SIBLING LOVE & BIRTHDAY ESCAPADES

If you follow me on Instagram here, you already know some of the gifts I received for my birthday (which also happens to be on women’s day in South Africa). In preparation for the big day, I thoroughly rehearsed my three ‘receiving gifts faces’. The first one was the ‘OMG! for me?’ face, the ‘OMG! I love it’ face and the all time classic ‘Aww! you shouldn’t have’ face. In retrospect I should have practiced more faces coz I ended up using the ‘OMG! I love it’ face a little too much.

Anyone who knows me knows that I never make a fuss of my birthday. Not that I’m not grateful for another year, it’s just… I don’t understand what the hullabaloo is all about. I mean, it was a big deal when I was a teen but now? not so much. Take last year for example, all I did was make a mental note that I’ve added a year to my life, had cake *it’s illegal not to on your birthday* ‘Liked’ all the ‘HBD’ posts on my Facebook wall and that was it. Really. Having said that, I’d like to reiterate that I still love attending other people’s birthday parties. For where cake is, there my soul shall be 🙂

This year though was a bit different. Scratch that. WAAAAAY different. Robert; my brother, was in town. He came all the way to Cape Town to see his baby sister. Growing up, we never had much in common except the love of TV and fighting over the remote- I’m talking physical fights here. Keep in mind my brother is more than five years older than me. He’d  win the fights but I’d run to mommy crying and in turn be given the remote, which was what I wanted in the first place. Strategy people! Strategy! I’d get beat up but the end justified the means. Fast forward years later and he has a family of his own but most importantly owns his own TV :). As mentioned earlier, my brother and I have a huge age difference hence we never hang out as much but just knowing that I had a big brother was security enough. My friends would brag about having new shoes, going up the escalator at YAYA center *was a big deal back then*, scoring 95/100 in the math test blah! blah! blah! All I had to ask was “do you have a big brother? No? Well, I have one”. I would then quickly exit before they answer just in case they did have an older brother- in which case I’d have lost 10-nil.

He was here for three days. Our itinerary was full. We went paragliding, visited Robben Island, did the Cape town bus tour, watched ‘the west side story’ at the Artscape theater, had dinner with my Kenyan friends (Sara & Mwai) enjoyed Kenyan food, watched a movie and of course shopping!  Seems like very few things to do in three days but believe it or not we didn’t manage to go up table mountain on the cable car because we ran out of time, before we knew it, it was time for him to check in and fly back. I had the most fun paragliding though. We literally jumped off a cliff on Signal hill. It was 15 minutes of pure adrenaline. I screamed the whole way down, don’t remember half of it. We took pictures and videos during the flight but I lost the memory card… or maybe it’s just somewhere in my apartment. Oh well! All I have is what my brother took. Video is at the bottom of the blog. This was my first time having family come over to visit. I already miss him 🙁

Away from all the emotional stuff, I think people should be saying ‘happy new year’ to people on their birthdays, yes? I mean, you are literally adding another year to your life. This is the time to make resolutions, do an evaluation of the past year and plan for the future. If I were famous, I would make this a thing! Anyway, hope it catches on at some point! Having said that, HAPPY NEW YEAR! To me.

One more thing before I go, I’d like to send a shout out to my mum who very year- without fail, is the first person to wish me a happy birthday and every year -without fail, does it a day early. Not sure if she confuses the dates or she really just wants to be first one to wish me a happy birthday. Whichever way, thank you mama 🙂

Finally, for those wondering how old I turned, i’l let ‘Five for fighting’ answer that question… John! Take it away…

Half time goes by

suddenly you’re wise

another blink of an eye

27 is gone

the sun is getting high

we’re moving on….

Disclaimer: this blog is proudly brought to you by the voice(s) in my head. It does not intend to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any personal issues. If symptoms persist, contact this person immediately