Escapisms

After a fairly decent flight, the success at Heathrow of getting all the Hen Party stuff through Security as hand luggage and not letting the cube with THE dress, appropriate bra & fat pants in (I kid you not) & of course my Bunny leave my sight and literally NO sleep, I finally made it to Durban to be greeted as soon as I got off the plane by a waft of hot air. It certainly didn’t do that when I landed in Jo’Burg a couple of hours earlier! We were inside too!!

Oh good god I’m going to spend the majority of the week sweating, beats freezing I guess like back at home! Waiting for the luggage to arrive (with fingers crossed & begging for it not to have got lost on route) I ‘slipped off’ the oh so attractive DVT socks – I really have no idea why the hell some bright shmuck has put L and R on the toes but then I did buy them on the way back from Australia in the summer. (Incidentally, did you know I went on the Lions Tour?!?)

I spotted my La as soon as I got my big bag and headed for the exit doors. My heart rushed to my mouth as I tried a faster pace with but with my two roller bags and my big ‘hand bag’, I’d say, as I’m now in Africa, that I had about as much grace as an elephant running (ie ALL OVER the place). Let go of everything for THE biggest and THE best bear hug EVER. I think we both even managed to squeeze out a tear or two!! It was just amazing, amazing, A-MAY-ZING to see her & have our pined for hugs we’ve been Whatsapping about for months. We quite possibly could have been stood there for a whole while longer, but we were kind of blocking the exit! That welcome & that emotion of seeing her. That was worth the ticket price alone. Never mind the ‘real’ reason as to why I’m here!!

We already had jobs to do with a trip from the airport straight to La Lucia Mall (yes I’m sure I looked & smelt a beautiful sight having been in the same clothes for the last 24 hours). The vest top purchased at Heathrow in Fat Face suddenly became the best buy ever as I had a quick change of top in the car park (with a fair few onlookers). One of the things I guess I learnt at Boarding School (AKA the institution) was the ability to dress & change with out displaying any ‘bits’. Job done. It wasn’t just a shopping trip though we were there to look at a sample of the table displays for next weekend & to buy a fan for my room – I needed one there & then, I tell you I was frickin melting by this stage and I’d only just arrived. It was, to my credit, 33 degrees so I think I had literally every right to feel a wee bit ‘glowing’!! We caught up with La’s folks too there who had only arrived last night from Botswana (& without their bags, I’d have been spitting chips hey! And of course Ray who chipped up just in time to see the arrangement for the centre pieces of the tables.

Back at home I got to meet the doggies – Kye and Luna, Jack Russell’s as divine as anything and, as warned, absolutely no knowledge of personal space!! But I’m an animal & kid lover – it doesn’t phase me & they both calmed down after the initial MASSIVE excitement!