Birthday Loot Revealed!

I guess that after listing all the presents I wished and dreamed for this year, you will all be panting out there in the blogosphere wondering what, if anything I did get for my Swiss national birthday. For newcomers I will explain again: I was kind enough to agree by means of an entente cordiale to share my birthday with the Swiss who wanted to have their National Day on the same day. Being the optimist I am I foresaw opportunities for good party activity if my birfday had a dual purpose.
Ok so in the interests of brevity and because I can't think of much to say today, here's what I got: Oops - if I forget to list your present please do drop me an email and I'll add it by postscript,

• A beeeyoootiful print of one of Betenoir's photographs - it's a seagull about to take off - or maybe it's landing? - I love, love, love it. I am planning to own lots of her work - now I just need the Pavilion print, the "Waiting" print.....(are you taking notes Bete dear?) it is printed on canvas and was one of those pics that was shown at a recent exhibition of her work - at a real art gallery!!! Proud Mommy Moment here people.
• Scrumptious toffees covered in dark chocolate - from Betenoir - eaten I'm afraid
• An excellent CD - a fab mix of new stuff (I have never heard that is) from the Bete
• Body Shop Brazil Nut Cream Body Wash - from Panic Embryo - Betenoirs gorgeous hunk of a sweetie pie man - Erm... Panic sweetie dahling if you are reading this - you too have some excellent photographic work I would like to own. Apart from the stuff I already mentioned on Sunday, could you also think about the one with the slightly ragged washing hanging on the line - B&W one???? hmmmmm?????
• Lindt Dark Chocolate, also from Panic Embryo - haven't eaten it yet - showing much control here people (also the nausea from what I have already eaten is slowing me down a bit)
• A book from Principessa - Very funny indeed.
• A rather posh white fake croc wallet with a buckle on it from Moony Moonbeam - I will use it to impress when I have real money - mostly I use my debit card which is very raggedy and sad-looking and a very impressive Gold Card which smokes it's so overworked.
• A very huge Designer Make Up Purse - you could be forgiven if you thought it was a handbag - from my Aunt - who thinks that I should keep all my make up in one place (I have three make up bags full)
• Money - from my mom of course - she knows what I really need hey?
• Chocolate - Lindt Poire Intense - from my mom - eaten already - urgh - that is a greenish tinge you see around my gills
• A bunch of Freesias with the longest stems I've ever seen - Mom too.
• A Woollies gift card thingy - from Dubai cousin & her mom Graneevonnie - I am still in the planning stages of how it will be spent - maybe it will join forces with my mom's money and buy me lotsa stuff
• A hot pink enormous bag for the beach from La Lue - very sexy and totally perfect for other stuff too.
• The biggest candle I've ever seen - Ylang Ylang scented - from my boet, Billie the Kid.
• A bottle of red wine (I wonder how he knew?) from Billie the Kid
• More books - from my Aunt (the make up purse one) including but not limited to Spud - The Madness Continues - by John van der Ruit - Yaaaaay!!!!!!!

I think that is about the lot? Sadly, I continue to long for my Roman Holiday and the Japanese shopping trip isn't happening. All my other longings are unrequited, and I am still burning my fingers on my non-GHD hot iron.

Sorry if you thought that I was going to tell you the names of my laundry maid, butler, chauffeur, ladies in waiting and chef - until further notice their work will all be attended to by a certain Charmskool. Er sorry - the butlering is done by Hobie who has been answering my front door for the past 8 years odd - the visitors rather like the part where he sniffs their butts and leaves his hair on their clothes. Lola Claudine is currently on trial as a lady in waiting, I'm quite pleased considering she's had no training and not that many scruffy Maltese dogs with dreadlocks ever make it in this field.

Gustopher the Senegal parrot will, as usual, take the part of the grumpy man in my life - unless Joburg hunk wants to visit Cape Town and not wait for my irregular visits?

Oh and here's a p.s. to my wish list & a recommendation to anyone who loves great nail colours - for next birthday - but the list will do for Christmas - you have 4 months to start saving towards the Roman Holiday - OPI nail polish in Russian Navy and Caviar & Vodka - hot, hot colours. I'm wearing the Caviar and Vodka now and had Russian Navy on last week. Thanks Petra Nail Lady. And as for Euphoria by Calvin Klein - still top of the smells I like on my body list.

On gifts, red wine, chivalry (that's dead for sure)

Well, Swiss National Day has come and gone and it was fun. My birthday gift list went largely unnoticed (or studiously ignored) so I unpacked the suitcase which I had readied for the trip to Japan, called Bonni and told her Italy was off the agenda yet again for the two of us and in the absence of the butler, laundry maid and chauffeur I answered my front door and let Betenoir and Panic Embryo in for Sunday tea, dropped my dirty washing in the laundry basket for the laundry fairy to deal with and drove myself to work (something I am forced to do in the absence of the unlimited credit platinum card) on Monday with a heavy heart and a lingering headache - Swiss national day was well celebrated on Friday night with La Lue and Blondie and a cast of hundreds at the Italian Club in Rugby and there was a lot of red wine consumed with the veal limone. Incidentally, the Club was packed with birthday celebrants and there was a party in the hall for the Swiss community - am I the only one who thinks it odd that the Swiss celebrated their National Day at the Italian Club.

I will admit that I did have one enquiry as to whether I really did want the GHD flatiron - jeez louise only dead people don't want one of those! I live in hopes tho' har har de har.

So what's this about chivalry you ask? I thought I'd tell you a story that Principessa (who is madly in love at the moment so not all that present in the corporeal sense) loves. It's not a new story. In fact it happened about 7 years ago - which is just about a lifetime............

Picture this, Sea Point, sun, (wintery) and me looking quite fine tho I say so myself. I was all dressed in black; black jeans, black blazer, black suede shoes, black sweater, waist-length blonde hair newly-washed and gleaming and I was on a mission. Not a really important mission, not even worth discussing here, but I was carrying out this mission on foot. At this point I should have turned around and gone home because Sea Point pavements are treacherously full of potholes, tree roots, badly-laid brick paving etc but I am an adventurous spirit and my eyesight for the nearby is not all that hot so I don't see the ugly, just the pretty trees, and the pale sunshine and I love to walk.....

So, I strode briskly downhill (it's always downhill in Sea Point except when you are tired or injured - then it's uphill all the way) towards my dressmaker and later on coffee and kaboom! I put my dainty size 5 into a pothole, lost my balance and went sprawling face first into the gravel pavement. And there I lay....totally winded, bleeding from hands, knees and boompsy daisies and with a suspicious feeling that my right foot wasn't where it outta be. I tried to get up but nothing wanted to work. I noticed a steady stream of blood flowing from my hands onto the gravel. There was a large patch of red forming around my shin area and both knees too (I know, I know, it was a wet patch but it had to be blood, so the red part is me using some sort of literary device ok?) I gratefully noticed a group of workmen in painters overalls loading tools into a van right next to me. In fact two of them had to step over my body (literally over my waist) to get to the van without having to make a detour. "I guess they are still shocked at the violence of my crash landing" I reasoned. I tried to sit up but with the bleeding hands and lack of oxygen in my lungs (which were at this point still deflated from the heavy landing) I remained face first on the gravel. Another gentleman came down the stairs from the building in front of which I was gravel surfing. He stepped over my head and said loudly "you guys must please fill that hole! That's the second person whose fallen in it today!!!" I grunted in agreement, gazed at the blood on my broken fingers and whimpered a bit. At this point one of the workmen asked "can you get up?" He seemed genuinely interested, but his interest was entirely of a scientific nature because when I answered "sob, sob, sob no" he said "Oh, ok" and carried on packing his tools in the van. I maneuvered myself to my bum and tried to stand up, all the while dripping blood from various torn and partially dismembered body parts only to discover that my right ankle was pretty much the size of my thigh and wasn't going anywhere unaccompanied. I cried a little more and the guys at the van all chorused "Shame hey she really fell badly that girl". Just then from out a window in the flat above, the rest of the maintenance crew called out "hey lady, can you stand on your foot?" I gathered all my strength and managed to bleat a teensy little "nooooh......". "Jislaaik hey that must be badly hurt...when you get home you must get someone to rub that for you".

At this point I simply refused to spend another minute on my butt on the pavement waiting for the emergency services to answer their phone, so I dragged myself up using a wall and my superpowers (which tend to let me down in times of public humiliation), phoned my mommy who came to fetch me and took me to the hospital. The doctor was most kind and the nurse barely hurt me with that syringe.

See, that's the day I came to believe that chivalry is dead.

p.s. It did lift it's head in a last ditch attempt to survive when a 90-year old man in Japan offered to help me haul my suitcase up a flight of stairs from the tube station in Tokyo. I tried to take him home with me but he was on his way home from a 16-hour work day and couldn't stop.

Happy national day to you happy national day to yooo happy national day dear Switzerland....

I'm off to celebrate the Swiss National Day with much eating, drinking and dancing.

I may also celebrate my birthday while I'm out there.

Back on Monday - I may have a headache tho'

Have a good weekend (I'm still hoping for the GHD flatiron)