People

People make the world go round: Fact.

Actually, it's all sorts of people make the world turn. And I do appreciate that the world would be a terribly boring place if we were all the same. Diversity: that, is indeed the spice of life.

However, some people really annoy me. Why can't these be the ones that live in a different county or country and the ones I truly love and like, live near me?

Pretentious people are the ones that get to my GRR switch the most. The ones that are all Mother Earth and recycling and ethnic fabrics, who just HAVE to be organic dahling and listen to elk music because 'natural is the way forward'. These are the same people that wouldn't know a mung-bean if it hit them in the face. They bemoan people who aren't into conservation and who don't 'truly live' their lives - who don't see the world. However, these are the very people that will fly millions of jet fuel miles to visit a supposedly never touched island and stay in 5* luxury.  Who proclaim they are sucking up culture and bemoan that McD's and Starbucks have infiltrated. Yet refuse to eat the local food. Irony. Hypocrites. Pick a word.

I don't doubt they believe they are doing good. But it's the smugness and condescending nature of these people that possibly grate on me the most. 

"Oh Ali, you simply haven't lived, stuck in your little one horse town while I've been cavorting with the locals on some small pacific island/tiny country/etc" they say

To which I ask the question: cavorting with locals you say? staying a wood hut, eating off the land?

The answer is rarely yes.

And I will appreciate that this blog is coming across equally as pretentious and self righteous as the folk I'm mocking.

But I don't pretend to be something I'm not. I'm a mother. I live in a one horse town where the horse died a million years ago. I'm a family gal, I'm happiest amongst friends and family  and I live for my family. I totally made the wrong life choices (read male choices there) in my life. As a result, I am single, which I plan to be forever (or the day I die, whichever comes first). And that's me. I'm fairly simple, down to earth, with a penchant for shoes and books (I stroke them the same way, half a sigh and a gentle touch). I recycle as best as I can. I can sit and stare at the sea for hours, I'm rarely without a pen. So please please, stop trying to belittle me with your pretentious and very silly ways.

Music

Now I've blogged a bit about music before. But it continually amazes me how a song can transport me to a mood or a place. Quite often the people who were with me, won't have realised or the song might not have even been around but it reminds me of a certain moment in time.

Our House by Madness will forever remind me of my dad. He changed the words so that it fit to our house in Port Elizabeth. Same goes for 'Don't cry for me Argentina' and pretty much anything from Chicago.

Changed the way you kissed me by Example will always remind me of my last night in Thailand. I hear that song and I'm transported to being on a beach, laughing ten to the dozen with new friends and old. And I remember as it was playing and the fire man was doing his thing, I thought to myself "I will remember this forever" and I took a little memory snapshot. So now I hear that song and I'm drenched in happiness, smiling from ear to ear and thinking of Miss J dancing on a table (much to the horror of the Asian couple trying to have a romantic meal). *snorting with giggles now*

But there's another song, a song that only came out last year but if I did the video for it, it would be back in 2001. It just fits with how that memory of watching the sunset in Cape Town felt at the time.

Songs, I love them, I flipping do. For flicking my memory switch and enabling me to laugh and cry with them.

New Carpet

Something about a new carpet that is so very nice!

I have a new carpet... it's squishy, paler in colour than I thought but so nice and soft and lovely.

Smells vile though.

Twenty-twelve

I consider myself both British and South African - I flick between the two quite easily depending on my mood at the time (and how homesick I am for smarties and my family and friends). I feel I am South African because I was born there and lived there for the first 20 years of my life. I feel I am British, as my dad is, and as it's the only passport I've ever held and I've lived in England for 18 years of my life. And when I lived in South Africa, I considered myself the same. 

I have LOVED cheering on the South Africans in the Olympics and Paralympics and I have... with great gusto and emotion (also for Team GB). However, this 'summer' I have adored being British for the way this country (not just London) have put on these games. From the Olympic torch relay to tonight's closing ceremony - it's being pretty damn fantastic. I doubt I'll see it again in my 'home' country - so I'm really sad to see it go.

I come away with memories - memories of trying sooooo flipping hard to get tickets and failing every time. But going up to London to see the men's Triathlon with the CG was a day that will sit in my memory bank for as long as my brain lets it. The crowds, the athletes, the vibe, the emptiness of Oxford Street - it created such an atmosphere that will be hard to replicate. 

And then there's the Torch Relay that came prior to the Olympics. The town I live in, is at the arse end of society. It tries so bloody hard but is let down by some shoddy things - namely London prices on non-London etc wages. However, on Torch Relay days (we had two), we really did come together as a town and put on such a grand display and sense of unity. (gosh, I am rather gushy tonight!) It was also the week we regained the world record for the most pirates and the Red Arrows came for a fly.... all in all - a week Hastings should be damn well proud of. It's amusing, I think of Hastings as a stroppy teenager, it really can't be arsed most of the time, is a little sulky and petulant. However, when it's not in front of 'family' - it behaves really well, dresses up with a smile on it's face. 

Anyway, thank you England for a fabulous 'nearly-summer' twenty-twelve. I truly doubt I'll ever be a part of such a thing again (don't see immigration to Rio in my future). 

Civilian

I know this song has received great publicity from The Walking Dead. I absolutely adore this song. Not sure if it's the way it's sung, the tune or all three.

Civilian - Wye Oak
I am nothing without pretend
I know my thoughts
Can't live with them
I am nothing without a man
I know my faults
But I can hide them

I still keep my baby teeth
In the bedside table with my jewelry
You still sleep in the bed with me,
My jewelry, and my baby teeth

I don't need another friend
When most of them
I can barely keep up with
I'm perfectly able to hold my own hand,
but I still can't kiss my own neck

I wanted to give you everything
but I still stand in awe of superficial things
I wanted to love you like my mother's mother's mothers did
Civilian

Sentiments

I'm far too sentimental. And also gullible. I try to understanding reasoning and I think I let myself down there.

If someone makes an excuse for something but has a super good story/reason behind it - 9/10 I'll believe it.

I also put too much faith in having history. I think because someone has known me for most of my days - easy more than half my life - they won't hurt me, treat me like shit and generally step into/over/under my feelings. No, I think they'll be honest and considerate and a real friend.

So this past week my heart has felt betrayed and sore and like it's been dipped in 10 day old chip fat. It feels dirty, truth be known. Oh and sucked in and played and tossed out on the trash heap. I think that gives just a little indication of how let down I feel.

And not because of any such action or any kind of promises. But just because I thought I meant more than the average person and therefore a heads up would have been the decent thing to do? Maybe I do suffer from delusions of grandeur and could it be that I don't mean as much to people as I thought I did? Does it mean that all my friendship was based on something that didn't actually exist? How bizarre?

You get to questioning yourself - this is the bit I've been doing all week - and the questions I've been trying to find the answers to are these?

a) Are old friends necessarily the ones that know you best?
b) Is it the friendship or the person at fault?
c) Is it because the friend has known you forever and therefore knows that you're a pushover and will be 'cool' in time.

If it's c) then that's very sad because I have changed over the years.

My labels

I've been pretending to exercise from about the age of 15.

I would dress up in a tee shirt and running shorts. Complete with trainers/takkies/sneakers. Tie my hair back. Get the dogs and proclaim I was taking them for a run.
In actual fact what I was doing, was jogging down to the next road where a Boys Town was, palming my dogs onto the little boys who would take them for a much longer, harder run than I ever would have, in exchange for a few lollipops. What I would be doing was flicking my hair out my ponytail, batting my eyelashes and flirting with and at the older boys (my age). I don't think my mother ever knew that.

This pretending to exercise continued when we moved to Port Elizabeth. I would have to do some running but then it was time to sneak a ciggie out my shorts and smoke while the dogs ran riot in the quarry. Those Keep Out signs didn't even flicker onto my brain.

I have been quite proud of the fact that I have NEVER done a circuit of a gym. I look at the running machines, akin to how a lot of people look at asparagus and olives. With a mixture of horror and revulsion.

I did Boxercise for a few weeks - thankfully, I then broke my hand and had the ideal excuse not to attend anymore. Incidentally I did not break my wrist/hand/etc to avoid Boxercise but it did come at the right time. I tried body conditioning but I thought I was going to die.

I've got enough exercise DVD's to start my own exercise dvd shop but they bore me after about two go's on them.

Suffice to say - if you want me to do exercise, I'll find an excuse to bail out of it. It's not that I don't like exercise, it's just that I felt I was slim enough without needing it really. And it all requires just so much effort. Effort and energy I could spend doing something else, like writing this blog for instance. I have the attention span of a goldfish..... oooh look I'm making excuses again.

My point being that after having a great metabolism for the last many decades, it's finally caught up with me and I'm beginning to resemble the baby Buddha I was prior to being 2. I no longer burn fat just by staring into a book. I don't want to stop my lovely food - therefore I realise I have to stop the procrastinating and literally get off my arse and do something.

So I've got a contraption. I don't know what it's called. A gym buff would...but I refer you to paragraph 4. It's got steps and swingy arms and legs.

And I think it tried to kill me last night.

It folds up like an ironing board (another thing I struggle with) and it quite perplexed me as to how it unfolds. I took so long trying to logically work it out, that the damned thing bit my fingers - much like an ironing board does. Eventually The Teenager had to do it for me.

I then decided to start off slow and build up the speed. This worked. I got into a stride and then I ....double bounced? I overstepped? Anyway, I nearly fell off it at great speed. My heart was so shocked at the activity I was doing, it nearly climbed out of my chest and there were bits of me wibbling away, that I didn't know existed on my body!

BUT, I quite liked it too.... and since it's only me I'm fooling by pretending to do exercise, I might just continue with it.

There's also the fact, I have no room to buy new clothes to fit the ever expanding me.