A FruityDayz Report Back: Crabtree & Evelynn

Fruity K's report on the streets of surburbia... hehehe

With February being the month of LOVE and all, we LOVED the opportunity to show Mrs. J some LOVE and share in and celebrate the excitement of the eagerly awaited and imminent arrival of the already much LOVED Baby Johnston.

‘Twas a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning- clear, blue skies, a gentle summer’s breeze.

With an overly enthusiastic group of chattering young ladies, a venue to host and a menu to boast- we had everything one might need to put together a memorable High Tea.

The venue: Crabtree and Evelyn, Design Quarters, Fourways

(cost per person: R250.00)

We arrived at C&E and excitedly climbed the spiral staircase to The Tearoom- a quaint setup with five or six tables in a room tastefully decorated in gorgeous vintage tea sets and colourful floral accents- where we were greeted and seated by our host for the day:- Best.

He gave us a few minutes to get settled before returning, for what we thought was to take our drinks order, but he soon corrected this misconception as he advised us that he was merely there to introduce himself and that he would return in three minutes to take our drinks order. We couldn’t help but chuckle at his rigidity.

True to his word, three minutes later he was at our table-side and meticulously took our order and competently returned moments later with rich, aromatic coffees and blushing bubbly.  

The Tearoom is not a large space and it wasn’t long before the four walls were again filled with the hum of chatter and rumbles of laughter.

The banquet consisted of the tastiest tomato tartlets, cucumber sandwiches with subtle notes of mint and coriander, moist and flavoursome muffins and scones adorned with cream and a berry preserve. The food was phenomenal and my only complaint would be that there wasn’t more of the tomato tartlets- we were limited to one per person, though that may be a blessing as I fret had I have had more tarlets I may not have had room for a slice of the most wonderful cake which they had baked and prepared especially for our special occasion- a delectable light, moist vanilla sponge with a hint of lemon, perfectly filled with just the right amount of fresh cream between the layers- YUM!

We ended the glorious High Tea off with a slice of sponge and another round of their rich and flavour-filled coffees.

The morning was so special, so enjoyable, so memorable.

In closing, the service was not bad, Best did everything that we asked of him, though he works alone to host and serve all the guests so service is a little slow, but that shouldn’t matter if you’re in good company and have some free time, and the food… The food was impeccable, I would happily recommend their venue on the food alone… they are not licenced so do not have an alcoholic menu, but their coffee is rich and robust and could convert even a tea tohler like me. J Why not spoil yourself with an exclusive pamper product from their shop afterward?

 

Kerry Coats

Onwards and sideways

Everyone has a story especially moms, aunts and sisters. I have asked some ladies to tell me theirs for Fruitydayz.  Look out for some funny moments, sad moments and all the embarrassing moments(I am sure mine will be 89.7% embarrassing moments) in between some other stuff.

I would also like to use this blog to give feed back on places and experiences. My special "taste-bud" friend Kerry has written a review of a place we recently visited - I will post it, well once I find it.

How ever I leave you with today's embarrassing moment:
Me, filling a random ladies trolley with my goods whilst she watched in shock.

Until tomorrow when Kerry sends me her post.

Good night.

Mama is tu-tu crazy!

This year has started off with a bang, a tutu and some tears…

Ms K started a new school, with so many emotions to work through, (and there were A LOT of emotions!) apprehension of fitting in, wearing the right clothes, making friends and impressing the teacher and that was just I.

Ms K fights with me every morning and yes, I do know that I need to be firmer and impose some discipline but why is it that after years of au pairing and babysitting, she reduces me to a screaming fishwife with food particles and mucous flying around. I am reduced to a quivering ball of mommy insecurity.

Problem resolved- we pick our outfit, however bazaar, the night before – I do so wish she would let me take pictures so you would be able to see the weirdly wonderful outfits thrown together. In fact, please share your pictures as it makes me secure, knowing that my future “ fashionista” will have” fashion forward friends” (that ) with whom she can move around in a pack. When I thought she did not have it in for me – she told her Dad,” Let’s take a selfie” (she is 3 years old – how does she know what a selfie is) then she says,” Don’t tell mommy”. A new game- that continues with my mom-vibe feelings of insecurity.

I do think Ms K loves the sound of my voice, as she likes me repeating myself. Somehow I find that the angrier and louder I am, I manage to befuddle words resulting in a misconstrued sentence that comes out something like ‘I told you to stop picking up and kissing your sisters panties on the floor’!

Travelling with the monsters… Part one: making it from the front door to the car.

This is a post with no helpful travel hints on keeping your child occupied. We were quite lucky as my child kept herself rather well occupied; she did this by asking for us to stop for a wee every 18.7 minutes and alternating with the questions, “Where is the sea? When will be at the sea? Can I have a wee in the sea? Why can’t I poo in the sea, I want to poo in the sea? Does the sea have eyes? I want the sea? When can I see the sea? Can the sea see? When will be at the sea?” At this stage we had only left our driveway.

I envisioned the perfect holiday and it started out that way; perfectly chaotic that is, with a meltdown or two thrown in for good measure.

Meltdown one: Me to Ms K. “Morning, we are going to the sea my baby. You have a choice of these two outfits.” What ensued was a 40 minute screaming, crying and feeling sorry for oneself and that was just me! This is an ongoing problem in our household, getting Kenzie to wear the required outfit for the ensuing activity. Somehow, through the snot and tears, she ended up wearing a blue tutu with a spotted top and those plastic girly high heels, also known as, “eina” heels. Smugly, thinking we had won, we put her in the car, ready to go to the sea. Come to think of it, Miss K won, she wore neither the dress nor the t-shirt and shorts combo that I put out. They were cute outfits, I promise.

Meltdown two: Ms T didn’t want the cereal I made for her breakfast, nor did she want to sit, stand, crawl or smile. Ok, let me rephrase that, I can be so negative sometimes; she did want to cry and moan.

Meltdown three: A mom, wondering where her perfect holiday vision had gone, as she sits in a cesspit of broken dreams and tears that have washed away her dreams, as she starts drowning in the constant stream of pity and worthlessness. First world problems can bite me.

 At this stage we are already an hour behind schedule, and it is a bit more delayed as we have to stop for our obligatory personality, Coffee!

Preparing for Hospital

Today I am packing for the hospital. I have a certain quality of OCD that I am still trying to deal with. I am even trying to arrange how sore I will feel coming out of anesthetic (broken down to a-nest-HECTIC) this sense of control is slightly weird, I know.
I have tried googling... so you are going into hospital what next (to be said in Hollywood trailer voice)... alas to my dismay even my trusted wiki has let me down, sometimes the Internet is of no help...pft ok maybe I am a lot weird...

I have just sent an email of contact numbers and Kenzie's schedule. Now to pack Kenzie's bag and my hospital bag.Kevin is staying with his parents for two weeks. I need to thank my parents and my in-laws I am truly lucky.

Practical things need to be addressed but I have filed that under the silly section.  We tried having a discussion of "what ifs" but that too was pushed to one side. Who wants to talk about the negative especially when you are 33 years old. In the wise of words of Salt and Pepper. Yeh aha - don't be negative, negative just be positive positive...

I, of course have played the sick card and ordered way too many books on my kindle and am pretending this will be more like a getaway spa catching up on much needed sleep.

Yesterday I experienced a sense of calm today the butterflies have returned with a force more like a colony of bats.

I am overwhelmed with all the messages of support that I have received and almost feel like a fraud.. I would just like to say Thank-you and you shall hear from me sooner than later.

The Story of my PanreASS - Chapter 2

Things I do not recommend you do on your birthday.

1.      Do not go to a Professor/surgeon

2.      If you do go to a Professor, do not wear a dress with spanks aka “Granny Panties”

3.      Be prepared for bad news like – “You will need surgery and you will need to be in hospital for 2 weeks”.

4.      Be prepared for more blood tests. My problem with blood tests is the cotton wool – great I just wrote cotton wool – oh no I just did it again. I hate it!

5.      I just feel a list looks more professional and well thought-out if you have 5 points. Oh yes, make sure that any CD Discs in your folder of scans is not the photo shoot of your lovely 14 month old baby.

Now a week has passed, after another CT-scan I am back at my favourite Professor’s rooms with my entourage, a worried husband, my mother and decent panties. Yes it is confirmed - I need surgery and they have also found a lump on my liver (but we don’t need to worry about that).
My lump is a grade one tumor. It takes 4 days after the Whipple procedure (removal of gall bladder, head of pancreas, small intestine and part of stomach) for us to find out if it is an aggressive or non-aggressive cancer. My Professor (be jealous – I mean who else has managed to be looked after by a Professor) anyway, MY Professor says he believes it is a non-aggressive cancer that means a normal life after my recovery. Yay more babies!

Something to keep me positive - The weight-loss I will experience (now if this doesn’t happen, Kevin has mentioned that I may have more than pancreas problems, thank goodness for his sense of humour)

If you do not know this Donald Gordon is not a person who will give you authorization for your biopsy. Donald Gordon started Liberty and has a hospital named after him so therefore do not ask the receptionist loudly if he will be getting your authorization. Leads to a definite AWKWARD moment.

I have learnt that getting authorization for my major surgery (dramatic pause please) whilst Discovery takes me through my run down regarding doctors not having special arrangements with them and us being charged with out-of-hospital rates. I shall now have to ask anyone who even looks at me in hospital if they are contracted to Discovery before administrating me the much needed painkillers, which I am sure will be needed after a 7 hour op. I, of course, say this to the person on the end of the Discovery call centre for her to understand where I am coming from. The result is that I will now have to ask everyone working in the hospital if they are contracted to discovery rates.

The Story of my PancreASS- Chapter One

My pancreas hates me and that's a fact.

It all started - I think - in my youth, where I  would state, quite loudly, that if people thought beauty was skin deep, they hadn’t seen my pancreas, which was beautiful. I was your typical nerdy-looking teen; braces (tick) with funny, weird hair (tick).

Now if you have ever seen the pancreas it really isn’t such a good looking organ, but in all fairness, is any organ really beautiful?

Years later and after some self-doubt and a self-diagnosis of potential hypochondriacism, my husband encouraged me to go to the doctor. I figured he was so tired of my constant complaints of nausea, weakness and a burning sensation in my tummy, to name but a few. Or maybe because he said “Chanene I am tired of your constant complaints”.
I then get sent for an ultra sound. The doctors find a lump. They then get authorization for a CT-scan, I am asked if I had a "boozy night" the previous night, now if you know me I get drunk after a few sips of wine, fast-forward the story through blood tests, a g-scope (the one down your throat not up your bum) more blood tests, more "episodes of sickness", I eventually land up at the Milpark Hospital in Joburg, where I am scheduled for blood tests and a biopsy of my lovely lady lump. Pancreatitis is confirmed. The Lump is obviously what is causing this.
After the longest weekend of my life and 2 days later I was told it is a Neuro Endorine Tumor. And then I was referred to a Professor and an appointment becomes available the next day - my birthday.