Phew! What a weekend. I have to say, I went all out for this one - unintentionally actually, as I only meant to enjoy the extra day like a normal Londoner, but, in true London style, I went completely overboard and from Saturday night to Sunday night is all one big blur.
It started innocently enough - Scarves was on stand-by for working at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, and when she discovered she didn't have to stay, she wanted to meet up in town to go shopping at the new Primark that opened in Oxford Street recently. I know, I shouldn't even use the words "innocent" and "shopping" in one sentence, but really, this is not what my post is about for a change - well, not entirely, at any rate. You see, I've been banned from shopping again, having gotten a bit too enthusiastic during the Turkey debacle. My ebay purchase amounts are so high, I had to delete them so Shoes wouldn't see exactly how much I spent while he was away. Fair enough, we did some serious pillaging of our bank account to buy his summer clothes too, but even when he came back I couldn't stop.... the need for a fix was too much. And it's worse online, because not only do I have to contend with the rush of the purchase, but it's the adrenaline high you get from outbidding someone in the last 5 seconds that makes me tingle all over. Women of the world, hear my cry: you don't need chocolate when your man lets you down, you just need Ebay, take my word for it.
Anyway, Scarves and I made our way to Primark in the middle of Saturday afternoon. I know. WHAT WERE WE THINKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Primark, for those saffas who have never been acquainted with the joy that is, is a cheap but fashionable chain store which has long had a reputation for extremely low cost average quality clothing using the designs from the catwalks as inspiration (well, close enough anyway). Sometimes average droops to bad, but then you don't buy from wardrobe staples from Primark - you buy what's in fashion because it only has to last one season. Shoes had consented to let me buy one item, and that was without me even asking. Actually, I said I wasn't going to buy anything, and was trying to convince myself I wasn't lying through my teeth, but I was saved by him coming to me first and lifting the ban. So we put on our Primark Heads (necessary as opposed to normal Shopping Heads as you have to sift through a fair amount junk to discover the gems), and braced ourselves as we entered the maelstrom. And my word, a storm of Durban proportions it was.... People were streaming past each other in what could once be viewed as aisles, but which were now just slivers of tiled floor peeking out from amongst ankles and knee deep piles of clothing. Think Mr Price when they lay out T-shirts on the shelves and people come and pick them up at random and toss them back unfolded.... then multiply it by 100. We soon discovered that apparently everybody in London is a size 10 dress - or at least is pretneding to be, because size 10's were like kruger rands in that place. Everytime either of us found a size 10 in anything, the discovery was punctuated by a delighted squeal, which then drew the other one alongside to critique the item ("No, Socks, it's luminous purple with puke green horizontal stripes, it doesn't matter that it's a size 10.... let go of the granny dress!"). We also battled with the Curtain Effect, which is the prevailing fashion these days. It consists of floral patterns which are currently all the rage, but there is a fine line between fashionably flowery and looking like your mother's home-made curtains. At times it was hard to tell ("But I'm SURE it would look better once it's on?"), but the overall concensus is don't buy anything with flower prints... even if you like it and you see a model sashaying down the catwalk in a carbon copy, it is guaranteed to send your man running for cover at first glance. We finally selected a few items and made our way to the changing rooms, walking back along the line to the end of the queue... and walking... and walking... and walking some more. Eventually, when we were practically on the second floor of the shop, we reached the back of the queue and proceeded to wait 35 minutes to get into a cubicle. By this stage we were both all shopped out, and to make matters worse, out of the 6 items we each tried on, Scarves liked two and I only liked one! I had a horrendous tent moment when I slipped into what I thought would be a nice cool maxi-dress for summer - a size 8, even, as it had looked suspiciously large on the hanger - and found myself resembling a cross between a heavily pregnant woman and a parachute. I just need an umbrella and I would have been soaring across the skies Mary Poppins style, except I would have caught all the wrong currents and swirled into the stratosphere instead of landing gently singing about spoonfuls of sugar. By now the irritation had set in. It is this moment in shopping when women feel a sudden dip in mood akin to a blood sugar level drop, except it is accompanied not only by the need for chocolate but also by a large dose of bitchiness. Everybody becomes the enemy at this point: your fellow shoppers yanking piles of clothing into their arms ("Eeew, look at what she's just chosen, that is SO last year!"), the bored and inefficient sales staff dragging their feet as they go to pick up yet another armload of clothing that a shopper has tossed unconcernedly on the floor, and especially the tellers ("She is ringing those items up like she has all day, where's your sense of urgency bitch!!!"). After another half an hour in the queue, bringing our total shopping experience in Primark to 2 hours, we were ready to quit our most beloved sport, at least in person, for a good while. You see why Ebay has become so essential?
After the Primark horror, Scarves went home and I proceeded to a pub in Covent Garden to hook up with some old friends. The friend in question, H, is someone I used to go to church with and hung out with for most of my standard 8 and 9 years, and whom I haven't seen since. She is now married and lives in Scotland, and came down to London for the weekend to watch the rugby and have a drink with London-based mates. So I arrive at the Walkabout (why they chose an Aussie bar to watch SA cream England is beyond me, but hey, at least they didn't have to bash any arrogant Aussies) to find them AWOL. I walked through the (very tiny) pub about 6 times, convinced that I must just not be recognizing her. In fact, I very nearly went up to a girl who looked vaguely like her, or so I thought in my panic, but who in restrospect was just about her opposite, except for the hair. I was panicking because I realized I had no way of contacting any of the people I knew were in her group. I'd accepted the invitation on facebook, not bothering to get a mobile number, and due to the madness at Primark, had hugely overshot my ETA. To make things worse, it was now raining; I had no umbrella or hat; I was wearing jeans which were way to long for me and dragging on the ground and wedges on my feet, so I had soggy pants slapping against my legs, squelchy shoes and hair like a bird's nest due to the rain-frizz effect. Not the way I had wanted to greet an old friend after 10 years - you know how you like to look as if the years have been kind to you? Well, they looked as if they'd done a number on me. I eventually got in touch with my cousin Shaz, who had a number, and I phoned and got a location. So, all sorted then, so you'd think; but no, it's never simple with me. I proceeded to have a complete white out of all memorised directions in Central London over the last year and a half. Even a basic map, which I'd cleverly kept from a previous sojourn into the city, did not help me - I wondered around bedraggled and clueless for about half an hour; trying desperately to get my bearings, too humiliated to ask (actually, I did ask once, and was given the wrong frikkin directions by another saffa, hence the reluctance to ask for further help).
It started innocently enough - Scarves was on stand-by for working at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, and when she discovered she didn't have to stay, she wanted to meet up in town to go shopping at the new Primark that opened in Oxford Street recently. I know, I shouldn't even use the words "innocent" and "shopping" in one sentence, but really, this is not what my post is about for a change - well, not entirely, at any rate. You see, I've been banned from shopping again, having gotten a bit too enthusiastic during the Turkey debacle. My ebay purchase amounts are so high, I had to delete them so Shoes wouldn't see exactly how much I spent while he was away. Fair enough, we did some serious pillaging of our bank account to buy his summer clothes too, but even when he came back I couldn't stop.... the need for a fix was too much. And it's worse online, because not only do I have to contend with the rush of the purchase, but it's the adrenaline high you get from outbidding someone in the last 5 seconds that makes me tingle all over. Women of the world, hear my cry: you don't need chocolate when your man lets you down, you just need Ebay, take my word for it.
Anyway, Scarves and I made our way to Primark in the middle of Saturday afternoon. I know. WHAT WERE WE THINKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Primark, for those saffas who have never been acquainted with the joy that is, is a cheap but fashionable chain store which has long had a reputation for extremely low cost average quality clothing using the designs from the catwalks as inspiration (well, close enough anyway). Sometimes average droops to bad, but then you don't buy from wardrobe staples from Primark - you buy what's in fashion because it only has to last one season. Shoes had consented to let me buy one item, and that was without me even asking. Actually, I said I wasn't going to buy anything, and was trying to convince myself I wasn't lying through my teeth, but I was saved by him coming to me first and lifting the ban. So we put on our Primark Heads (necessary as opposed to normal Shopping Heads as you have to sift through a fair amount junk to discover the gems), and braced ourselves as we entered the maelstrom. And my word, a storm of Durban proportions it was.... People were streaming past each other in what could once be viewed as aisles, but which were now just slivers of tiled floor peeking out from amongst ankles and knee deep piles of clothing. Think Mr Price when they lay out T-shirts on the shelves and people come and pick them up at random and toss them back unfolded.... then multiply it by 100. We soon discovered that apparently everybody in London is a size 10 dress - or at least is pretneding to be, because size 10's were like kruger rands in that place. Everytime either of us found a size 10 in anything, the discovery was punctuated by a delighted squeal, which then drew the other one alongside to critique the item ("No, Socks, it's luminous purple with puke green horizontal stripes, it doesn't matter that it's a size 10.... let go of the granny dress!"). We also battled with the Curtain Effect, which is the prevailing fashion these days. It consists of floral patterns which are currently all the rage, but there is a fine line between fashionably flowery and looking like your mother's home-made curtains. At times it was hard to tell ("But I'm SURE it would look better once it's on?"), but the overall concensus is don't buy anything with flower prints... even if you like it and you see a model sashaying down the catwalk in a carbon copy, it is guaranteed to send your man running for cover at first glance. We finally selected a few items and made our way to the changing rooms, walking back along the line to the end of the queue... and walking... and walking... and walking some more. Eventually, when we were practically on the second floor of the shop, we reached the back of the queue and proceeded to wait 35 minutes to get into a cubicle. By this stage we were both all shopped out, and to make matters worse, out of the 6 items we each tried on, Scarves liked two and I only liked one! I had a horrendous tent moment when I slipped into what I thought would be a nice cool maxi-dress for summer - a size 8, even, as it had looked suspiciously large on the hanger - and found myself resembling a cross between a heavily pregnant woman and a parachute. I just need an umbrella and I would have been soaring across the skies Mary Poppins style, except I would have caught all the wrong currents and swirled into the stratosphere instead of landing gently singing about spoonfuls of sugar. By now the irritation had set in. It is this moment in shopping when women feel a sudden dip in mood akin to a blood sugar level drop, except it is accompanied not only by the need for chocolate but also by a large dose of bitchiness. Everybody becomes the enemy at this point: your fellow shoppers yanking piles of clothing into their arms ("Eeew, look at what she's just chosen, that is SO last year!"), the bored and inefficient sales staff dragging their feet as they go to pick up yet another armload of clothing that a shopper has tossed unconcernedly on the floor, and especially the tellers ("She is ringing those items up like she has all day, where's your sense of urgency bitch!!!"). After another half an hour in the queue, bringing our total shopping experience in Primark to 2 hours, we were ready to quit our most beloved sport, at least in person, for a good while. You see why Ebay has become so essential?
After the Primark horror, Scarves went home and I proceeded to a pub in Covent Garden to hook up with some old friends. The friend in question, H, is someone I used to go to church with and hung out with for most of my standard 8 and 9 years, and whom I haven't seen since. She is now married and lives in Scotland, and came down to London for the weekend to watch the rugby and have a drink with London-based mates. So I arrive at the Walkabout (why they chose an Aussie bar to watch SA cream England is beyond me, but hey, at least they didn't have to bash any arrogant Aussies) to find them AWOL. I walked through the (very tiny) pub about 6 times, convinced that I must just not be recognizing her. In fact, I very nearly went up to a girl who looked vaguely like her, or so I thought in my panic, but who in restrospect was just about her opposite, except for the hair. I was panicking because I realized I had no way of contacting any of the people I knew were in her group. I'd accepted the invitation on facebook, not bothering to get a mobile number, and due to the madness at Primark, had hugely overshot my ETA. To make things worse, it was now raining; I had no umbrella or hat; I was wearing jeans which were way to long for me and dragging on the ground and wedges on my feet, so I had soggy pants slapping against my legs, squelchy shoes and hair like a bird's nest due to the rain-frizz effect. Not the way I had wanted to greet an old friend after 10 years - you know how you like to look as if the years have been kind to you? Well, they looked as if they'd done a number on me. I eventually got in touch with my cousin Shaz, who had a number, and I phoned and got a location. So, all sorted then, so you'd think; but no, it's never simple with me. I proceeded to have a complete white out of all memorised directions in Central London over the last year and a half. Even a basic map, which I'd cleverly kept from a previous sojourn into the city, did not help me - I wondered around bedraggled and clueless for about half an hour; trying desperately to get my bearings, too humiliated to ask (actually, I did ask once, and was given the wrong frikkin directions by another saffa, hence the reluctance to ask for further help).
Finally I got to the pub, and it was most worthwhile - there's something about catching up with old friends in a city that's not your home that makes you feel very warm and close to those you love. From there myself and Shaz, who had joined up with me at the pub, left to go to other cousin Sand's braai. This is where things went a bit pear shaped. Since the gory details are a bit beyond me (although I'm sure Shaz could tell many tales), I'll just say that a bottle of wine and a jager bomb got me far more pissed than it should have, and on the way home I declared I lived in Oxford Circus. Perhaps a testament to my love of the high street, I'm not sure, but Shaz sensibly decided I shouldn't be allowed to randomly pick my dwelling for the night, and took me home with her. I woke up, still pissed, at 8am and realised I would have to make a dash across 
London to get home in time to clean up for the boat party we had tickets for - the boat party we were planning on going to despite the frigid 12 degree weather, complete with rain and the most miserable grey skies you've ever seen. Halfway home the hangover hit, and I am ashamed to say that it was among my top 5 worst ever hangovers, complete with chundering in public places and clutching desperately at seats and rails on the tube and bus in an effort to prevent falling over. I was a sorry sorry sight, but at that time of the morning, people on public transport were either in the same boat as me or completely the opposite (church, anyone?), which only served to highlight my sins. I got home to a very aloof Shoes, and sympathy was witheld until much later on the boat when after a few pints, he decided he was in a good enough mood to forgive (but never forget). Even as I dry heaved in public shame over my toilet (you'd think they'd make bathrooms sound proof, for more than one reason), I was denied anything but a curt "Have you finished yet, it's getting late." I was also nearly left at home when Shoes declared he was not going anywhere in public with me if I couldn't keep the contents of my stomach where they belonged. Since I no longer had any contents, I didn't think this would be a problem.
London to get home in time to clean up for the boat party we had tickets for - the boat party we were planning on going to despite the frigid 12 degree weather, complete with rain and the most miserable grey skies you've ever seen. Halfway home the hangover hit, and I am ashamed to say that it was among my top 5 worst ever hangovers, complete with chundering in public places and clutching desperately at seats and rails on the tube and bus in an effort to prevent falling over. I was a sorry sorry sight, but at that time of the morning, people on public transport were either in the same boat as me or completely the opposite (church, anyone?), which only served to highlight my sins. I got home to a very aloof Shoes, and sympathy was witheld until much later on the boat when after a few pints, he decided he was in a good enough mood to forgive (but never forget). Even as I dry heaved in public shame over my toilet (you'd think they'd make bathrooms sound proof, for more than one reason), I was denied anything but a curt "Have you finished yet, it's getting late." I was also nearly left at home when Shoes declared he was not going anywhere in public with me if I couldn't keep the contents of my stomach where they belonged. Since I no longer had any contents, I didn't think this would be a problem. The boat party was not bad, once we got into it, and the rocking of the boat strangely calmed my addled body, rather than ensuring renewed efforts of what an old friend once so elegantly described as "shouting at the grass" - a favourite of mine after he got sick (no, really sick) one day and couldn't make it anywhere in time but right outside the door and onto the nearest grass patch.... I will always appreciate that term.
We got home that night and the rest of the weekend was spent in comparitive calm, veering on the boring side, as we watched alot of TV and caught up on much needed sleep. Gotta love London, life is rarely boring in this crazy city! Or perhaps it's just us crazy people.... :-)
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