Our Second Christmas

Hi All

Right again I am being a bit rubbish at catching you up with what has happened since we arrived, I have been trying to find something to fill my time while I am here which is surprisingly difficult but lots of emails have gone out and hopefully something will come up.

So I am going to tell you about our second Christmas, or as it is more boringly known - the arrival of our heavy baggage. We were the enzy on the compound when people heard that our heavy baggage was waiting for us in Johannesburg before we even arrived in South Africa. Most people end up having to wait months for  theirs having packed it up just before they left and then lots of issues with the transport. But no we had packed ours up about a month and half in advance because most of it we had just bought and we had gotten used to living out of a suitcase over the last few years. We tried to explain this situation to the green eyed folk around us but I am not sure there was any sympathy for the nomadic lifestyles Nick and I had had back in England. To be fair poor Jill who moved here a month before us is still waiting on her heavy baggage.

So we organised it to be delivered on the second tuesday we were here. While Nick was at work I had the task of coordinating the unpacking - this was not much of a task. The only stressful part was their arrival which I just had to catch on camera because it was pretty entertaining/terrifying.

So they arrived in their bakkie (thats what those flat back things are called over here) with a huge wodden crate with all our beloved belongings strapped ( but still wobbling) on the back. Having reversed up the driveway outside our flat and being about a millimeter from taking out the side of our neighbours car in the process, they park outside. One then climbed up next to the box and unstrapped in the other on top of the cab of the van (you can just about see him in the photo) and started to wrench the side of the box off. This ended up in just ripping that side to pieces. But none of  this phased them and soon they were bringing all the boxes up as I ticked the boxes off and kept them happy with water and biscuits. The photos tell you the rest of the story and give you a glimps of our flat before our things started cluttering up the place.

Here are the guys trying to smash open our shipment - not worrying at all!

Here is the flat once al the boxes had been unloaded. I had to wait for Nick to get home  before we could open any - the temptation was pretty great! But I did get to construct a fun corridor to the kitchen. By the way this is our dining area and front door, to the left is our kitchen and behind the camera is our lounge. 

This is our lounge with patio door (with a sliding gate on the inside) out to the balcony (we dont have a garden until we move to a ground floor flat).

This is the view from the dining area you can see the L-shaped sofa and patio doors.

Part of the kitchen which opens out to the dining areas

Our kitchen, it has a big utility room behind the camera

The Wednesday after the boxes arrived was Freedom Day in  South Africa, so we made the most of the bank holiday and spent the day unpacking all our goodies! This is me about to open a very special box marked *soft toys*.

And Eeyore was free!!! 

And so was Yoshi! They had had an adventure but luckily not had to use the scuba diving kit that  was conveniently packed in the same box! (well that's what they tell me anyway)

Nick also unpacked his favourite items - his teapot, golf clubs and the brand new TV!

Our tea break out on the balcony complete with our own mugs (very exciting!) rather than the boring white ones we had been supplied with from the commission. We are also eating hot cross buns which were surprisingly in great supply over Easter.

Nick adding the homely touches to the fridge with our magnets - there are a lot more than this actually, I dont know how we have collected them given neither of us had our own fridge before! This seems like a small boring act but this is our first home  together so to us it is things like this which are exciting.

Me adding the homely touches to my feet! I dont know how I coped without these guys for so long.  We have just turned the underfloor heating on though so they are not quite as vital as back at home when my feet go odd shades of blue.

Nick decided to send me back to England, see you all soon!

Our flat mid unpacking!

And again. It no longer looks like  this you will be glad  to know . We only have a few boxes left that we will open once we are in the new flat. We have yet to make a fort out of the empty boxes which are currently in the garage.  I would say we are leaving the fort for a rainy day but apparently we wont have one for a few months! So I better start bugging Nick to play forts with me. I will put up some pictures of our flat as it is now with all our homely belongings soon but I will wait until after our cleaner Sylvia has been as she does such a great job!

I do Hope you are all well, we miss you all.

I'll blog again soon!

Kat

xx