Thursday, 19 May 2011

Retail therapy & exercise


19th May 2011. This week has gone surprisingly fast without Mark here, can’t believe it is Friday tomorrow and he’ll be home late in the evening. I think it’s because I spent time doing the two things that are bound to get the endorphins bouncing – exercise & retail therapy.

When I say retail therapy, it wasn’t the type that where I got to indulge myself with lovely goodies; I went furniture shopping. We need another bed (too many rooms in this house) and study furniture so Dun, our driver, took me furniture shopping. Most interestingly, the furniture ‘showrooms’ are all located on the side of the road. Their factories are elsewhere, but you do your looking and buying right there on the pavement. Even better, you look at what they have and photo albums of what they’ve made before and then put the bits you like best together and it is made just for you. The wood is beautiful, very good quality mahogany and the craftsmanship on show looked fantastic. But the most amazing thing is that this bespoke furniture is ridiculously reasonable. I cannot believe how much we’re getting for our money. Hopefully the final product (ready & delivered in 3 weeks) will live up to expectation. I’ll post pics & let you know…

None of the rental properties in Nairobi (well, none that we saw) come with any light fittings. Our house has so many lights – 83 globes in total to be exact, a fact I know because I’m in the process of changing them all to energy saving bulbs so that they don’t completely chew the batteries in our inverter when the power fails (an almost daily occurrence) – that you can imagine how many light fittings that means we need. So while cruising the pavements, I found some hand woven ‘balls’ that I really liked. I bought some for the house and then placed and order with the guy for sconce covers as the house has at least 3 (sometimes 5) double sconce lights in all the rooms. He is going to weave them for me to match the ‘balls’ and I’m looking forward to not looking at bare globes this time next week.
Woven light fitting
One of the many sconces in our house
Percy also scored in the retail department, with a brand new bed. The only thing is that he’s not the only one who’s taken a fancy to it. Evan is a big fan and thinks it’s the perfect spot to watch TV from.

Being without a car and not having too much to do with our time, means that we’ve been walking. Walking and walking. It is a pretty good way to explore our area and find our bearings. I don’t know how many kilometres we’re walking in a day, but I think it is a fair amount. Evan is usually pretty happy checking out the scenery and smiling at the people we see along the way from his pram, but after an hour or so, he starts getting a little bored and cranky. Percy loves the first 30 minutes, then we have to stop so he can have his water break. After the break, he usually manages another 5 or 10 minutes before sitting down and ‘saying’ no more. At this point I have to load him into the basket at the bottom of the pram and push him too. Everyone who sees us had the biggest laugh and often ask me why he won’t walk! Let me tell you though, that extra 8.5 kg in the pram makes itself felt on the uphill climbs. Who knows, maybe it’ll be the best arm exercise ever and help tone up these flabby arms of mine!

One very funny side note on Percy is that both his breed and his name seem to be rather alien to the locals. So the new nanny, the complex guards and the driver all call him “Pussy”. Not the most flattering name for a boy or a dog really!

Chat soon xxx.

5 comments:

  1. Wonderful pictures and 'Pussy' is soooo cute!
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha Liesl! Now I also know what a sconce light is....... Been reading most of your posts on your blog, lovely adventure!! Regards Paulus

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Liesl! Vanessa Vosloo put me onto you as my husband Gary and I will be moving to Nairobi later on this year (eeeeeck!). Have really enjoyed reading your recent blogs and would love to pick your brain for some stuff. Currently I'm a bit "bambi in the headlights" and dont know where to start with the relocation! Would love to interact with you and hopefully in time, get to meet you and share our challenges, adventures and discoveries in Nairobi. Cant wait for your next blog! My email address is: cjohnstone@metropolitanrepubic.com or catejohnstone@gmail.com. Give me a shout if you're ok with giving a girl a hand and share all the ins and outs and pitfalls of having to move abroad!Have a fab day in East Africa and hope to hear from you soon! Catherine Johnstone (commonly known as Cat). xxx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love that woven light fixture - it's stunning!

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Kim - thanks, did send you a note!
    @Paul - always glad to be of service :-)
    @Cat - will inbox you directly
    @Pam - thanx, i thinks so too.

    ReplyDelete