Another early start for Mike and I. The refrigeration guy is due today and I am going to clean the boat. We head down to the marina and see the guy just walking off but manage to catch him just in time.
He has another go at the fridge and freezer and manages to get the freezer going again by sealing up a leak, although as he has done this a couple of times already, I’m not over hopeful. The fridge fixing is even less successful and doesn’t seem to even start getting cold even though the compressor is working.
We then start to have our diesel delivered in cans from the one of the local garages. They make three visits with the cans in a supermarket trolley and carefully fill our tank, not spilling a drop. They are cheerful and helpful and get a good tip for their efforts.
I get a phone call from Volente at the jewellers. My jewellery is now ready and I trot down to have a look. As soon as I enter the shop, Volente comes over with two of the other girls to see my reaction to the jewellery. No pressure then! Luckily it’s beautiful although still needs one small change (they don’t call me fussy for nothing) so I leave it with them and go and do my shopping. I am after some cropped white cotton leggings to go with some loose tops that I have, and first I try in Woolworths, not Woolworths as we know it in the UK, but the equivalent to Marks and Spencer if ever I saw one. In fact their whole store layout and range of goods looks so familiar that Ann and I keep referring to it as Marks. I grab a loose top to try on with the leggings but the leggings themselves look so hideous that I end up buying the top which is lovely.
I go along to the oyster bar at the marina to see if they can do us a large portion of potato wedges with sour cream but they are so busy as it is the holiday season now that the wait is ridiculous. I see the fisherman unloading their fresh catch of oysters from the beds in the lagoon. You don’t get much fresher than that. Pity I’m not over keen on oysters.
Mike and I have a cheap burger for lunch from the stall at the waterfront, and while I stay on the boat, planning to do some cleaning, Mike goes off to see if he can play a half round of golf.
All I get round to doing is sweeping the floors of the boat then the jewellers ring again and off I go. This time everything is perfect and they gift wrap everything for me so that I can’t get my hands on it until Christmas day.
Wandering around the shops I buy a beautiful ostrich egg which has a sort of filigree design in pewter on it and a wooden stand for it, my souvenir from this part of South Africa.
My quest for the leggings continues. Having already tried all the chain stores, I try the shops at the Waterfront. They have some but they are not what I want and are expensive anyway – who wants to pay £40 for a tiny pair of leggings just because they’ve sewn a bit of mangy lace on the bottoms. I then traipse all around town trying all the cheap Chinese shops who have every colour except white and nothing in cotton anyway, just nylon – yuk! Eventually I get some for £6, which, as I’m hardly going to wear them, is just right.
Happy with my purchases, I start to walk back to the boat in the drizzle when Mike calls me. He is back from golf already and waiting for me on the boat. He is quite pleased with his performance. Not having played for years and with his hands in the state that they are, he expected to play very badly. His first and last holes were not good but everything in between was fine although he found it difficult to grip the clubs and it was quite painful. He had expected both but worse. He knows that back in the UK he can get special gloves with splints in to help and support his joints and will investigate this when we go home.
Once back at Ann’s, he lies in a nice hot bath as his back is aching from the unaccustomed twisting and I have a quick shower and change before we go out to dinner at Chatters, a pizza and pasta place owned by friends of Ann and Terry. We are joined by Jenny, Heine and their son, Chris, and have a lovely evening.
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