A caveat.

Nicky is having a nap and I can’t move for reasons you’ll read below. So that’s why I’ve managed to dribble 3 very long posts into the blog. Sorry. Don’t feel obliged to read them.

D-Day

So unless we were going to be branded AGNI’s for the rest of our lives we better try and hit the sea. After Nicky’s fundraising efforts at Century city (Sure she’ll blog about that soon), we drove out to Big Bay where we’d been told was quite good for learning. It’s on the Atlantic side which means it’s colder but hopefully less sharks. When we got there we were almost immediately happy with the place, the surf looked nice and mellow, it was reasonably sheltered and there were plenty of people in the water. Some of the other beaches we’d been to look pretty gnarly and not much fun for learning. So I jumped in my new suit, picked up my board and walked down to the shore. We had a check for Portuguese Man-O-War which we’d been seeing around other beaches and which can give you quite a nasty sting, but we didn’t see any. A quick dither moment and I was in.

It was pretty hard going and I didn’t manage to stand up at all but I was really good fun. I’m annoyed it’s taken this long to get in the water but it’s well worth the wait. Definitely gonna be going again. The wetsuit was awesome, thank you Billabong.

Back home now and after a bath, cup of tea and dunked ginger nuts, I feel like I spent the afternoon falling down stairs.

Buying a wetsuit

I needed to join Nicky in wetsuit owners land. This wasn't as easy it as it sounds. I knew i didn't want to spend and arm and a leg, given Nicky got hers for about 50 quid albeit in the sale. So I started to do my research and found lot's of sites about wetsuit buying, but basically it comes down to the thickness and flexibility of the neoprene, the more flexy the better and more expensive and then the quality of the stitching. So I stated looking at Reef, a South African company, price was one my side coming in at about R1200 or about £90 and from inspecting Nicky's I could see the quality was there. So to the surf shops...

Notes: I don't know what it is but i'm not enjoying being in surf shops here. For some reason I'm feeling really uncomfortable, the guys are always super quick to approach you and as soon as they hear an English accent they escort you to the top of the line stuff. I think it must really be down to the commission structure and the fact Wetsuits are a pretty high tag item. The other thing is the lectures. When I bought my board I got the lecture of my life about how it was going to be impossible to ride and that the guy in the shop only just got one like it; "like learning to drive in a Ferrari mate". He didn't seem to understand that the £30 price tag was what I was interested in and I just wanted the simplest most relaxing route to getting into the water, not renting and certainly not spending packet on huge learners boards which again I was ushered neatly to (Ten times the price at £300).

So anyway into the shop. Price seems to vary a lot depending on the shop you're in and the attitude of the guys in there is also pretty mixed. Some were chilled, but mostly quite pushy insisting that a "£160 - £200 suit was a good price and that i'd get the tax back anyway so will it be card or cash?" after checking out the reef suits they didn't come up to the quality of Nicky’s so I was feeling a bit stuck, looking like the £160 options were going to be the ones. So I tried a nice Billabong suit, which was pretty good, it had the good seams I’d be reading about, taped on the inside in the stress areas, but still it was a lot of cash for something I wasn’t really sure how much I’d use.

Then I came across what is probably the best shop in the world. An Aladdins cave of second hand gear, you name it.. Bikes, surfboards, hockey sticks, tents, javelins, diving gear, and luckily wetsuits. I wasn’t holding out much hope, a second hand wetsuit is almost guaranteed to be smelly and torn. There was lots of crap but the guys in the shop were really sound, they knew some of the stuff was crap and helped me dig out some better gear. No pushy salesman, they weren’t bothered about getting me to buy the expensive stuff. They incidentally thought I was German!? Ultimately I ended up trying a Billabong suit and it was perfect for size, nice and flexy and with all the good seams like the one I tried in the proper surf shop. It had some wax marks and was clearly second hand but it looked good, no tears or split seams. It was marked up at R960, but with a wink and a smile I convinced them to give it me for R850 (£65) cash. “Danke”?

A quick check on the web and it turns out I got a top of the line Billabong suit which retails new at £260, no wonder it felt nice on!!.

Turning water into wine.

We went out for meal last night to a restaurant under the TBWA office, swanky place – I even put a shirt on.

We got our bottle of red but the first few sips seemed slightly odd, the wine was really watery.. Not being Gilly Goulden or Oz Clarke we weren’t quite sure what to make of it. We asked our waitress who admitted to knowing nothing about wine and that it was all about different grapes and different years, or something like that… “Really”… So we tried again managing to get through a glass each, but we still weren’t convinced. We got the wine waiter over who approached our table proclaiming:
“How are we? The Shiraz is very light isn’t it” Clearly having been tipped off by our waitress.
“Well we’d like you to taste it, this seems like it’s half water”
“Oh no that’s ok I’ve just tried another bottle and it’s ok”
“Right… Well try this one”
“Really it’s OK, it is quite light.”
Right mate, you’re beginning to wind me up “Try this one; there’s no alcohol in it”
So the ‘Wine Waiter’ gets himself a glass, gives it sniff and tastes it.
“Oh, that’s not right, it’s like it’s got lots of water in it”
“Hallelujah, we’re not mad, and yes we’ve been telling you that for the last 5 minutes.”

What annoyed me the most about the whole episode was that we had to ask him 3 times to try it and he still protested when finally agreeing to.

Completely unrelated, but there was a sign up behind the till saying “You will be fired if you say no to a customer”. Must be a great place to work.

I...AM AN F.B.I. AGENT...

Well actually i'm not but if tomorrow* goes well I might be the next Jonny Utah, although, Utah? Maybe Jonny Lancaster.. I like the sound of that.

*So long as it's not raining and too cold..

OK.Enough.

"A rain dance is a ceremonial dance that is performed in order to invoke rain and to ensure the protection of the harvest.

Rain dances can be found in many cultures, from Ancient Egypt to certain Native American tribes. They could still be found in the 20th century Balkans, in a ritual known as Paparuda (Romanian) or Perperuna (Slavic)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_dance

It's been raining for 2 days solid now..So if anyone knows anyone currently performing anything that might be related to the above please push them in the sea..

Step into my office

Following a recent spate of 'computers behind blogs' post that are circulating, here's my computer behind the blog.

I'll combine that with a note on how the new work arrangemnt and how well it's going. Everyone at TBWA is cool and it's a really great office to work from - it sure beats talking to yourself all day at home.

Now that's what I call parking...!

Nice view from Sunday

The city was still covered in fog when we left for our walk...

Dave at the rugby

Dave was very excited at the rugby...

We miss our cars..

Well you would too. We're driving a 1.1 VW Polo.

p p p p p pick up a penguin

I knew i'd forgotten another quirky moment.

Right you know the old joke. Why are there no penguins in the north pole? (In a fit of insanity i can't remamber the actual punchline, something to do with polar bears...) I digress. Anyway the real reason that there's no penguins in the north pole is that the muppets got on the Number 37 instead of the Number 8 and ended up in Cape Town. And because Penguins don't have pockets they didn't have enough change to get back.

Look at the poor chap. Can even thumb a lift...no thumbs..

"Taxi!?.."

Table View

To finish the day we went over to Table View to get the famouse Table Mountain view at sunset. Here it is.



And here it is with our heads in the way.

Lions head

One of the best things about being here is how close the outdoors is. It's something that London just doesn't have but we both love the outdoors and we've never really had enough of it.

Step 1 was for us to do the Lions Head walk. That's one of the peaks part of Table Mountain park close to the city. It's a pretty beaten track but still quite a trip, close to the top things get a little interesting with some vertical accents with the famous 'chains' to help you climb. Someone call the Health and Safety Executive..

Here's a pic half way up.


Here's us at the top. Pretty nice up there.


We seemed to meet quite a few characters up there, the place seems to attract odd balls. In no particular order.

1. The group of over preened 50 somthing women trying to look and act half that. Complete with fingerless gloves, too much lycra and fancy remarks about how to climb up the chains.


2. The over protective boyfriend/over scared girfriend combo. No love, you won't fall...But thanks for the 'lean forwards so when you fall you don't fall down the hill' tip son.


3. Girl who thought we were 'just having a rest' when in fact we were waiting for her to get her arse up the narrow gap so we could get down.


4. The guy who brought a full 12 inch pizza to the top..

Imelda Markos would be proud

Well we're going walking and i left mine in the UK.....And look they're red and Gore Tex....

I love new shoes.