Ciao Bella

So here we are, my dog and I... Sjoe starting over is no funny business... Everything has to be done from scratch.. New postal, new shops, new newspaper salesman, and now I have to find a new doggy parlour...

Look my dog is posh, ha ha NOT... But I am fussy when it comes to a mans best friend as to who nips and snips... Have had some terrible disasters leaving her wisker-less and what not... Back home, she went to Le York, a stylish little parlour close to home where you can sit and sip tea while your pooch has a dip, trim and bum cut! They had an entire room full of doggy designer wear from hot dog outfits to bling bling.. The wash room looks like it has been laid out by a feng shui expert, little white cages, covered benches for pooched to relax on while the ladies in their pink Le York overalls dry your dog..

So we enter poochie parlour just outside of Paarl.. A friend of a friend recommended the place so I felt fairly confident... I don't know what i was expecting but the place horrified me on first glance, there are no cages for the dogs and it seemed so disorganised. The lady's first words was "do you have an appointment?" seriously a cat won't find his kittens in this place and you want to tell me you write stuff down in a book that is, where exactly? Reluctantly I leave my Bella behind and state multiple times that she should only be washed, who knows what she will look like if you touch her with clippers!

2 hours later my baby is ready to be collected, happy as a bee and chilling on the bench with the dryer in her ear. Relax Myke, this is not the city thing run differently which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Bella was fine, she played with all the other dogs who just run around the parlour when they are not being groomed. Because they were not quite finished I was in time to watch them clip her nails and trim her feet and she took to the place fine. I am so happy it seemed dodgy but its not, its just different but it works!

Bella fresh and clean from the parlour.

PS: Bella and I went to the beach in our 1st week here, she loves water but was so afraid of the waves and the noise. Just a photo of her most fun day ever! She ended up going completely mental in the water.

PSS: Seeing that we are in the Boland, here is my well trained book club buddy... Who said you cant enjoy a good glass of red all by yourself!

Why do we have car guards?

Frankly this is one of my pet peeves!!! I can’s stand that every time I go buy as much as a bar of soap I have to give some guy R2… How is it that someone that does not even have a drivers license is now authorized to show me how to reverse out of a parking. I have my drivers license, I failed it 3 times but I have it now. This means that I know how to reverse and look in a rear view mirror!

I don’t understand that you need a car guard attendant for every row of cars. I also don’t understand why they are never there when you get out of your car but always there when you return. All of a sudden they pop out of no where and expect you to pay them for sitting in the shade chatting to another license-less colleague.

I cant stand that I have to go to the shops on a daily basis and then on my return wonder if they will recognize me from my previous “free” visit. I have heard horrid stories of car guards scratching car doors and tipping of thieves..

But at the end of the day I try and give them the benefit of the doubt. Face it, at least it is a couple let people standing at our already over crowded traffic lights begging and selling everything under the sun. Seriously, in South Africa you can do your Christmas shopping at traffic lights with the array of China Town and Oriental plaza goods they so enthusiastically shove in your face. Thus I try and smile while I part with my silver, hoping that the money will go to feeding a hungry mouth instead of a alcohol withdrawn tummy.

Fly Mango to any destination at Durban rates!!!

Let me share with you the little tale of something I hope never happens to me.

My sister came to visit the other day from Durban. After a lovely weekend in Pretoria she packs her bags to head home to Durban on her Mango flight. She arrived at the airport on a Sunday afternoon, booked in and what not. Kisses goodbye and of she goes. With all the excitement after the weekend her head was somewhere else and she thinks her boarding gate is D2 when in fact it was D1. Of she goes to gate D2. The friendly lady at the gate tears her ticket and punches in her seat number. “Thank you Mam, enjoy your flight”. The flight attendant greets her at the plane, checks her ticket and directs her to her seat, right at the back of the plane. Down the isle she waddles past everyone. Surprise surprise when she gets to her seat, there is already someone in it.

Sister: “excuse me Sir I think you are in my seat”

Seat stealer guy: “Really? I am sure this is my seat” checks his ticket “Yes I am afraid this is my seat”

Sister: takes out her ticket “but I have the same seat number”

Seat stealer guy: “Mam your ticket says Durban this plane is going to Cape Town”

Sister: “Cape Town, Cape Town What?”

She grabs her stuff and hurries back up the isle to the flight attendant “where is this plane going” she confirms “Cape Town”. My sister runs out of the plane and realizes her boarding gate is D1, scheduled to leave at 5:10 pm. Luckily the flight was delayed. Eventually I am happy to say she got on the right plane and arrived in Durban thanks to seat stealer guy.

Now my question to you. How is it that no one realized she was boarding the wrong plane? Why after 2 people checked her ticket was she able to get on the flight to Cape Town? Why were they able to punch in her seat number when she boarded if someone was already in that seat? Surely the system warns you when you double book a seat or am I expecting too much? Does this mean I can book myself a flight to Durban and go to Argentina? I might get there with no luggage but whoop whoop at a fraction of the price!

Imagine if there was no one in her seat, she would have arrived in Cape Town on a Sunday evening in stead of Durban. What is up with this? What is going to happen with 2010 when people fly locally to attend games and they end up in the wrong location? With all the drug busts we have at the moment coming from SA it is evident that our airport security is laking in many ways. No wonder, as they can’t even make sure that passengers are boarding the flights to their booked destinations.

If this is our standard of local airport security I am sure there is a little more going on then coke landing up in the UK. They are not even able to get the basics right locally, if I was another country I wouldn’t trust anything coming from SA. You don’t even know if the passengers scheduled to arrive are the ones that will be getting of the plane. She could have gotten of the plane at Cape Town and no one would ever have known. Would she have been liable for getting on the wrong plane? Would they have booked her from Cape Town back to Durban at their cost or hers?

What is the airports responsibility with regards to this? And what is the passenger’s responsibility? Do they have to double check that we are in fact going to the destination of the plane we are boarding? Or do they only have to tear the ticket and smile? What do you think?