What Service!

It is the absolute norm in South Africa to moan about what crummy we service we receive (or don't) from anyone who is supposed to be providing a service but today I have to sing the praises of one service industry: P G Glass!!! I had a double crack right across my drivers side of the windscreen of my car ( I have had it for ages but decided to do something about it before we drive to Cape Town in January) and last year had the windscreen replaced VERY BADLY by Glassfit in Rustenburg. So this time we tried PG Glass. OAP phoned PG's service centre and asked where our nearest (bar Rustenburg) centre was and how much would we have to pay, etc. They took all our details of insurance company, address, etc. and ............. suddenly arrived HERE IN THE BUSH to replace my windscreen, properly, efficiently, pleasantly and FREEEEEE!! Can you believe it? Neither can we and we are still waiting for the other shoe to drop! Maybe the insurance company will phone and tell us there's been a mistake or something and we will have to pay an excess? But I now have a wonderful, clean, crack-free windscreen in my car. Don't know for how long as last time my perfect windscreen only lasted a week before a truck lobbed a stone at us and made a hole which developed into the double crack. We were too embarrassed to phone the insurance company and ask for it to be done again!

Slaving away in the bush

I wonder what BP15's last slave died of? Yesterday I decided to refurbish the upstairs balcony decking which had gone a rather grimy shade of black with mildew and dust, etc. I bought, at great expense, some stuff you paint on and it miraculously turns the wood back to the shade it was originally - NOT! When I re-read the instructions on the can, after slurping liberally over the whole deck, I realised it had said to only do small sections at a time and with a pot scourer - scrub it!! Oh Bugger! I got a bucket of water and discovered that if you re-wet the stuff it was easy enough to scrub with the pot scourer but filthy, slimy and needed washing off immediately or it dried again in lumps. It took me the whole of the morning in the boiling sun and when I had finished finally, dragged the hosepipe upstairs and washed it off with a hard, fine spray and went downstairs I realised that the whole stoep beneath was covered in the stuff and in pools of grey water. So I had to wipe down, rinse off and hose the stoep as well. By the time I had finished it was time for lunch - big mistake, sitting down for an hour as when I tried to stand up and walk I had stiffened into a sitting position! Anyway this morning I loosened up by applying a coat of yacht varnish and then had breakfast. BP15 (Beloved Partner of 15 years) went up to inspect my handiwork and came bouncing down saying "I reckon you could apply another coat now before we go out" (what? before I make the kebabs and salads for the braai we are going to? before I have a shower? before I make the bed and tidy the house?) no wonder he never managed to sustain a long-term relationship EVER before! I am just too lazy to start all over again on my own!!
Sitting drinking sundowners out back a couple of days ago, watching the Weaver birds in the Fever Tree getting ready for bed, we suddenly saw a Boomslang making its way along the thorny branches towards a nest. As the snake got towards the end of the branch it would sag alarmingly taking the snake further from the nest. SO it would turn back and try another branch and another nest but always coming back to one where I knew an egg or a baby was (I'd seen the mommy weaver taking food in there during the day). Eventually it found the way along the branch the nest was hanging from and as it slid onto the actual nest we could hear the mommy squawking inside. As the snake got to the entrance the bird flew out, highly agitated, and into the next tree. In went half the snake and stayed there for about 10 minutes after which it came out and went off to investigate the other nests. By this time we had run and got a torch as it was too hard to see anymore. Next morning the weavers pulled those nests the snake had touched off the tree and for a few days no birds were seen at the tree. This morning a male weaver was back pulling still more nests apart and it's with great hopes that we will watch to see if they build more and raise more babies. I am racking my brains for a way to stop the snakes from going in the tree, but I think in vain. Last year we saw a snake and a mongoose in the same tree so it's obviously well known to the local wild life! Last night we had a braai and threw our chop bones over the stoep into the veld below and were lucky enough to see a Greater Spotted Genet eating the bones later.
We've had loads of rain and the river is rushing contentedly past, clean and cool but we haven't had flooding as in past years. Beloved Grandson is only about an hour away (at Sun City) with his dad and I keep hoping we get a call to go and fetch him!! But I guess he's at that age where he can entertain himself as long as he has the money or the gadgets to do so!! He loves it here and Daughter #1 has booked in for the 28th to the 31st December. Can't wait!

Those Golden Arches

I now know why McDonalds took the Golden M as their logo. At each outlet they have huge (I always thought UNSIGHTLY) golden arches on the roof so they can be seen from way off. Cars filled with kids and normally overweight adults hone in on these arches like the three wise men following the Star to Jesus' manger. So these people come from afar to pay homage at the great windows of McDonalds. Well .... they come to pay anyway. Both in filthy lucre and, afterwards, in heartburn and another couple of kilos! But I must not knock this establishment too much as I too have paid homage at the knees of Ronald McDonald. It happened like this:........

Having dropped my OAP at a buddies office so they could have lunch together I was at a loose end but with a car filled with 3 laptop computers, cameras, binoculars, etc. etc. Since our burglary in July we never leave these items at home. They get dragged everywhere and you should see the faces of those who are brave enough to invite us to stay for a night or two! We look as if we are coming for months as we offload the car into the guest room. Number One: we can plug everything into someone else's electricity supply and charge everything up, from the computers to the rechargeable storm lantern! Number 2: I have normally got a problem with one or other of my many gadgets and need someone to help me put it right again. And Number 3 we get a better internet signal in town so we can do our email or go off to a Mugg and Bean and use the WiFi.

Anyway - back to the story - the OAP instructed me not to leave the car under any circumstances which meant my finding a bite of lunch hard to imagine. I decided to program my Garmin into finding me the nearest Drive Thru (as they are so quaintly called) but unfortunately this was one of the gadgets I'd managed to mess up! It is also my MP3 player and I had downloaded 200 english podcasts onto its memory instead of onto the storage card, therefore said gadget refused to work ANY program until I removed them. So I began aimlessly driving around in ever increasing circles thinking this was going to be the most expensive lunch EVER as petrol went up the other night 25c per litre. Then Daughter No 1 phoned and I explained my dilemma (hard to explain where you are when you don't really know but she is excellent at deciphering my vague ramblings) and she was trying to locate a place I could go when ............

I saw in the FAAAAR distance THE GOLDEN ARCHES! I must have been at least 5km away but there they were and I zoomed in and took my place in a really long queue of cars. Thinking this was going to take forever I got my book out, but to my annoyance didn't have a chance to read as the cars moved forward with great rapidity and soon I found myself at a window without a clue what to order. The lady on the other side was ever so nice and suggested a Crispy Chicken Burger, a medium chips and a Coke Lite (just to make me feel I was sticking to my diet!) then she told me to move on to the next window where I parted with the better part of R50 and then to the last window where I was given a vast brown bag containing my lunch.

As it was steaming hot outside with the sun beating down remorslessly I sought the shade of the only tree left standing within 50 km which happened to be in the carpark for employees fo a huge department store. Someone must have moved from the spot only minutes earlier so I grabbed the spot, opened my brown bag and my book and blissfully ate the best lunch I have had for months!!

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!