teaching an old dog new tricks...

This is Utopia. More than just a location...

The Joys (?) of Living in the Bush

Having arrived back from the sophistication of having electricity, running water and an adsl line in the Swiss apartment it's a bit of a rude shock to come home to "snakeville", about 30 minutes from the metropolis of Rustenburg (other name: Thicksburg). Utopia (or Dystopia as us permanent residents call it) is undergoing massive changes and yet, in the past 15 years, nothing changes! Today is my wash day - washing is done at the main buildings on Dystopia where there is Eskom power (sometimes) and running water (sometimes). But last week the pump which sends the water from the Sterkstroom river to the reservoirs on the hill, broke, couldn't be fixed and, of course, Dystopia's spare pump was also broken!! We have a new manager - the last 10 have been fired for drinking on duty, abusing the black staff, and being total wankers (pardon me). This poor chap, Andries Pretorius, (yes, I know, but give the poor guy a break!) has only been here for 3 weeks and in his short time the road across the dam has almost collapsed, a chalet burnt down while he stood and watched (unable to believe his eyes that it happens so fast) and now no water in the reservoirs. The weekend was a busy one too with lots of people coming out to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of our little bit of heaven! Anyway he managed to talk the Board into buying a new pump and it was installed yesterday and pumped all night but when I came to the laundry this am there was still no water! I had a 20 litre and a 5 litre container so slogged back and forth to the nearest working tap (being Dystopia there is no logic in why some parts of the property have water and some parts don't) filling them and pouring it into the machines. It took me 3 hours to get 2 loads done by which time Andries had discovered a little known (to him) valve that allowed the water to flow to the laundry. He turned it on and lo there was water, although it looked more like chocolate malt for the first 15 minutes. Luckily with the white wash safely on the line and only darks and khakis in the machines it doesn't really matter.
Weekly wash is now done and I have clean (if a nasty shade of khaki) knickers to wear again! That's what makes it so nice to travel overseas once or twice a year - things which are almost insurmountable here are so easy there!
Our other problem is our solar power - it worked perfectly before we left and now is as temperamental as a prima ballerina. We are watching the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin on DVD in the evenings as our telly was stolen in July and we haven't yet replaced it. We can only watch for an hour before the Computer loses power and our solar system seems to battle to recharge. So each morning I schlep the computers to the main buildings and plug them all in for a charge. Meanwhile OAP is manfully trying to sort out the problem.
Eldest Daughter and Favourite Grandson are travelling with me to Switzerland for a spot of snow and Paris for a spot of Disney in February. We are all so excited and in this tremendous heat I can think of nothing better than snow. When I am there I can't wait to get back to the heat! Must be my age - there is no pleasing me!

Milking Time!

Have you seen the TV program about the British farmers who have the absolute latest in technology for dairy farming? We watched, open mouthed, the other night. These two brothers have a normal dairy herd that comes into the milking parlour twice a day to be milked the normal way - the cows are herded in from the fields morning and evening, they go into their usual stalls with a bit of pushing and shoving if another is stupid enough to go into the wrong place. They have their udders washed by the farmers before the electronic milking machine is put onto the teats by hand - herd of 30 cows, each with 4 teats, you do the math! The farmers have to, by hand, put the right amount of feed for each cow into the troughs and, once milked, the herd has to be let out to pasture again and the dairy cleaned.

Down the road is the brothers NEW dairy and another herd of about 30 cows! THIS one is SO different from the norm. The cows go in when THEY feel like being milked! They pass through a doorway that robotically reads a chip in their ear and knows which cow it is, what her yield was last milking, what time she last came in, how much feed she should be getting and drops that amount into the trough. The robot washes her teats, fits her with the suction cups and her milk yield gets measured and logged. There is also a huge rotary stiff brush that scratches her head and neck should she want it!! Apparently the cows just LOVE this new approach to milking and the yield at the robotically run dairy is 30% higher than in the "old fashioned" one. I say old fashioned in inverted commas because I can STILL remember cows being milked by hand!! THAT gives my age away!

E Tickets

Am i old fashioned or what? Why do I find it so hard to believe that, if I have booked an air ticket on-line, the ground staff will actually let me on the plane? It's not as if its the first e-ticket I have booked either. The first time I stood in the queue at the airline desk clutching a sheet of paper in my hand and was not even asked for any proof that I had booked on-line, just my ID (it was a domestic flight) and that was it. Then the next one needed my passport, even though I had printed out my e-ticket. But they always seem to move the goal posts slightly - just when I had become complacent, Easy Jet now send an email asking for the passport details for both of us. Without these, the email says, we will not be allowed to board the plane. SO more anguish - what if I accidentally type in a wrong number (being elderly, deaf, short-sighted, this is a strong possibility!), R's worry - what if the email is not from EasyJet at all but someone after our secret details. It's a complicated flight pattern too - to join our Norwegian cruise we need to get to Edinburgh (that was the cheapest way to do this trip) so it's a taxi from here at 6.30 am (what if my French is not good enough and the taxi misunderstands me and doesn't arrive in time?) train from the village below to connect with the mainline train to Geneva airport, EasyJet to Edinburgh (if they let us on the plane), spend the night in the Pirie hotel (if my ebooking is valid), up again next morning at crack of .., bus to airport and Scandinavian airways to Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Bergen, airport to docks and then we can relax once we are on board and safely in our cabin. 10 days later we do it all in reverse!! We were beginning to panic as the cruise people had sent us both a packet of travel documents which never arrived and an email with all the documents which I didn't realise were our travel docs and didn't try to download them for 2 weeks, and then the email had expired!! Anyway the replacement package arrived this morning so we have those safely in hand. All we need now is an early season iceberg!! Just kidding!

Two weeks before the Wedding of the Year between Golden Boy and Gisela (now, thanks to the MC, to be forever known as Kevin and Isabella) we had a burglary. I won't go into the gory details except to say that my gun was taken along with other stuff, actually they must have thought my gun was the jackpot in what must have seemed like a raid on a second hand junk shop! The police, who couldn't care less about the burglary, promptly slapped me with a sapoena to appear in court on charges of "Negligence of a Firearm"! The darn thing was in my bed where I'd slept with it the night before and upon waking in the morning I was so darn relieved to see the sun that I totally forgot it. That was the day the burglars decided to hit us.
I had to appear in court on the Thursday when the case was remanded until the 28th July. This was a problem as I was staying in Joburg with Daughter No.1 until I left for Switzerland on the 3rd August. Luckily our kind neighbours took me in on the Monday night so that I could be in Rustenburg court by 8.30 the following morning.
The woman judge looked out of place with her black tresses highlighted with neon red and sporting a long lime green extension. I had the feeling she would have preferred to straddling a Harley than sitting on the bench. The prosecutor, when cross examining the accused, would clasp her hands and end each murmured sentence with pursed lips and closed eyes. Luckily the judge realised early on that I was hard of hearing as she asked if I had understood the little speech the prosecutor gave when it was my turn, I had to say I hadn't heard a thing! There was a translator at the front of the court (not for me) who looked like a comedian in a night club with his cheerful face, large dimples and happy smile - this even when he was saying the most awful things either to the accused or to the judge. The Clerk of the Court was as gay as anything with a white silk shirt and a long black and white striped scarf wrapped round and round his neck. He pouted and dimpled and waved to all with fluttery fingers and secret smiles and I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Other court personnel and lawyers came and went during the days proceedings bowing and scraping each time they passed the bench. Ten minutes into my case the judge realised the offical papers in front of her were incorrect (if I'd had a lawyer I would probably have been dismissed then) and left for a ten minute adjournment, whereupon all hell let loose in the court! Sandwiches and cake were hauled out from under desks and a party ensued in the front of the court while the "spectators" looked on with a jaundiced eye. As soon as the door at the back of the bench opened everything was stuffed back under the tables and with much snorting and sniggering the court staff became somber again.
The upshot was a rap over the knuckles and a suspended sentence for the next 5 years as long as I don't LOSE my gun again! The police, by the way, found it when they raided the burglars house and so they have it now and whether I will ever get it back from them is another matter altogether!

Post Pole-dancing Party

Well we all survived the Hen Party and the boys all survived the Stag night! The ladies arrived about 3pm to be welcomed by a blue drink in a champagne glass rimmed with sugar! I didn't partake or I'd have been under the table before the bride arrived seeing as I haven't had alcohol for 2 years now! Later on someone was making Strawberry Daquiris and very kindly made me a virgin one which was delicious but the next one I had was definitely NOT virgin and I felt it straight away as my brain slid from side to side inside my skull. The party was great fun and the pole dancer was very talented and charismatic and Bride To Be was a real sport. I even had a go as did BTB's mother, Daughters #1 and #2 and others. I have loads of pictures but haven't a clue how to get them from my Omnia to the computer. I have a cable and thought it was just a matter of plugging in and uploading but the whole affair just sits and sulks and my laptop pretends it can't "see" the Omnia, which I know it can because it lights up when I plug the USB cable in (you see, I have the jargon but not the skills!). Anyway I did go to a quick photo shop and a print off one of the photos of BTB upside down on the shiny pole! Apart from the fact that her bum is full on to the camera its a brilliant shot! Daughter #1 was designated Mother Hen and had to go with the bridal party to a nightclub which I am sure she will tell you all about in her Blog while Daughter #2 and I stayed home and looked after the kids and (once they were all asleep) cleaned up the incredible mess left behind. Golden Boy apparently went go-cart racing before being dressed as a girl in a pink tutu and tiara and chained to a lamppost in Sandton. The rest of the "boys" divided into teams and had a "treasure map" with cryptic clues and had to find him. Shame - I believe the stripper didn't turn up at his party!!! Daughter #1's man arrived home about 11 pm looking very much the worse for wear and stood in the kitchen for nearly half an hour waiting for the kettle to boil but as I had unplugged it so I could plug my laptop in he didn't really stand much of a chance of a nice sobering cup of coffee!!! Eventually I took pity on him and unplugged my appliance and plugged in his and then I went to bed which I was sharing with Gorgeous Grandson who plastered his tiny body up against mine all night so I was scared to fall asleep in case I rolled over and squashed him (like a sow with her litter in the stye!!). Daughter #1 arrived home about half an hour later having manoevred a very drunk BTB out of toilet stall and then out of a fishpond! Before loading her into a car for the journey home.
Next morning Daughter #1 and man left for Sun City and I left for home leaving Daughter #2 with all the kids! Got home to find 3 men in their 70s acting like spotty teenagers, talking dirty and drinking like fish! Two of them left (not sure if they were planning to go quite so soon but I think my disapproving looks spurred them on their way) and I was left with PO15 all to myself. Cleaned MY house and then sat, exhausted, by a roaring log fire for a couple of hours.

PoleDancing Hen Party

Nagged by Daughter #1 into writing a new blog I decided to get it done before leaving the tranquillity of the bush for the hustle and bustle of the city and a Pole Dancing Hen Party!! Have you ever? In MY day we would have the bride around to the bridesmaids house, lay on sandwiches and a decadent cake with a bottle of bubbly and everyone would give presents like spatulas, cake tins, cookie cutters, a potato masher, tea towels and everything else to start the bride off the way she needed to go!! Barefoot and in the kitchen! Now I'm told that if I want to take smellies or lingerie I am welcome - how things have changed!! Sigh!! I was supposed to have a dress fitting this morning too but no phone call from dressmaker so I suppose she will phone on Monday when I am back here. I bought some make-up yesterday with a VERY made up Afrikaans prikkel-pop telling me what I needed - the amount of money I spent I may as well have had my face professionally done by The Bride's make-up artist. But I decided against that in case she made me look like an elderly whore of Babylon and anyway I am bound to cry it off during the ceremony! This way, I can replenish throughout the proceedings and even have some left over for another occasion - God knows what that would be but you never know.

We were burgled last week - during broad daylight! They must have been watching the house and had someone posted elsewhere to tell them we had left the property as they hit shortly after we left. They took an old computer we had left out deliberately and a camera that was broken and a watch that didn't work!!! They must have been a bit miffed with the stuff we had here especially as all the good stuff was locked in the store room or with us in the car! Partner of 15 Years (PO15) was sad because they cleaned him out of all his good whiskey and the gin left over from my birthday! The police finally arrived at 9.30pm and wandered all over touching everything so that when the fingerprint technician came the next afternoon there wasn't much worth fingerprinting! The worst of it was that with the house open we were hit my monkeys or baboons after they had left! They left the fridge and freezer doors open so most of the food was gone - the meat I presume to the more upright-walking baboons and the bread and veggies to the other primates. Next day I found all sorts of our stuff they had decided wasn't worth taking lying across the river in the bush.

Such is life her, but we are off in a couple of weeks to Switzerland, where we will lick our wounds and get over it and come back refreshed and ready to fight another day. Meanwhile PO15 is now installing the burglar alarm with siren, strobe light and pepper spray which he was supposed to instal 2 weeks ago - not that I am blaming anyone you understand?