Sheer Vanity = Otoplasty

As most of you know I had my Otoplasty done today! In laymans terms - my ear pinned back.

Many of you have been very kind to say that you had never noticed the sticky out ear but we all have our idiosyncrasies and this particular one has lurked around me for the past 20years. All it takes is one comment once in your life - you may even forget by whom - for the insecurity to set in.

SO.......I went in to the Morningside Clinic at 6.45am this morning with my surgery booked for 8.00am. The service within the hospital was so bad that by 8.10am I was till being checked in. I was incredibly nervous (having had an aweful experience with anesthetic from my wisdom teeth) that all one had to do was look at me for the flood gates to open. The anethetist was very kind and re-assuring. He even complimented my Barlow's Syndrome as a "beautiful heart murmor - very loud & clear". No sooner was I out and they were waking me again. I was groggy & freezing!!!

Chris popped by at 10.30 am to check in on me - HUGE SURPRISE and very welcome. The nurses eventually called him at 12.30 to tell him I was out of theatre and all had gone well - hmmph! I had been told that I would be able to leave as soon as I had had my lunch. Like a very good girl - desperate to get to my own space I guzzeled my boarding school reminder (lunch) and the wait began. Between 12.30 and 2pm I asked at least 5 different nurses when I could be discharged. The standard reply was when Dr had completed all his surgeries and checked in on me. Eventually a kind lady took the trouble to walk across to the consulting rooms (on the same floor as the ward) asked Dr Snijman and brought back the good news. I eventually got home at 4pm. Besides a sharp pain on my ear I am feeling fine.

I look like a cross between Frankenstien, a Basotho with tooth ache and a Formula 1 driver minus the helmet! Now you will understand why I will not be going out in public. SO my sheer vanity results in this - at least it is short term and I will hopefully enjoy the long term benifit for years to come.

The bandages will stay in place till next week Wednesday, thereafter I need to wear an "elastic" headband at all socially acceptable times and especially at night for the next 6 weeks.

Thank You to you all for the good wishes!!!!

Major Mile-Stone

Its been a long/hard week on the renovating scene! The ribs,blocks and steel were installed and for some reason the time to do this was miss-calculated and landed up taking the guys an extra 2 days! This in turn left only ONE day for the electrician and plumber to do their thing before the pump arrived today. Once again praises to Errol for building in the extra"fat" so as to stay on schedule with our programme. Besides the delay in installation of the slab, I found the team doing the job to be rather rude & unfriendly, basically ignoring us when we arrived on site and just looking at us when asking a question. You must know how well this went down when they had done NOTHING on sight for 2 days - apparently waiting for the beams (which should have arrived on the 15th) to be delivered!!! To my dismay - this morning when I arrived the guys were still putting in the last minute re-inforcing etc at 9.30am (the pump was scheduled to arrive at 10.30am....)

Anyway - I suppose "alls well that ends well...." the pump arrived on time this morning and they started pumping half an hour early
I must say, there was a very good vibe on site when the pumping started. With a whole crew including the electrician, plumber, builder, project manager and 1 excited owner (poor Chris was stuck in meetings). Its amazing to see how its all done and even more fasinating at how quickly its over.

Once the final had been called and completed, Errol treated Peter, Chris and myself to a celebratory pizza & beer at the Jolly Rodger! Our first major mile-stone completed on target - YAY!

Its been a while

Its been a while since my last post..... things have been slow and we have had to voice our disapproval. Not always an easy situation but at times necessary! At the begining of May Chris & I could see that we may hit a few delays so we sent an email to Errol detailing what we expected to be done by our return on the 7th May.

We left on our trip to Namibia - a trip that took us through 5 passport control (exit SA, enter & exit Zambia, enter & exit Botswana and enter Namibia) to a beautiful setting on the Chobe river. On our return to SA, we went past the house to see what progress had been made. To our dismay - BASICALLY NOTHING!

The major issues that could become critical were the stairs, celler slab and kitchen beam. Peter also went away, however failed to instruct his staff clearly on what to do. We then had to get cracking so not to created any further delays and so got Errol on board to build the stairs while the others did the celler slab. Needless to say Peter was annoyed (as were we) and the tension on site was rather bad for a week or so. Subsequently, Errol has drawn up a programme giving us an expected move-in date of 1 October 2006........

So on Thursday the Super Slabs chaps arrived on site and placed the ribs & blocks in place for the garage/studio slab - note all the props to hold it up:

They were supposed to work over the weekend as well but on Saturday we had the cold front hit us with a vengence bringing unseasonal rain so today they got started on the mainbedroom slab:

So much for our famous NFC rule.... We have been contemplating the size of the kitchen and been rather worried that its too small. We met with Clive again and had a serious brain storming session. It was eventually decided that we would knock down my pantry and build the entire kitchen out a few metres. I am sad to loose the separate scullery/pantry design but realise that a bigger open plan kitchen is the answer.

So for now we plod along and hope for the best......