Migration

After a short migration south, the Chicken has landed back on the Caribbean Isles.

Here are a few highlights of the 2-week whirlwind:

Cayman Islands to Durban via Bahamas via London via Johannesburg: 22 hours in an airplane, 15 hours of airport stopovers, one crazy bat kicking my chair for 4 hours, 80-mile winds in London causing Heathrow mayhem: 42-cancelled flights, 80-delayed flights, undisclosed technical difficulty grounding my BA plane in JHB, 2 sleeping pills. Home. (sigh).

Kloof: 3 shopping trips to Gateway (wow shopping centres, real shops with clothes that don't have shoulder pads and pleated skirts, I'm in heaven), 2 visits to Kloof Virgin Active (wow a first-world gym with real weight machines and equipment that hasn't rusted shut), many home-cooked dinners (still too few though...aaaaarggghh), whirwind visits to friends and family...

Cape Town: 1 flight on a bright orange plane named after a rather tasty fruit. 1 emergency landing and evacuation of plane. No, the excitement was not caused by a potential terrorist. Instead, this piece of mayhem was caused by a 5mm stone lodged in the Rooster's (Daddy Hoops) bladder. At 32000 feet with 20 mins flying time on the clock, the stone decided to make its move. What followed was probably my most exciting entrance to Cape Town ever. It included evacuation of passengers, paramedics and ambulances screeching along the runway, one man-down, and one ambulance trip to Vincent Palloti. And so the Rooster was confined to a hospital bed for 3 days. After the initial sympathy and shock- kidney stone pain is akin to child birth so they say...- we left the Rooster hooked up to his morphine drip (he was floating about 2m above his bed with a permanent grin on his face), and headed into a stinking hot Cape Town.
3 days of heat wave and temps into the high-40's.
1 amazing house in Bakoven.
5 trips to Cavendish (on a permanent shopping high).
2 hours lost in Mitchells Plain.
2 days on wine estate in stellenbosch.
1 beautiful and perfect wedding.
1 hangover.

1 British Airways strike. 1 day less of my vacation as a mad scramble ensued to change my flights: Cape Town to Cayman Islands via London via Miami on BA, Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines. 25 hours flying time, 8 hours stopover time in airports, 1 very disgruntled US Customs Officer, 5 movies (no sleeping pills) and I arrived in Georgetown. Aaaahhh, back to island-time. Back to perfect seas, white sand beaches, and sundowner cocktails. Back to my apartment.... oh, yes, back to my psychotic flatmate (who, it seems, shaved his head whilst i was gone and now looks like an overweight Auschwitz survivor) hmmm...

1x Homesickness.