So, off we go to see the folks at the coast...

Last week Friday night, Steph and I drove down to see the folks as it could be a while before we see them again seeing as we're moving to Cape Town at the end of October (on that, our buyers bond was approved, so it is all systems go for the move).

We left Shit Towne at about 2pm and by then, the road was already packed. There were a large number of vehicles' occupants that obviously had the same idea as we had, seeing as the coming Wednesday was a public holiday and they also needed some time away from the local pressures. It took us almost an hour just to clear Shit Towne boundaries, almost twice as long as usual.

The highway was pretty busy all the way down to the coast and, as usual, we had to contend with the usual volumes of fuckwits in their Beamers thinking they owned the road, speeding up from behind and flashing their lights. A number of times, I stuck in my lane and cruised at 130k's, already over the limit, and waited until I had a gap past the truck or car I was passing. A number of times I got the beady eyeball from the wanker in the Beamer, to which I just smiled and returned the occasional finger gesture. Why do people always have to get in your face and annoy the hell out of you, even when they are breaking the law? Wankers...

We drove straight through to Estcourt (where the bacon and sausages come from) and stopped to refill the bakkie and get some coffee. Just after that, the rain started and didn't let up for most of the trip. In fact, the rain didn't stop until Sunday afternoon!! At times, it came down quite hard, but mostly it was just a light drizzle and through PMBurg it was nothing more than a heavy mist, quite normal for those parts. At my folks place, in Mtwalume, it rained consistently for more than 24hrs.

Tired as I was, I wasn't going to break my arrival habit and sat down to listen to the sea (and rainfall) with a large single malt scotch on ice. There's nothing like the sound of the sea to calm me down, and the scotch goes a long way in helping too. It must have been around midnight when I eventually decided I was tired enough to sleep and it was lights out until after 8am on Saturday morning.

My folks are technology-challenged to say the least. They had asked me to have a look at their mini-hi-fi as the speakers weren't working when they played a CD or the TV through the system. Aside from being plenty of years old, the system is and always has been, crap. I would have turfed it out long ago, but my father would have disowned me. This time, however, I was having none of it and decided to replace the system with something current. A quick trip through to Margate and I had a R1,400 Samsung home entertainment system in the bakkie, ready for quick instalment.

I had told my father I was replacing the system and he told me not to, as usual, but I went ahead anyway. I removed the old speakers, system unit, video machine and the old CD player. I installed the new system, connected the TV to it, tested it with the tunnel scene in Die Hard 4 (great sound effects, even though it's complete bollocks) and impressed the old man so much, he now treats the remote control better than the DSTv control, like a fourth child. I saved four plugs, a couple of TV co-ax cables and about four square metres of wall unit space (ok, that's an exaggeration), and had a pile of junk lying in the corner of the lounge, ready to be thrown away the following morning. My father looked less than impressed as he still seems to think he had a good system and the more units in it, the better it must be.

My mother, too, looked less than impressed as my father now had another remote control and access to what, to her, was already an overly-loud TV set. My father is almost deaf in one ear thanks to his mother when he was a boy (ladies, never poke a Kirby hair grip in your children's ears to clean them - in fact, never poke anything in your children's ears) and now uses this as an excuse to turn the TV volume up beyond levels acceptable to the rest of us and which would probably damage the eardrums of most sensitive mammals.

Needless to say, dad has used the sound system every time he has turned on the TV. Perhaps the surround sound speaker next to his head lets him hear things better...I don't know.

The rest of Saturday was spent in the Sezela Country Club playing snooker with my father and brother, and a pal of his who is nicknamed "Sputnik". Don't ask me why, but perhaps it's because he revolves around wherever there's a free beer to be had. Dad and I partnered and at about 4pm when we gave up, I pleaded having not played snooker since we left Stanger about 20 years ago. That truly was the last time I remember playing snooker, so I think my complaint was valid. We got beaten, though not by too much.

That evening, after a great lamb curry my brother had prepared for us the day before, we chilled out for the evening in front of the loud TV, as it was still raining and we couldn't sit outside to chat or play our usual game of Trivial Pursuit.

Sunday morning saw the weather brightening a bit, with the promise of blue sky peeking through the clouds, so my brother and I took a quick drive to the river mouth to see if it would be worthwhile going fishing later. As it was, the water looked great and we made up our minds to go down at about 4pm and fish a while into the night.

My brother ended up catching a nice Cape Salmon of about 4kg while all I ended up catching was a nice bump on the head when we got home at about midnight after I didn't look what I was doing and opened the bakkie door with my head in the way. Luckily I had my beanie on, otherwise the bleeding might have been worse and required stitches. It was, on the whole, a good night and fun to sit on the beach at night again.

Monday dawned bright and cloudless and was the basis for us deciding to stay another day at the coast. Not that it did Steph much good though, as she ended up working most of the day and was no fun for either of us. We really need to get her out of that role as she (we) have no life around this time of the quarter end. This goddamned corporation expects you to give up your life for them around now, and in return what do you get for it? Fuckall...even your commissions are capped at a limit determined by the corporation when they have to pay them out.

Mum and Steph did, however, take a trip into town for a bit of shopping in the afternoon and brother and I got our tackle ready for another bit of night fishing. After an early evening braai, we headed off to the beach around 7pm and sat, fishless, until around 11pm when it got a bit too cool (and I ran out of scotch in my hip flask).

Tuesday saw us out of bed around 8am again, packed and ready to hit the highway home by just after 10am. The road turned out to be quite quiet, though there was an exceptionally strong headwind blowing all the way home from when we turned off the coastal highway. It blew strong enough to bring the bakkie's consumption down from around 10km per litre to just over 7km, so we really struggled.

It's always nice to be home, as much as you had a good time away...