Kids, listen up, being old is tough

I kinda landed myself in a prime position on a new project at work and by a weird co-incidence it happened to coincide with a financial reward due to how much people here like me. And I felt So-Cool because I was like a key person in the team. And other key people call me and ask me questions that I can answer right away.

Trouble is... when the proposal for the project landed over a month ago - it was "like-yesterday" urgent and it has lost no urgency since then... we are technically 80% complete with the job.

I am struggling after 6 weeks of having to get 12 hours of work out of every 8 hour day. I am exhausted at having to work flat out day in and day out.  Thrilling and exciting and productive and self-important feelings wear off after the first week of early starts and late finishes.

See, when you are a new person starting your career - people only give you little bits of responsibility... after 2 and a half years at this gig - the responsibility comes thick and fast and people stop acting surprised when you do everything they gave you to do and you complete it on time. It's like the normal way of doing things by then.

They took the training wheels off and for the first time ever I feel like this is a Real Persons Career that I am living but right now, I would like to stop having to pedal so hard to stop toppling this bicycle over for a while.

At the same time, the deadline to find a new housie draws very near and the Wedding Stuffs is getting over due and teh pile of unread books stacks up and I feel the desire to bake delicious things and make dinner for MrT. (don't even ask about Run Walk For Life...)

sigh... being all grown up is tough...

Frankie's travels - More west then east bound once more.

We got up very early this morning to continue our travels to the first site of the trip - which was in Port Nolloth. One of the very furthest west points of South Africa.

We passed over several mountains and hills and each new section bought colourful and wild tints of the Northern Cape. monochrome scrubby grass gave way to grey greens and brown pinks of grass which gave way to bright green bushes and clumps of pink and purple tiny flowers and little yellow daisies. All of this interspersed with rocky hillocks and boulder strewn grassy mounds.

The trip felt a little more like tourism for the first three hours (which is basically about how long it took to drive from Pofadder to Port Nolloth) from the beach where I took this shot we drove back up the road to the dirt road leading to the site.

The site was located a little off the beaten track an so we had to walk the final stretch - This was quite fine with me because my rear end was about to fail in all its cushioning duties from sitting so long in the car.

After we completed the task we stopped off for a bite while a member of the party conducted some business and we watched South Africa and Namibia meet on the rugby field.

In due course of things we turned the car back eastwards and drove back to Pofadder to drop the client off at his car where he left it in the morning.

Then we continued eastwards to find the next site to inspect. Unfortunately an incident occurred where (as I don't have straight facts I can't explain the incident) the client for the next spot was unable to take us on a tour of the site. So we decided to go take a look at where we thought the site was according to the maps given. on the way there we were accosted by a rather curious Boer-sized-shaped farmer who was curious why we were making tire tracks up and down his road on his farm. Luckily we were able to explain our presence and he gave us a tour to the exact piece of ground to be seen and some ice cold water to parch our thirst!

By the time we were finished there it was 30 minutes to sunset and we were 250km from our booked beds for the night. My colleague had done most of the driving thus far and asked if I could take over for his eyes were exhausted.

I bravely said yes and adjusted the ix35 to my legs. The ix35 is a splendid car... however, compared to my trusty old Tazz, the brakes are too responsive, the gear stick is too small, first gear is a small wrist flick and the steering is overly sensitive.... compared to a trusty old Tazz. but golly it glides away at a quick speed. 

I was fine when the road were straight and freaked out a little with the brake around the corners.... then it got dark. The N14 does not have street lights. My night eyes tried very hard and with the help of the greatness that is car light brights on a brand new hire car I was doing pretty well (minus the people driving towards me with their brights on) 

Honestly, it was a very scary stressful 250km drive. my eyes were bad, the road was dark and winding and the car was too quick to jump to 120km/h. 

But finally at after 8pm we found ourselves 5 towns away in Kenhardt and driving into the parking lot of the guest house. 

The owner-lady came out and showed us to our rooms and then said the greatest thing....


"Your dinner is almost ready"

Better yet. she then produced braai-ed ribs, wors and chops with potato bake and salad.   

Bliss....

Now, one dinner and a hot shower later I am ready to rest my tired little eyes and be ready to face the third and final day of this Northern Cape road trip :)

Frankie's Travels - Westward bound

I am on another business trip. Basically we are travelling west from Upington to almost the far north western point of the country and then turning around and driving back to Upington over a period of three days.

The trip didn't start well - we missed the flight. - I'll say no more on this topic because missing flights is annoying and ultimately results in lots of expensive phone calls and rerouting and rescheduling of the trip and many feelings of regret. This doesn't help when the team is yourself and the foreign specialist.

Anyway - 6 hours later we were finally zooming up into the sky and getting on our way with the visit. This is my first visit to this section of the Northern Cape so secretly I was pretty very excited.

First observation is that Upington airport is a really fancy pretty airport. I would proudly send tourists there.

The roads were really quiet and we set off west towards Pofadder. we were travelling at sunset so the landscape was bathed in a poetic golden glow but even with out it, it still is a very pretty route dotted with rocky outcrops and multi-hued grassy patches and (what we assume to be) wine farms.

We rolled into Pofadder in the dark and my trusty GPS pointed us to the correct road to turn down. The Hotel was kind enough to paint their name across the entire flat walled section of the building. There was a friendly business man to chat to us while we waited to check in. Then we found our client booked into the rooms next door and arranged to meeting and gossip I mean make the next days arrangements over the dinner table.

This hotel is simple and plain but not unlikable. the people are friendly and the hot tap in the shower is hot and the beds are clean and sleep enabling.

My business trip has improved greatly from the stressing sprinting pleading regretting disaster this morning and I have many plans to organise a more leisurely holiday road trip this way in due course.

...and what do One Year old boys love to do?

They love to sing and dance with Mommy!

(They also love Daddy but he doesn't always know the all words to the songs... he's much better at the Aeroplane game)



Happy First Birthday Champ!

The nephew is no longer counting months for he is One years old today... and despite that things at work are completely <there are no words> kind of busy... This is a happy day today. whoot!

Spring time becomes a sudden flurry of activity

I was sort of rolling along through the dregs of August and now one week into September I am running crazy like a mad busy person.

Essentially we landed a bundle of work recently that seems to be multiplying. This is a good thing... I think. The problem is that every time I turn around there seems to be another 3 or 4 tasks on the pile and yet the looming deadline is unmovable. The good news is that this is opening a brand new opportunity for me at work as long as I can pick up my skirts and sprint to keep up with the speed that the opportunity is rolling through its lifeline.

Meanwhile the search for new accommodation continues. I went and looked at a 33sqm apartment yesterday and returned home very very depressed. There is no way that I will fit my housie into a 33 sqm apartment and 33sqm is about all I can comfortably afford. And so I will have to start looking at the apartments that I can uncomfortably afford. I still have a month to figure things out but there is rumours on the market that well priced rental apartments are becoming rare... or else it may just be a sales pitch from the Estate Agent.

MrT's idea of a solution to my accommodation prolems is to move the wedding up by 7 months to a week after my landlord wants his apartment back... this doesn't seem like a solution to reduce any stress but perhaps I may be won around as long as I get a nice party with all my splendid friends in a pretty dress. Thus far however I am not convinced yet that Guy Fawks Day is the best day to get married if we are aiming at it only from today.

I have noticed recently in my several many dealings with a multitude of people in this new work opportunity and with real estate agents that occassionally people won't take my calls if I phone from my work desk phone. It seems completely counter productive that people still practice blocking calls from All Private Numbers when it is the cellphone number they give out for business purposes.

Worse than that is the real estate agent that seems to take a week to respond to any emails from me. Isn't the point of email to be faster than sending a letter via the postal service?

So now I will return home and make the most of the opportunity to space out a little over some floor moping and vacuuming.... to return to my desk tomorrow and leap with enthusiasm onto this spinning mouse wheel again.

And there went August

... and like that another month has passed by. 

I have so much to update here but the time to type and correct escapes me lately. It escapes me so much in fact that now at the end of month I have 1 GB of rolled-over data to use up before Tuesday! The student Frank is very disappointed in me - that is like 7 episodes of Anime and a lot of Manga!

So here is 8 current things going on in my life:

Travel: I am travelling back to Botswana for the second time this month on Tuesday. It is kinda exciting to see how much progress has been made on site and frustrating at the same time as the nature of managing contractors seems to be a lot about cracking a whip over their heads about deadlines. A figurative whip only - made of long argumentative meetings with finger waving and pointing and aggressive shuffling of papers.

Exciting travel: The year 2013 may seem FOREVER away but the Gang is planning a huge trip to The United Kingdom together to go visit old and new friends.  I am way excited at the prospect but the time line is long to allow everyone's budget to catch up. 

Wedding: (I am proud that this isn't the first point) The wedding is 90% planned and 5% booked at this stage.  We took the parents to visit the Wedding venue we want to hire... which started out so well and then crumbled into sulking and loud voices over chapels versus churches. I have also started trying on wedding dresses which has been fun and scary. Fun - every dress makes you feel like a princess. Scary - no body ever looks like the model in the same dress. :( my body is funny sometimes.

Mother-in-law: (Speaking of parents) My mother-in-law-to-be is in Johannesburg at the moment and staying with Mr Thursday. It is a little tough because it means I don't see MrT as often as normal because he spends every evening with his mum. Not a big surprise because he last saw her in April - for one luncheon meeting. I am in a little bind as to what to call her when I speak to her. It feels impolite to call her by her first name and impersonal to call her Mrs B and for some one who I have only spent a few days getting to know in the past 20-ish months it feels odd to call her "Ma".. just yet. On top of that we haven't really graduated past polite conversation and awkward silence. The language barrier is still up most of the time... A Language Barrier that MrT says I must fix. Languages and me are not great friends... yet. 

Interwebs Randomness: I discovered tagxedo. it is awesome. Look at the tag cloud it helped me make about this blog. (I am however unsure if it took the most recent 5 posts only..) 

It is a little amusing that proposal is bigger than Engineer. Travel is the most common word - which is quite alright with me.

One year ago: My nephew is almost one year old! He is getting cuter as fast as he is getting naughtier. The naughtiness is always accompanied with a big toothy grin. (lesson - teething babies have very SHARP teeth. The cute playful coaxing of their fingers into their mouths is a trap!) 

I confess that despite my good intentions, I am a dotty Aunty who pays too much attention to him and not enough to the entire rest of the group when I see him. I only get away with it because everyone else seems to find his behaviour fascinating and adorable. Tragically I have been only able to baby sit him once so far because I was sick and unavailable all the other times. I may post a whole set of pictures when I have them readied.

Frankie's Castle: I am still no closer to anything definite as far as housing goes. My landlord will publish a price soon and at the same time I have my eye on a 1and a half room apartment in the next suburb while still debating the monetary benefits of moving home to my parents for 8 months. The exciting news is that I found a really nice potential home for MrT and me once we are wed. It is only available from April next year so it fits our plans quite nicely. And it is very close to our current homes so we know the area pretty well. 

Peace: I had an epiphany in church this evening. The Englishman is thinking of moving back to his home country at the end of the year because he feels his current girlfriend is on the verge of breaking things off. The Lindt Fairy and I were discussing this and we feel that he is a love struck idiot whose girlfriend doesn't deserve his devotion. She doesn't seem to want to make any extra effort to make their (temporarily) long distance relationship work. And so I was thinking that the Englishman will be filled with regret giving up the opportunity working here if his girlfriend breaks up with him anyway at a later stage for another reason. 

Then I remembered how MrX had also said to me that he never wanted to lose me while were dating long distance. How the exciting job was null if he didnt have my support. (or something like that - it is too late at night to dig through old archived mail). And yet, in the end of the relationship with MrX, it was harder to keep things going than to let things (continue to) fall apart. 

MrX is getting married in a few months and I confess I have been less than pleased to hear the news. It riles me to see them living out plans that MrX and I had also dreamt up at one time in the past. It irks me to see their happy lives put in front of me. (hey we can't always be mature and rational all the time - my nephew has taught me much about being selfish... but then I am not 11 months old)

Then this evening while pondering the Englishman's situation, I realised that I should be over joyed for MrX and his future wife. We may have broken promises to each other and broken our relationship off and failed the aspirations of the two and a half years of dating long distance. And yet we have both liberated ourselves from the mire of the past and now... he is happy again. (or so I hear) 

And so for the Englishman - I am ready to tell him that he is being a moron if he asks. But I realise that even at the sacrifice of an opportunity to continue to work here in this country, irrespective of whether his relationship does eventually live or die, it is not the end for him. If his plans fall apart - new plans can be made. It is a tragedy to never move on from when things are disappointing... because disappointment itself is unavoidable.