Holiday highlights
No one enjoys going back to the grindstone after a fun-filled break; except the East Coast Breakfast team!
They are ready for another awesome year! Check out some of their holiday highlights here.
Darren:
It might seem arbitrary but I finally got my daughter to tell the difference between countries and continents: it really really is a small world...
When I wasn't playing silly buggers with my daughter or gorging myself on mince pies and left over gammon and cranberry sauce sandwiches, I spent the majority of my holiday evenings on stage at Parkers Comedy Club. I got to emcee, headline and play with the Improv team.
You see, I had to keep my comic chops slick, not for my personal grandstanding, but because this year I will be hosting the Kings and Queens of Comedy on the 13th feb.
12 Acts, one stage, one night - and yours truly will be hosting the whole event. So, I will be representing!!! I can't drop that ball. And now that my comic tool has been sharpened and honed I cannot wait till 13 February!
The rest of the time I quite literally chilled, just me and my mouse. When it was sunny we swam, when it was rainy we jumped in puddles. I really didn't expect anything from Santa this year, it was kind of implied in the letter I sent, but true to form - he was able to find one of the items on my unreasonable list. Imagine my surprise when early Xmas morning, I find snuggled between the remote controlled car and the Barbie jewellery maker set was a jar of my very own - British racing green M&M's! Thanks Santa.
Natarah:
I got to go to the beach twice over the hols! The water was beautiful and just what I needed to cool my skin under the African sun. I made sure to end both beach outings with a natural foot scrub, a long walk along the shore:)
What really warmed my heart before Christmas was when we presented more than 20 children in our church with gifts. They had no idea they were getting boxes filled with goodies like sweets, toothbrushes, teddies, crayons, small toys and more. They were over the moon!
I'm proud to say that my skills in the kitchen have improved. I tried out a MasterChef recipe and it worked! My mum and I watched British celebrity chef Marco Pierre White make a sweet treat of roasted plums on TV. Spices, butter and castor sugar were used to make the mouthwatering dish. So we tried it as a breakfast treat and served it with strawberry yoghurt. It was heavenly!
Gabriel:
First time ever I understood the meaning of "rest" of the past Festive Season. The highlights were a trip to Johannesburg, where we had a Christmas dinner with friends. Drove down to Greytown the next day, where I got to take my land rover to places...where a land rover has never been. Very challenging cattle roads that I had to navigate on...without a recovery kit. It was fantastic.
The other highlight...was moving house on New Year’s Eve. WORST THING EVER! Was in bed by 21h30...and woke up the next year(2015).
Kevlar Kev:
It’s been a very long time since I had three weeks off over the holidays. I got out of Durban straight away and stayed with friends at a beach house down the South Coast. Just after Christmas, a few of us bundled into my truck and headed down the rugged wild coast to a very rustic lodge which was down a very treacherous road, very far from any other civilisation, on the banks of the Mtentu River in the Transkei, overlooking the sea. We stayed there for about 4 days with a fantastic New Year’s party on the beach, under a billion stars, and far far away from the crowds! It’s going to be so hard to switch back into work mode, but working with the team is always such fun, it isn’t really work, after all.
MiC:
My end to a most eventful 1st year on East Coast Breakfast involved 3 aspects: revisiting, reminding & recharging. These factors rounded up my entire break... spent catching up with family & friends as well as some beneficial time alone with my thoughts.
I spent the eve of 2015 at a breath-taking location 300km back up north from home, only this time at Thanda Private Game Reserve in Hluhluwe. I shared the night with European holiday makers counting down to the New Year according to their respective time zones as well as UCT+ 02:00... ours. Making new friends with a different ilk of people who love our beautiful country is a big plus for me, but the time spent in a fully loaded Ford Ranger to and from my destination was not only assuringly safe but also surprisingly effortless; all the more reason to love the open road.
After a few days into the New Year I had lunch with my very good friends Cheez-man & Fab-Shmab at the revamped Spiga D'Oro on Florida Road in Morningside. With clashing time schedules and careers spreading us out to Jozi and The Mother City, our previous breaking-of-bread over a decade ago ended as a memorable occasion. This happened again.
My love for road trips started at an early age, commuting with my dad every day from the township of kwaNdengezi (#ShoutOut) to where I started and finished the schooling chapter of my life... Pinetown (#ShoutOut). Despite having grown up in Howick & PMB as a boy, my father had never visited the Nelson Mandela Capture Site. So we hopped into the Ranger and hit the road where we met several tourists including a young couple who spontaneously captured this moment. (#ShoutOut).
Tanya:
I visited a small place just outside East London called Haga Haga. A vacation away with my family meant salty hair and bare feet all day long!
Share some of your holiday highlights with us! Tweet @ECRBreakfast and remember to use the hashtag #HolidayHighlights