At Home on the Hill: A Tourist in my own Town

I often find blog posts that I've started and never finished. Usually, they are no longer relevant or the mood has passed me, so they never see the light of day. Today I found one and I was like, "Ah damn. This would have been a good one." I wrote it nearly a year ago, so it's quite outdated, but since I really enjoyed writing it, and reading it brought back such good memories, I thought I'd go ahead and post it anyway.

So, here it is........"A Tourist in my own Town"

Ah, Summer holidays! Swimming in the pool until 7pm. Sitting outside and sipping ice-cold wine while dinner is cooking. Saying goodnight to little sun-bronzed bodies and putting on the fan before turning out the light. And usually, in our home, a trip to the Drakensberg. Except this year, someone left the booking of said holiday to the last minute and, not surprisingly, our favourite spot was fully booked. Every spot actually. But let me not dwell on that, in the interests of keeping the peace.

After a busy and stressful year there is nothing I love more than travelling up to the mountains and re-charging the old batteries. Where at night, the only light comes from the stars and instead of traffic noise, you hear only the crickets and the rustling of wind through the trees. (sigh). Utter bliss.

Ahem. So, back to my dilemma. While I utterly adore having my children at home during the holidays, 5 weeks is a long time and keeping them entertained can be difficult. The weeks leading up to Christmas are always manic – last minute shopping and planning for the Big Day keep us all busy and engaged. Especially if you throw some holiday crafts at them. It’s amazing what you can do with loo rolls and glitter if you have to. Baking biscuits is always good as well, until they get bored and start throwing bits of dough at each other and making rude shapes.

So, Christmas is over. New Year has come and gone. The last stretch of the school holiday looms, with every Fun and Interesting activity known to me, availed upon. And I know if I let them sit and watch TV, they’ll be tearing each other’s faces off in 2 hours. Plus, I suffer from “working-Mom guilt” which results in trying to create special holiday memories that they’ll remember through to adulthood.

I don’t know where I got the idea actually. It was radical. Especially for me. While only living 30 minutes away from Durban, we hardly ever venture there. Durban is a city, and as such, is Big and Dangerous. Traffic abounds and criminals lurk around every corner. Usually, the thought of entering the heaving mass of cars and people induces raised blood pressure and uncontrollable eye-twitching. (I have no excuse. I am a major wimp.)

I can only attribute severe cabin fever to the epiphany which struck me. We will be Tourists in our own Town. Yee-haa!

Day One: A trial-run of sorts. Testing the waters. UShaka Beach is pretty crowded (thereby safer) and I know how to get there. Get in and get out - piece of cake. In the interests of travelling light, I took only a small camera bag stuffed with my driver’s licence, bank card, some cash, and of course, my camera. I loaded 2 scooters and a skateboard into the boot and set off early. By early, I mean before 9. (it is holidays after all) I walked the promenade while the kids scooted and skateboarded along.

We popped in to visit Big L at work. He works on the 9^th floor, in the centre of town. He took us to a balcony that offered a pretty awesome view of the city. I realised that there are some really beautiful, old buildings in Durban, something I hadn't really noticed / thought about before.

And the view of the Harbour was amazing too.

Feeling emboldened, I decided, on a whim, to head off to Anstey’s Beach in the Bluff area. My aunt and uncle used to live there and we would often spend time on the beach with them. It’s a lovely beach for swimming as it’s decidedly less murky and polluted-looking than the Central Beaches.

The children splashed around in the waves and body-surfed while I sat on the sand, looking out over the water and wondering, why on earth, we don’t come to the beach more often.