I don't think I will try that again.

You know those experiences that just turn you off something?

Like the time I ate so many tomato flavored chips as a kid and it made me very sick. As a result I could not look at tomato chips for a good number of years.

Or like a friend of mine who can’t eat anything with sweet chilly sauce, cause she got food poisoning from something that just happened to contain the stuff. You have had one of those experiences right?

Think about it, I will wait…

Well I am not going to go and look at the lights on Addeley street in Cape Town again. I have resisted the temptation for 19 years but this year was persuaded by Marla to take CJ to see the lights.

So after experiencing the horror of a late afternoon sleep for CJ (she turns into a monster if she has a sleep after three), we bundled both the kids into the car and just after 8 pm set off for the City center.

CJ talks the hind leg off a donkey and Alicia was not going to be out done so I put a CD on. CJ’s current favorite, Taylor Swift’s Fearless. Only problem is that CJ does not know the words, but wants to sing along, so she sings the words to any song that comes to mind, so with “Love Story” and “Fifteen” accompanied by “Twinkle twinkle little star” and” Baa Baa Black Sheep” the trip into town felt like it only lasted 10 years.

All this to find that they had cordoned off Adderley street for a street party of some sort. Now I am not against Street parties in general, and I don’t even know if this is normal for this time of year. But that was “Plan A” shot to kingdom come.

Plan B courtesy of Marla “Let’s go see the lights in Sea Point. Now I vaguely remember seeing some lights in Sea Point a few years back so with no qualms we divert the trip from Adderley street to Sea Point.

That is where the fun starts. First The CD had to be turned off ’cause it had looped back to the beginning. Then Alicia’s hiccoughs became audible so we had to stop to burp her. I then had to explain to CJ why the retaining wall we had stopped next to had holes in it. The hiccoughs never stopped and Mom and Dad were slowly loosing their cool with one another and little miss chatterbox, who just wanted to know where the lights were.

No Lights in Sea Point (if you don’t count the traffic lights) (Plan B in the toilet), a quick detour to see if we can get close to the new Stadium, but even its lights were not on 100%. CJ then messed hot chocolate on herself (which we had given to her to stop the repetitive question about the absence of lights). Alicia decided that she did not like anything we had given her to eat since lunchtime (yes there is a load of washing in the washing machine that consists of car seat covers and baby grows), and I ended up in the wrong lane to get out of town.

We did get to drive down half of lower Adderley street (under one of the street spanning Christmas lights) so the evening was not a complete waste.
At least 80% of the lights on the tree in Pinelands were working.

I think it might take another 20 years before I try to see the lights on Adderley street again.

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