Saturday 26th November 2022
I had a busy day today but it was fun busy. I drove through to Pretoria to attend a first aid refresher course which is needed for my Tour guide registration. The trainer was full of stories and I actually learned a lot of different things.
I then had a 10 minute drive to Irene to my bnb for the night. But I caught the tail end of a huge storm so I had to drive extra carefully to avoid the huge puddles as much as I could. I have never been on this road before and I would have enjoyed it more if it had been dry.
After checking in I had a 6 minute drive to the Railways Cafe which is an arty live music venue, right beside the Irene station which seemed to be in use although I didn't see any trains. I won tickets to see Arno Carstens who is one of my favourite local artists at the moment. I bought a few of his songs last year and I played them on repeat while on my road trip on my big blue beauty's sound system in February. I was eager to hear him perform the songs live so I was super excited at this win.
There's still a few things that I'm not quite comfortable doing on my own and one of them is going to a pub environment at night. So I was delighted when I realised that he was performing early at 6pm in lieu of the rugby match (but I think he's resting for his gig supporting the Waterboys tomorrow). Being a musician is hard work and he's had a hectic schedule of live gigs.
The music venue is very intimate. The last time I saw Arno perform was with Jesse Clegg in a large theatre so seeing him so close felt a little clumsy at first. I also saw the sound check and I felt like I was eavesdropping although there were lots of other patrons there too. But I think it was probably more of a case of me sitting alone that made it awkward. As the show started there was the usual groovy dancer flopping about trying to get the dancing started but the alcohol hadn't kicked in the other patrons yet. The venue owner arrived with two dogs, who obviously are extremely comfortable with the venue and loud music and they ran around spreading their dog love everywhere.
After an hour of him singing, a few more patrons loosened up and started dancing. The owner came over to me and said
"You look like you want to dance.." and pulled me up. I joined the mostly women dancers at this point on the dance floor, right under Arno's nose. A couple of songs later the men joined their partners and we were all singing along
' from the galaxy of blues to a universe we choose..'
It was fabulous and fun and finished by 8pm. I got a bit lost on my way back to my bnb as the estate gate my maps directed me to, was closed for the night, so I ended up driving around a bit until my phone realised what was happening. I forgot how dark it can be in the South African countryside when street lights are stretched far apart. The thunder is rolling in now too but I'm snug in my single bed feeling extremely grateful to be right here, right now in my life. Life is a gift.
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