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Friday, December 28, 2012

The Silly Season!

Living in a holiday town makes one very aware of school holidays despite being retired and not very connected to schools! The queues at the tills get longer and longer, the shelves get emptied quickly, parking is at a premium and the noise coming from the beach intensifies! Our flat is opposite the "Super Tube" and wow what a gold mine this attraction has turned out to be! Everyone, from toddler to geriatric, delight in shooting down the tubes accompanied by very loud screaming. The louder the screams and screeches must indicate the level of fun and delight everyone experiences.

 

The "singing" from the karaoke bars worsens and if I have to hear "My achey breaky heart" once more, I too will become a Super Screamer! but the local economy needs the masses and the masses need the South Coast!. We as permanents, need to gird our loins by doing our shopping well in advance, stockpile our shelves and adopt a patient and welcoming stance as our cousins from up country flock to the coast.

You can tell a holiday maker a mile off. They are mostly grossly over weight, walk around barefoot and buy everything they see. On the beach the children sport new costumes, shiny new bucket and spades, beautiful new unfaded towels and the best in umbrellas. Vendors manage to sell their wares without much fuss as the visitors purchase hats, wraps and lovely grass baskets. The ice cream sellers do a roaring trade as the fatties throw caution to the wind and cool down with delicious quick melting ice creams, I am surprised no one has thought of having a mobile hot dog machine on the beach!

Of course,despite the tight planning and myriad of "to do" lists successfully ticked off, we had to do some last minute shopping. I decided I would go local instead of to the big mall. HUGE mistake! Whether you wherein the " under ten items" queue or the general queue, you waited and waited and were pushed and jostled. This is where the Christmas spirit is really put to the test!, Serve me right.


 

Traditionally Christmas Day and boxing day are the busiest ever. This year is the busiest I have ever seen the beaches. Looking down from our balcony there were traffic jams , triple parked vehicles, people pouring in from all angles. Music was blaring from all sides and the delicious smells of Braai and breyani accompanied by coconut oil from the tanners wafted up to our place. Who would want to be a lifesaver in this chaos?


 

The people stayed until the sun went down. The litter the following morning spoke volumes about the good time had by all. Another successful Silly season for all.

 

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