My Festive Season Adventures

I'm glad to be back!

The planned holiday of sloth in Durban didn’t happen. But what happened was even better. I attended a big family celebration.

Went on a road trip, stopped in Steynsburg to visit some friends and toured a couple of small towns in the Free State and the Eastern Cape.

Founded in 1872, Steynsburg has about 400 plus households. It's situated deep in the sheep farming territory of the Eastern Cape’s Karoo and nestled in a ring of mountains and koppies.

I also found my dream house ( Ahem. Sorry Christelle, I know it's a renovating project, not a house:-). It's a 6-8 bedroom, 2 bath colonial on a big stand, with outbuildings. Everything but the basic structure has been ripped out, so it would take a year or so to restore it and make it habitable. The only issue is money to buy it, because quite frankly, the house would be a luxury (country home). I'm not ready or able or willing to live in the middle of nowhere, no matter how beautiful the place is or ideal.  But it would be a wonderful place to go to when I'm writing on  a big project and don't want interruptions. And friends would always be welcome to visit, of course, even if I'm not there. But that's just a dream.

Went to the beach in Port Elizabeth and enjoyed big huge delicious platters at 34 degrees South and Barney’s. If you're ever in PE and want a nice classy but informal place to eat, go to 34  degrees South. The food and service were fabulous, even though they were very busy.

Barney's is a pub, so the atmosphere is more loud and festive. And the food! I couldn't believe that their portions were for real, they were so big. Delicious too. Definitely a place to go when you're really in the mood to eat well.

Waay too much as a meal for 2.  But we took leftovers to much on later...

We spent time at the beach and drew a big heart on the ground and wrote the name of the guy one of my friends is dating inside it, then emailed him the picture. It was such a silly teenaged thing to do, but we had fun and people on the beach thought we were crazy dancing on the beach trying to wipe out the evidence once the pic was taken. But they also smiled too. And no, I'm not posting the pic here. Let's let the poor guy have some privacy!

Went to the fun fair. I never did manage to meet the talking head ( without a body), though we wanted to. But I had a blast taking pics of the girls in go carts crashing into each other.

Early evening, before the fun and scary stuff began at the fair

Attended a rock concert. As one of my friends said, Wonderboom was " too cool for school." But Evolva, the headlining band, was great and I got onto the dance floor a time or two.

Hadn't been to a rock concert in a long while and had loads of fun jumping around and head banging etc

After a couple of days, we drove back to Joburg, where I enjoyed the full week of sloth I planned. In my house.I initally planned to use the week to catch up with work, but I don't regret just lounging around and cabbaging. The rest will prepare me very well for 2011 and all it brings.

Many thanks to Pontsho, Boitshoko, Christelle, Ilva, Greta, Angela, John and Dave for the wonderful holiday.

And a special thanks to Ben, Obakeng,  Neo and Gillian – I know you’d have made the time special too, if I’d managed to get to Durban.

So, what did you do over the holidays? I'm going to start visiting your blogs to catch up, but please leave comments too to tell me what you've been up to.