Escapisms

After picking up the last remaining bits from Ballito for the wedding we headed out to the Rain Farm. Having watched the video on their website and seen the photos I was really looking forward to seeing what it was actually like. It was around 15 km off the main road and the amount of pot holes on the road were absurd!

As soon as we arrived at Rain Farm I started keeping my eyes peeled for wildlife. Doubtful that we would actually be able to see any so close to the roads. I was wrong, I think we had turned two corners before we came across the giraffe – all 5 of them all together almost like they were all waiting for my arrival – such a magnificent sight with them all having a nibble on the bushes. Sadly I didn’t have my camera or phone to hand & just gazed in awe of the wildlife so different to that in the UK.

We went and dropped the majority of the stuff down in ‘Zebra‘ – the honeymoon suite where I was staying with Lauren for the night, then went and had a look in the Boma at the set up and so on. It really was starting to come together, the fairy lights were up, the tables were nearly all laid out and the table runners & chair ties were in. It gave us all tingles! We had a drink with her parents on the veranda by the bar overlooking some of the landscape & I officially had my first beer since September!!

We went out for Lauren’s ‘last supper’ at Hops in Ballito which was right down on the beach (& had WIFI!) we met her friend Niki down there and her friend from Jo’Burg – Estrade and her husband joined us. There was lots of giggles as we chomped away on our food & cocktails (tho as mine was REVOLTING I moved to Light Coke!) We headed back to Rain Farm after our food, time was getting on and we still had a couple of bits to do before bed time.

Our main plan was to chill out a little, open the champers, jump in the jacuzzi and then hit the land of nod so that we were both well rested & relaxed for a long, long day ahead. This, somehow, didn’t exactly work. First there was the small issue of the frog that was hopping around the jacuzzi, La’s least favourite animal and I spent some considerable time trying to coax the ruddy thing away from the jacuzzi and out the pigging door. Total fail – bloody thing went in behind the jacuzzi and refused to come out! I’m there all ‘come on froggy, froggy, come on out you come’ – it took one look at me & turned his nose up at me before hopping off. Cue a mass of expletives from the a very flustered me!

It’s fine I thought, we will just forget about it and opened the bubbles & poured some out for La & I. She, during this time, was still trying to send the email with all of the songs on to the DJ for tomorrow night. The reception in the room was preventing it from sending so the tablet was wafted around the garden for a while, standing on tiptoes, waving it, shaking it, nothing. There was no other option, we would have to try walking up to reception as there was more coverage up there. So, already in our swimmers, towels around our waists in the PITCH BLACK we started heading back up the dirt path. I was indeed, how do I put this, BRICKING IT. (Despite telling La that of course I wasn’t scared – I mean what honestly could happen?!!) So much for our chilled out relaxing evening?!! After several more button presses, much wafting & reaching to the sky, the bloody thing STILL refused to send. Sod it. We’d do it first thing. Little could be done now.

We headed back to the room and pulled the covers off the jacuzzi and after La sticking a toe in & noticing that it was absurdly warm at 35 degrees and not quite so much as a hot bath but more a wet sauna temperature wise. I’m a flipping wimp with sensitive skin with the warm (just ask Mum!) I dipped about a cm of my big toe in before returning to the instructions on the wall to work out how to turn the bloody thing down!! Dear god this was clearly NEVER going to happen. Having followed them to the T all the way through 3 or 4 times (remember I’d had only one reeeeevolting MOOHHHEEETTTOOOO so this could in no way be referred to as a drunken faux pas!) we were getting NO WHERE with lowering the temperature at all. Sod it was confirmed and in we both went. We lasted, I’m really not kidding here, 30 seconds, if that, in there enjoying the bubbles until we both decided that actually it was not even enjoyable and both worried about our spray tans, how girlie?! How unlike me!?!

I had a quick shower & washed my hair before bed as I wasn’t allowed to wash it in the morning as it was being upstyled (like I knew what that meant?!) and so would be far too flimsy. I think it was lights out at 1130. Mission accomplished so far with a sober bride tucked up in bed ahead if her big day in the morning. 10 brownie points to moi!!