c'est la vie

So here I am, like a stealth book character, being a mystery shopper in a branch of a well known SA coffee shop (or full restaurant in some areas).  The brief is extensive and the questions on the app aplenty as you go through the process of cleanliness, ambiance, staff attention, uniforms, products available and in stock, your welcome, getting coffee like you ordered it (extra hot), how your food was and your sweet item (you have to have both, so devastated). In addition how loyalty app was handled, was it offered and on and on. With photos of everything they ask. Luckily today people take photos of food when they go out, so I did not look out of place.   For this I claim and get my bill refunded to me and in addition a crisp R100 for my trouble. I can do a free meal and R100 thank you very much. Buys me 3 coffees at my favourite hangout in Gordons Bay. They have a lesser price for refills which is unheard of anywhere else that I go. Plus the two owners are really lekker...

There is surely a time in everyone's lives when some things just push all their buttons. Or as my dear dad would say "gives one the shits". I don't know if it gets worse as you get older, but some of these having been giving me the ....... for at least 30 years.  Now the last decades have brought us the mobile phone, which in time brought us irritation number one. People who sit in coffee shops (or restaurants) and take video calls or make business calls with their earphones in and laptops open. There is no reason, not one, unless your speaker is broken, not our problem, for having a conversation on speaker in a place where other people are working, relaxing or just not wanting to hear you and Tant Sannie chat on speaker or video or listen to Estate Agent, or a guy who is obviously just the man, speaking loudly whilst on earphones making sure everyone can hear just how successful he is. I asked a lady to tone it down recently after one hour. She shrugged me off. Those...

Well that saying is one that would always have applied to me. Understand me nicely. I don't run. You know when someone says "let me run and fetch this" - I don't even do figure of speech running.  Then at the end of July, after a lecture delivered by my kids as to my health, and do I want to live to 100 and do I want to still be able to play with my future grandkids and so on and so forth, I had a think. My exercise regime (apparently my beach walks are not enough) and great love of all things chocolate, had become concerning to them. Hence the lecture. I said ok (thinking in my mind jeez who is the parent). However I realised that I was panting a lot (between fridge and couch) and did sleep badly, have enormous stress (ok haven't found that solution yet), a new heartburn habit and some other things.  So I started the only thing that works for me - calorie counting. You may think it is laborious but everything has a kj label on it, and with a simple app on your ph...