Our arrival and the Royal Wedding.

Hi everyone,

I realise my first blog has come nearly 4 weeks after our departure but there has been lots of jumping through hoops to get to the point where we have active internet. Well, we have it now, which means I am connected to the outside world and I am very excited about it.

Well, I shall start with out departure as you all know how excited I was to be going first class. Our lovely driver (who I have now forgotten the name of as it has been five weeks and a lot of introductions since then) picked us up in Romsey, gave us a murray mint to soothe the tears and swiftly took us to Heathrow. Here we were greeted  with a momentary wobble of "but you are travelling to South Africa and we do not have a return date for you, we cannot check you in". After explaining that it was quite difficult to give a return date ('eerrr we are moving there for 3 years") and giving the diplomatic status letter a quick flash, our luggage was checked and we were in the Business lounge. It was pretty nice to say the least and we had a quick bite to eat and a cocktail before it was time to board the plane (mental note: if I ever fly business again get there hours and hours in advance to make the most of the lounge).

The flight was smooth, which was helped by the continuous supply of champagne offered (but actually only accepted once by both Nick and I). The food was definitely better than the stuff I usually can't stomach and being served it on your own little table (with linen tablecloth and napkins- Granny and Grandad will be pleased) on actual crockery and with metal cutlery was seriously exciting! We then reclined our seats to the flat bed position (something they boasted about but was actually still pretty uncomfortable as you lay in the foetal position in your little pod like area between two divides) and watched numerous rubbish films as I slept on and off. Breakfast was served in an equally civilised manner and then before we knew it, it was time for landing.

Having collected our luggage safely and strapped it together (a handy security tip - I'd like to see the reaction of a sneaky thief who is after one of your bags and ends up trying to get away with 5 heavy suitcases all strapped to one another).

We were met by a driver with a 'Mr Monkhouse' sign and Graham (Nick's preprocessor) and driven to the High Commission and then housing compound where we were left in our flat, number 8 Oakthorn (photos to come).

So that was our arrival and the last few weeks have been dotted with invites to social gatherings. Firstly, we had Graham's leaving drinks in an odd casino complex come fake old italian town place complete with fake sky. Here Nick had his first South African steak and we got to know a few faces from the High Commission while we contemplated why anyone would spend their money in a casino (yes Ad - unless free food and drink was provided). We were invited over to our 'buddies' Lisa and Jason's house for dinner which was really nice and they gave us the travelling bug and advice to go camping if we want to make the most of the bug. 

Graham had another leaving do we were invited to and this meant going to the infamous 'Eastwoods', which my university friends will appreciate as it has the same fantastic name as my first year university accommodation block - what a name!!! Here it is a sports bar conveniently close to the High Commission. Another restaurant, another steak. This time I joined Nick having been recommended the 500g T-Bone steak! Yes it was pretty big, but there was a lot of bone and here it is all about the meat so the plate was taken up but the impressive lump of meat with only a small amount of chips hanging onto the edge. Having only just met the people we were out with they were doubting my capabilities of eating the lump of meat in front of me. Only Nick, knowing me well, had faith. Naturally I finished it all and proved those doubts wrong. It was at this point I met John Smith (yes he is a real person) who is the head of the Climate Change team and has his own blog which my mum reads so thought I better mention him.

The first couple of weeks involved a lot of bank holidays which we used to borrow Jason's car and explore Pretoria - this largely means going to shopping malls where we found things we needed and are some of the only places you can walk around this car orientated and slightly unsafe city. These are not all as bad as you would imagine if you pick them carefully and find those with outdoor cafes etc.  When Nick actually went to work I busied myself with meeting some of the spouses on the compound. This meant I ended up spending more time with little kids and babies than I have done...well ever, but they were all lovely women with nice children so it was a good chance to get to know people and hear about the life they have had out here.

However for a short while after these encounters I had become to believe the rumours that every woman gets pregnant out here as it is 'in the water'. That is until we heard that several babies were born at the same time recently following a series of power cuts 9 months before. So the stash of candles and board games in the cupboard has eased my fear a little!

So we have had quite a few social events since we have been but the most formal was on the day of the Royal Wedding. I hope you all enjoyed your casual afternoon of drinking in the sun, mine came with the official request to wear a hat! This seemed quite exciting (if a little formal) at first, that is until our lack of shopping knowledge meant we only knew of one hat shop which turned out to only stock hats too small for my apparently big head! So having found other accessory shops in the particularly crowded and maze like shopping mall, I proceeded to complain about the stupid bouncy fascinators I was trying to prop onto my head and not feel like an idiot. Eventually I found the least offensive one out of the bunch and on the day didn't feel too stupid as I was surrounded by women with a wide range of head gear on (I know Mum would have enjoyed judging all those hats with me just like Ascot ladies day on TV, but I am afraid most of them were not as impressive). The best hat moment was when the High Commissioner's blew off in the middle of her speech  -  oops, caught on camera and everything! Apart from the hats at the garden party, there were flat screen T.V.s showing the key moments of the wedding and weirdly brutish canepes - cucumber sandwiches, beef and horseradish wraps and mini scones with cream and jam.

There was minimal networking by both Nick and I as we mainly stuck to our new friends who were very enthusiastic about the wedding (especially Kirsty who cried a couple of times and gave very enthusiastic quotes to any media person who asked). After we headed over to Neils's (Nick's manager) house for dinner which was great and we met even more people and his white Labrador, Enzo, so I was happy!

Well this has been quite a long first blog and I have so much still to tell you about the last few weeks but that will be for the next post.

In the mean time I will leave you with some of kirsty's photos from the Royal Wedding party.

Me & Nick waving our flags!

From the left - Me, Jill - has only been here for a couple of months and lives in the flat below us, John Smith - Head of  Climate Change, oh and that's just Nick!

Nicola the High Commissioner and her husband  as the National anthems of South Africa and Britain were played.

Kirsty looking very excited.

One of the flat screens showing the wedding, that is Helen waving.

All the ladies!

Kirsty was desperate for a photo with man who is apparently a big deal in  South African  radio (which is probably not saying a lot by the way) and I went along for support.