a moment to reminisce

after much panic and flat-pack furniture, we are currently 65% moved. Now for the annoying little things like cutlery and toiletries. I don't think I mentioned that we are moving about fifteen minutes walk down the road - but that is also how we are moving! That is to say that we don't have a car and couldn't bring ourselves to fork out for a moving van when we own so little. Still a gap-year-in-europe-sized backpack full of books is a HEAVY thing to carry - even fifteen minutes down the road.

Another thing I didn't mention, is that we have moved to the area of Edinburgh affectionately named "the pubic triangle" - after all the strip clubs. To be fair, we're not in the pubic triangle as much as adjacent to it (and our flat is great) but my mom cant see the difference :) and, no, I want be persuing a new career there ;p

One sad thing about the place is that it doesn't have a phone line, and to reinstall one costs around 140 pounds and takes weeks, and since we're only there for just shy of 4 months, this is another thing we've decided to be thrifty about and not do - so bye bye broadband my old friend. Jono glumly informed me that it would be worth getting used to before we return to SA, but I'm still dreaming of a cheap connection revolution in SA before I get back. [Come on SA!]

With all the stress and organising this has taken, I haven't really had a moment to feel sad, or anything really, about the place that we're leaving, but last night it struck me that this was "our first flat". Maybe it's just my folks, but growing up I was always told "our first flat" stories by my folks, who apparently lived in a shoe box in jo'burg in the 16th century.

Moreover, most of the time spent living here was spent complaining. Its a tiny little flat with 100 years worth of dirt that Jono and I scrubbed out of it over the last year, and it overlooks the Grassmarket - where all the tourists come to get drunk, so we haven't slept very well in the last twelve months. It's miles from any stores, except the overpriced milk-eggs-and-bread shop that caters to above-mentioned tourists. Also the glazing is shot, so its pretty chilly here in winter.

But now I'm all misty-eyed about the glorious view over the ancient cobbled streets, and drunk people watching in the evenings, and huddling under blankets and wearing my boyfriends jerseys all winter. Nothing like the prospect of leaving to romanticise the place!

Anyway, I've got to head back to the new place to sit in the dark (it's a basement flat) for fecking hours as the Scottish Power folks are coming to reconnect us and couldn't possibly give more accurate timing that "sometime between 11 and 5" - and this is six weeks after they were told about the problem [see, this is a 1st world issue too?!]

I wish I was a snail

So I'm preparing to move again. Jono's scholarship is up and we're trying to save some money so we're moving into a slightly cheaper place for the rest of the year. I also thought it would be a good opportunity to purge some stuff that I've inadvertently collected this last year (soooo much stuff). We're book people and books are so cheap in the UK so I've kind of bought anything I've wanted and I cant bring myself to leave them - so we're trying to find the best deal to ship stuff home to SA (and someone to take it in for us until we return).

It's weird that this kind of feels like my first grown up move despite the fact that I havent lived in one place for longer that a year since I started varsity (almost 6 years ago). As a student, moving digs seemed like a massive effort - especially with all that 5th hand furniture, but it turns out the real pain of moving (at least from my perspective) is the admin! Oh god, the ADMIN!

So it takes 2 weeks notice to move your phone line. It takes ten days to move your broadband if your phone number changes, 20 if your number stays the same. You need to give your boss, bank, and tv license people your new address. You need to stop and restart the gas, electricity, water, and council tax... and so on and so on!

As a student, I only had a mobile phone and a electric meter to worry about, now I cant pay for groceries if I dont change my address with the credit card people. i miss student life. Hell, i miss the days when my mom did all the organising. I'm sorry I rolled my eyes at your copious lists, mom!

Sigh - I just want this over with!

Three quick reviews

Jono’s brother, Nick, came up to stay with us over the weekend and we took in a bit of the fest. It was the first weekend and many of the plays where doing cheap previews and the Fringe website was running a 2 for 1 special on several plays, so we managed to see loads of things for half, and sometimes a third off. Not that I managed to keep costs down –with all the booze and eating out that we did – but it was a fantastic weekend. I’ve even forgiven Nick for leaving his yucky germs all over my flat and for giving me the cough I’ve had this week.

Anyway, here are a few words on the best stuff we saw:

Truth in Translation:

This play is FIERCE! Sure, I’m a home sick South African. Yes, I am an actors’ favourite audience (with my permanent suspense of disbelief), and as Nick put it, I was in tears from the first bongo, but don’t let me being a total sap put you off.

This play should be compulsory viewing for all South Africans. I hereby add it to the syllabus along with Kani’s Nothing but the Truth. The triumph of this piece is down to three things it gets right: music by Hugh Masekela, a solid and challenging script – directly informed by interviews with TRC translators, and superb unflinching performances.

I can’t say anything bad about it.

Belly of a Drunken Piano – a Tom Waits tribute:

It is what it says it is, and a little more. I know and enjoy Tom Waits, but would not describe myself as a die hard fan, Nick (who is) tells me the performer flubbed a few lines, but we both agreed – if you’d told me it was the real thing I would have believed you – the music was excellent and the character performance lovingly achieved. We went to a midnight show in the ballroom venue at Assembly on George Street, which really was the perfect timing and venue for this show. Now if only he’d sunk “Little Drop of Poison”, it would have got full marks.

Exits and Entrances - the new Athol Fugard:

This is a semi-biographical new offering from Fugard, which came to Edinburgh straight from its’ New York premiere – I believe – and is, simply put, another great play. I am a fan and not a critic, so I enjoyed what felt like a glimpse at a real life exposed on stage, although the encounters depicted are exciting and revealing not only because of the fact that they happened to the playwright.

The downside to this is small and probably petty, but I am going to put it out there nonetheless because Jono, Nick and I all felt it was a problem: The two actors are both American and while one got the South African accent pretty well, the other was painfully bad. He oscillated between American and Australian most of the time, and his few Afrikaans words were unintelligible. Not that this would be a problem if you weren’t a Saffa, but we were and it wouldn’t be accepted by a Saffa audience – they’d need to recast that part or pay a very good voice coach. Still, good play…