Going To The Chapel

My best friend has set a date for her wedding! Schmokkle will be getting married on 4 April next year. She's been e-mailing me all morning, and we've been talking about venues and cakes and gift registers.... I'm nearly jumping out of my skin with excitement! It's so sweet, when I said we were coming down, she couldn't quite believe it. She said she felt it was way too much to ask, but as I said to her, I wouldn't miss her wedding for the world, and I'd move heaven and earth to be there if necessary. I would even sell my wardrobe for flight money. Ok, so I'd be admitted into a clinic for depression shortly afterwards (how very Hollywood of me), but I'd do it if I had to.

So now Shoes and I can get on with planning this holiday. We'll probably fly home on 27 March, just in time for my dad's birthday, and stay in SA for two weeks. We always have to divide our time between our 2 families when we go home, as mine are in Cape Town and his are in Jozi & Creighton. Shoes' sister only recently moved to Creighton, so it will be our first time visiting them there. It's a tiny farming community, as far removed from London life as we could possibly get. I'm so looking forward to acres of open space, clear blue skies, no traffic noise and the kind of neighbourly trust that means you don't have to lock your cars at night!

The longer I live in London, the more South African I feel. I find myself focussing far more now on what's happening back home than I did when I lived there, and I feel every disappointment, setback and triumph of SA as a nation so much more strongly. I am holding my breath along with the rest of the world - ok, maybe just the rest of Africa - in anticipation of what is going to happen now that Mbeki has stepped down. Unfortunately, I think things may very well get worse before they get better. But if there's one thing that my 3 years in London have taught me, it's that South Africa is not reflected by its leaders, despite what the international press might have us believe. I know there is a sense of disillusionment among people at large at the moment, but there is also an incredible resilience that characterises South Africans. I'm no political expert, but I am a South African expert**: I think growing up there and being a part of the patchwork quilt of change in recent history qualifies me to this category. So I would like to offer my expert opinion in the face of this current adversity: South Africa rocks, and Zuma and Mbeki can't take away the basic awesomeness of being South African, no matter how hard they try!

**I'm also available for public speaking engagements for a small fee....might as well hop on the gravy train and scam people for their hard earned cash while everybody else is doing it!!! (Disclaimer: I am all for positivity and hope, but I think both are better served with a healthy dose of irony.)