My A-Z list of things I want for Christmas

A – The Audi A3 cabriolet.

B – The Falling Cloudberries cookbook by Tessa Kiros.

C – C is for clone. Three would be nice.

D – A dedicated personal executive who loves doing admin.

E – Endless time with the people I love. X

F – My family, all in one place.

G – A GHD IV styler and a stylist to go with it.

H – A holiday. A trip to Turkey would be just perfect.

I – An iTunes account.

J – A juicer. The Breville 800 class juicer is what I have my eye on.

K – Knowledge and an endless capacity to store and retrieve it without the use of a hard drive or search tool. I.e. get my brain to function at optimal capacity.

L – A London High Street shopping spree with an unlimited credit card. And a personal shopper, because I hate shopping but love new clothes.

M – Money. Enough to live comfortably and enough to give away in and attempt to change lives.

N – The 18-200 Nikon lens aka AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED VR Ⅱ

O – A new shiny office in Johannesburg with the perfect team to run it. (And a private jet for the once a month commute.)

P – Prada L’eau Ambrée (black)

Q – To never queue again. (Or to have to drive over a speed bump.)

R – Rest and relaxation. A week at a seaside spa would do the trick.

S – S is for a salad spinner. Yuppy Chef have a great one.

T – A personal trainer and a tan.

U – An unlimited supply of fresh flowers. One day I would like to give someone a gift of a weekly bunch of flowers for a year.

V – A subscription to Vanity Fair.

W – … and world peace.

X – The ‘X-factor’. Somehow mine has gone MIA.

Y – To know the why and be rid of this existential crises once and for all.

Z – More ZZZZZ…

• The post I would most like to write: “My other life”
• The thing I am most excited about at the moment: The digital photography course I am starting in October with Joe.
• The thing(s) I look forward to the most: Rocking the Gardens, Rocking the Daisies and my brother coming to visit in October. (Oh, and Summer.)
• The thing that amazed me the most this week: How much mucous my nose could produce. Ick.
• The thing that impressed me the most this week: The Orient Restaurant’s quick response to the complaint I logged on getclosure.co.za. Less than 7 hours!
• What I am doing right now: Sitting in my PJs on my king sized bed futzing around online instead of compiling my lecture for the Nomadic Marketing course.
• The person I miss the most: X
• Where I would most like to be right now: On Pemba Island in Zanzibar.
• The song in my head: “Pappa was king of the jungle. Mamma was queen of the mambo. Deep down in the jungle they keep banging the big bongo…” – Manu Chau
• What I enjoy most about my life: My freedom.
• The thing that scares me the most: That this is it.
• The thing that scares me the least: Living.
• The thing(s) I least enjoy: Dishes, filing and admin.
• The things I can’t live without: A shower, toothbrush, Audi, iPhone, Mac, mascara, lipbalm.  In that order.
• The person I can’t live without: Parri.
• The one thing I cannot stand: Having to repeat myself.
• If I could change one thing: I wouldn’t.

When I was nine, my parents took us out of school to back-pack through South America for six months. Being a doctor, my dad felt he wasn’t seeing enough of his wife and children so picked a continent in the Southern hemisphere that shares a summer with South Africa, bought all the necessary gear and a trusty guide book and off we went.

It was a fantastic experience (the bits I can remember at least considering that nine is fairly young) except for the camping. Crazy bugs, foam mattresses, bush loos, washing your hair in glacier water (think permanent ice cream headache for two days), being squashed between two older brothers while braving the Patagonian winds in a three man tent… suffice to say I have been put off camping and any derivative thereof for life.

The one good thing about not growing up in 5 star luxury, is that you get to appreciate it so much more when you do have the chance to experience it. Of late, I have been very lucky. Last year for our three year anniversary Parri and I stayed at the Vineyard Hotel and just two weeks ago we stayed in the 2Oceansvibe Suite at the Cape Royale in Green Point – a real treat considering I had just returned from camping at the Oppikoppi music fest the weekend before.

My most recent rendezvous was at an African Pride establishment, the Melrose Arch Hotel, during a business trip to Johannesburg. I follow @ProteaHotels on Twitter and have entered almost all their competitions without any luck. So when my super hero cheekily asked his contact if I could spend a night in one of their hotels and they obliged, I did a cat-in-the-cradle move and jumped over the moon.

My favourite bits:

• Being greeted by name when I reached the reception desk. The sneaky doorman got me to pronounce my surname when I checked my car in for valet parking. It is pronounced Look-hoff and not Luck-hoff for those who bother with that kind of thing.
• Checking in with a Mont Blanc pen. Have I mentioned that all I want in life is a Mont Blanc pen to go with my stationery fetish?
• The complimentary olives, mixed nuts, Ferrero Roche chocolate and bottled water. Perfect at 6pm after a long day and a dehydrating flight.
• The suite. Plush, stylish, understated, beautiful, quiet, with all the bells and whistles you could ask for including a king size extra length bed; cloud soft duvet and pillows with the covers tucked in just right so that your feet can move; ample closet space with lighting, a minibar to die for; tissues; a coffee and tea station that includes hot chocolate and biscuits; the latest girly magazines; slippers; built in speakers and a dvd collection ranging from Zoolander to yes, you guessed it, Barely Legal.
• But the bathroom is the best. Heated floors so your toes don’t freeze; a bath that could fit four and yellow ducks to keep you company; a shower with a handy step up when you need to shave on the run; a thermo water flask by the basin; a phone in the loo (I’m still trying to figure this one out) and lighted candles to go with your turned down, rose petal adorned bed.

The not so good bits:

• Spending a night alone in a luxury suite.
• Dinner at The Orient across the square. The waiter was rude, the food was average and when your bill arrives itemizing a glass of Pinotage at R75 that noone warned you about, it’s enough to get your blood boiling.

The extras:

• The Library Bar is fantastic. Clearly all the Jo’burg suites like it too and I could imagine a Lost in Translation moment if I was single.
• The lifts. Star gazing or retro lumo – take your pick.
• The pool looked inviting despite the weather not playing along. I hope to go back in summer to try out the Moroccan inspired day beds and the in-pool dining.
• The menu. Although I didn’t order room service and left bright and early for a breakfast meeting, the menu looked scrumptious. I even managed to pick up a brochure for the March Restaurant that details the recipes for some of their signature dishes. 10 points for great interactive marketing.
• Location. It’s just a hop skip and a jump away from OR Tambo if you know the back roads, and Melrose Arch itself is as convenient a location as you can get in Jo’burg.

A BIG thank you to @ProteaHotels for a fantastic experience. I promise I paid for the duckies!

Next goal: Drive enough blog traffic so that I too can have a permanent suite in some swanky 5 star hotel.

Some of these pics were taken with my iPhone the rest are courtesy of Protea Hotels.

While eating my sarmie for lunch today I found myself once again avoiding the crusts. Truth be told I’m not a big bread person and take the same approach to sandwiches as I do to pizza – I have bread with my filling and pizza base with my toppings. Come to think of it, I never really got the feel for salad leaves either. All I really ever want are the goodies that come with it (think avo, feta, nuts…).

So as the crusts assembled on my plate I came to realise that the one thing I really love about being a grown up is that I don’t have to eat my crusts. Naturally I tweeted my epiphany and hence forth received a number of responses.

At this point I could start a debate about people who like the crusts vs. people who don’t, but I’m more interested in listing the other things I like about being a grown-up and then hearing what you enjoy. So here goes:

• I like that I can buy my own clothes and toiletries.
• I like that I can go to bed when ever I choose.
• I like that I can drink red wine and get drunk without the risk of being expelled from boarding school. (I speak from experience.)
• I love that I have my own phone.
• I like that I can eat dessert whenever I want to.
• I like that I can spend an entire day in my PJ’s eating junk food and watching movies.
• I like that I have my own car and can go where ever and when ever I want.
• I like that I can swear.
• I love that I don’t have to go to school or where black tights.
• I like that I can learn about anything I find interesting without having to write an exam to prove I understood it.
• I like not being accountable to anyone in terms of my where abouts.
• I like that I can hang with my friends without having to ask permission.
• I like that I can have sleep over parties and that booze forms part of the equation.
• I like that I only have to eat the food that I enjoy and that if I don’t finish dinner I still get dessert.
• I like that I can choose when I go on family trips.
• I like that I can play my music as loud as I like when ever I like.
• I like that I can choose what colour my hair should be and how I can wear it.
• I like that I can choose to be who I want to be without peer pressure.
• I love that I can bake chocolate brownies and eat the whole batch.

I’m sure there are a dozen more, however being a grown-up I also have to work – a part of adulthood I’m not so crazy about. But that’s a topic for another post on another day.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to work I go…

• Bolt, the movie. The hamster in the bubble is a riot and when Mittens explains to Bolt that all cats have a dog complex, I nearly wet myself.
• Sour jelly babies
• My snooze button.
• Having my hair and make-up professionally done . (I’m still not so keen on the photo shoot part though.)
• The shoe section at Mr Price. Three pairs for R329! You’ve gotta love cheap fashion.
• My Mac. Have I mentioned I still stroke it every day?
• Tweetdeck. Geeky I know, but I really enjoy how I can filter the info. And for my iPhone, Twitterrific.
• Our new bookshelf. Every day is one step closer to my own wall to wall library.
• The MANGO-OMC intern. She is an angel sent from heaven who brings donuts to work.
• My gray skinny Levi jeans. They go with everything.
• The new Vikas Swarup (he of Q&A/Slumdog Millionaire fame) book, The Six Suspects.
• Being laterally and vertically South.
• “Don’t be cool – be relevant.”
• “Be relevantly cool.”
• Trips to Jo’burg.
• Love.