Well, she must have caught that between my office and home, as I’m treating her for arrhythmia!” In her haste to get to her doctor’s appointment that morning, my granny had forgotten to put in her hearing aid. Now it all made sense...

Could have been worse, I suppose...she could have gone to him suffering with a Glue-Ear, and come away telling everyone she had a bad case of diarrhoea...or even worse... gonorrhoea!

It’s been 10 years since my granny passed away. I wish I’d gotten to know her better, but I didn’t...as I was foolish and selfish in my youth and believed there were many better ways to spend my days than chatting to an old and (sometimes awkward) lady.

May she rest in peace and good health.

10 Things I Learnt At My Office Christmas Party

Inspired by Being Brazen, who regularly posts lists about her weekend, here’s one from me....

1. Not even Tyra Banks could "work" a paper Christmas hat.

2. A roomful of adults are easily entertained by party poppers and screeching rocket balloons whizzing overhead.

3. White and dark chocolate delice with raspberry and vanilla compote is a delicious dessert.

4. An office "Christmas do" is not a party without a disco cheesier than a toasted emmental and brie sandwich.

5. Two glasses of wine are enough to get me onto the dance floor of such a disco.

6. These days, two glasses of wine are also enough to give me a hangover from hell the next day.

7. Kings of Leon, 50 Cent, Chesney Hawkes and Marilyn Manson make for an eclectic mix of sounds....and some bizarre dance routines.

8. My Heavy-Metal-loving husband knows all the moves to The Macarena...and (with the right amount of alcohol in him) will happily demonstrate them on the dance floor.

9. There is no greater feeling than dancing in stockinged feet after 4 hours on 4 inch stiletto heels.

10. Cameras should be banned at functions involving alcohol, dancing and  workmates who are also your friends on FaceBook.

It's Friday!

Crimes of Plastic

I recently came across this quote that I thought I would do well to try and live by, in an attempt to curb my highly neurotic personality trait....

“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” ALFRED ADLER (1870-1937) Austrian psychiatrist.

Huh! What did ol’ Alfred know? Clearly I didn’t take enough protective measures when flashing my credit card around cyberspace....some conniving little toe-rag out there has been using my details to fund their own dodgy transactions. Serves me right for extolling the virtues of online shopping on here last week...it’s come back to take a mighty big chunk out of my fat rump.

Luckily my credit card company were on the ball and put the brakes on before the Lunch-Is-On-Nat brigade could get out of the parking lot. Hassle, hassle, hassle....it’ll take a good 10 days before my card is restored. I’m thankful that I’ve done all my Christmas shopping and shopped till my fingers dropped, stocking up on thermal socks and undies to ward off the subzero temperatures of Norway. Otherwise, how would I cope?

Life's about film stars and less about mothers

It's all about fast cars and cussing each other

But it doesn't matter cause I'm packing plastic

And that's what makes my life so f***ing fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption

And it's not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function

I'll look at The Sun and I'll look in The Mirror

I'm on the right track yeah we're onto a winner

[Lily Allen, The Fear]

And Now For Some Good News...

My dad saw his oncologist today...12 cycles of chemo down and he has responded well and the cancer is being held at bay. He'll be having a bit of a break from the noxious chemicals to give his body some time to recover, before the next round.

It's a happy day!