To please OAP I agreed to go to our Hiking Club hut and campsite on the other side of the mountain for New Years Eve but I refused to put up a tent for just 2 nights. My little isodome is falling to bits and I cannot be bothered to erect the big cottage tent - no sooner would I have it up than it would be time to take it down again! As it was, there was a small room in the hut that we could use (the other rooms were full - 5 men in the one, from where a most awful cacophony of snoring emanated each night! and a man and two women in the other) - it's very basic but at least we were dry which was more than could be said of the campers as it hailed and rained for a couple of hours on Sunday night and again on Monday morning. That dampened the spirits no end and not a few packed up and left! The weather has been appalling for the last month with hideously hot days followed by a dreadful storm and then two days of winter! Many are sick with flu, coughs, colds, etc. luckily we have missed that. So - we, at least were dry, and I could retreat to our little room (with a curtain for a door so not soundproof) whenever I felt I'd had enough company or felt the urge to type a bit more of my assignment into the computer. Actually it was nice to see the old (and I do mean OLD!) faces and catch up on gossip. On Monday morning I nipped home to get us each a jersey as it had been so hot when we left Utopia that I forgot to put anything warm in! And when I got back it had warmed up and even at 11pm we didn't need anything warm! Oh well! OAP, as usual, tried to drink the bar dry so we went to bed at 11.30 and I heard the countdown from bed! But we never usually see the new year in so that was fine. In the morning we had a champagne breakfast with 10 of our best friends and I think, somewhere in my enthusiasm of being with old hiking buddies, I have booked myself onto the GR5 hike in the French alps for next summer!!!!!! Still I can always cancel - WILL cancel, using OAP as an excuse! One of our friends who is now living in UK but was back here for a holiday kept exclaiming "I can't get over how none of you have changed!" until she bumped into a guy she used to hike with and called his partner Sheila - the name of his ex!!! After that, every time she said how little someone had changed we'd say "except Sheila, eh Gaynor?!!!!!!" she will never live it down and neither of the couple spoke to her after that!
Last night we went to dinner with friends of ours on the other side of Utopia (near the tennis courts for those that know Utopia). Had a great evening - even though it rained again! It rained last time we saw them too! Got home at 10.30 and slept like logs!
Carolyn is settled in Natal and getting her new school ready for the opening - next week I think. Ciaran seems to have settled too and made lots of friends. Marc seems to be working in Jhb still and is flying or driving up and down each weekend - don't ask! Lisa, Schalk and Jack are having an exhausted blast in Switzerland - hope you've been reading her blog? Kean and Gisela spent a week in the flat in Cape Town as it was Gisela's best friend's wedding. They enjoyed it so much that they want to go again in February. May as well before we sell the apartment and everyone says"Oh I meant to go down and now I can't!" Use it or lose it is my motto!
OAP is walking well and wants to have the other knee done in February which gives him 6 weeks to recover before our Belgian friends arrive for 2 weeks, but we will leave it up to the surgeon.
May 2013 be a good year for all of you and I hope you stay healthy and happy.
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