Tanya's Blog

I remember watching a movie as a child called Pollyanna (turns out it was a book first) it was at a birthday party for some girl from my class when I still lived in Fish Hoek (the first time round) – so we’re talking some time back – I must have been around 7 or 8. The movie had a profound affect on me and as such I tend to try and look for the ‘silver lining’ or ‘pollyanna’ in most situations, although I must say I’m struggling a bit these days.  It wasn’t till this morning that I spotted the silver lining in the pipe in the backyard deciding to spew hot water all over the jacuzzi and surrounds late last night. It meant I got to stay in bed 20 minutes longer this morning whilst Wouter fixed the connection, it was either that or go to work without showering… *shudder*.

We’ve almost finished carting all the stuff from my Kommetjie place – unbelievable really how much one can fit into a small place. Problem with the Kommetjie place is it has a lot, A LOT of cupboards and storage space – so there have been boxes and things living in those cupboards for five years now, untouched by human hand. As nice as it is to discover something you hadn’t realised you had – there are distinct disadvantages to being a hoarder.  As Wouter so sweetly reminded me last night, this is just *my* stuff we haven’t got around to packing *his* stuff yet. He takes hoarding to a whole new level. Today should see everything out of the place and all that remains is for the cleaning lady to do her thing on Friday and the official handing over of keys.

‘Course the FH place should be declared a disaster zone but at least it isn’t quite this bad :-) (Close but not quite as bad).

Despite the crushing sense of impending doom that is pervading my life at the moment (you’ll understand when you look at the pictures on Wouter’s blog) I still managed to buy the girls bean bags which I’ve been promising them for years now. The park home was way too small for them but they’ll fit nicely in their new rooms.  They look remarkably like giant cellphone holders to me but are extremely comfortable.

Notice my dressing table behind them – looks rather dashing in the middle of the lounge, doesn’t it?

As a kid growing up I was the happy go lucky child, nothing phased me – some might even say I was too lazy to get wound up about anything – I think I must be getting old because this move has me completely and utterly freaked out. You know you’re desperate when sites like this start to look appealing.

We have officially moved in – we have no curtains, the kitchen isn’t finished yet, we have one working shower (plus side, we do have two working toilets), we have about a gazillion boxes and still more stuff in Kommetjie and I forgot our mattress is a queen and bought everything for a king size bed. I’m unravelling as I write this.

A lot has happened over the last few days, Wouter finished installing the stove plates…

We also had to burgle the house again – my fault this time. I’ve given my keys to my mother so that she can help Jessica move her stuff – and Wouter gave me his keys to open up with, I then put them down somewhere and promptly forgot about them – so off we went to shift stuff from Kommetjie only to get to FH and realise we (I) hadn’t remembered the keys. Fortunately I’d left a window open in Jessica’s room – bit scary to think how easy it was to unscrew the burglar bars.

Wouter putting them back on.

We also shifted the kids beds and fridge – with a little help from Frank.

It’s remarkably disgusting how much dust is in this little place of mine – we had to take the vacuum cleaner to the fridge.

However despite the total chaos and disarray – we still managed in typical South African style – to have a braai as our first meal in our new home, and damn fine it was too.

Wouter spent much of the weekend routing the kitchen counter.

Whilst he was doing that I decided to cover some of the shelves in my bedroom wardrobe with a very nice contact paper we found at the local hardware store. 

 ‘Course we’d only gone to the store for window putty to put the pane of glass back but I spotted the paper and knew I had to have it.  The really ancient guy who assisted me was half deaf so I had to raise my voice quite considerably to get across how many metres I wanted. We then went to the counter to cut it and on the radio they were discussing how someone had won R1000.00 which prompted the other staff to start discussing the R1000 as well.  What does the ancient half deaf dude say?  “Did the wife win it, ‘cos if she did I’d go over there and give her one”.  I kid you not.  Gads but Fish Hoek is strange, either that or I just attract weirdos.