I arrived about midday yesterday (Saturday), unloaded the car, and went to call on Gerhardt to collect the little refrigerator he’s lending me. I offered to buy it, but he declined, saying he’d thought about it and decided that it would be useful in “The Shed”.
“Ahaa!” I said, “Yes, very useful for keeping ‘technical beers’ cold!” Gerhardt, you see has a shed bigger than his house, and in the shed is an incomplete 50 foot ocean going yacht he bought last year. The previous owner had spent 16 years building it in Caledon, but was about to run out of marriage long before he would have run out of either enthusiasm or money… how Gerhardt got the 50 foot steel yacht onto a low loader using two bottle jacks is another story altogether…
Anyway, he also found a little microwave oven he’s not using and lent me that too, so now I can “Nuke” my coffee when it gets cold because I’m either writing or battling my cell-phone internet connection. At least the microwave will use less electricity than my single hot-plate.
After popping in for a cup of tea at Steve & Sandy’s place, I came back to unpack and get settled in. I only had time for a cursory walk around the property, but Jeff has cleared fairly large areas of invasive saplings. Those that were cut down early last year have already coppiced, with annoyingly healthy growth half a metre high, so they will have to be trimmed again and dug out – it is really the only way, unless one poisons the stump immediately after cutting.
The area is incredibly dry. Everyone is hoping that we will get decent rain this winter – there was very little last season. Ironically, Christa phoned me in my hotel on Friday to tell me about her two-and-a-half-hour journey home through the downpour that had hit Johannesburg. Without water, growing veggies will be impossible. I have ideas to harvest water from the mist that rolls in quite often during winter, but more of that later…
Much later, probably! I’m down here for six months this time, since I’ve taken a job! My first “real Job” in nearly forty years! Sheesh! I spent a week at a training centre in Durbanville, “swotting” under pressure such as I haven’t known since my third year at University! The job involves installing financial services terminals in shops and spazas over a wide area in the Overberg, so I’ll have an opportunity to get to know the area. The technical side doesn’t worry me, but there’s a fair amount of selling the idea involved, so that will be a learning curve for me.
I’ve just had a text message from my Area Manager – 08h00 meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday, when I’ll discover the exact extent of my area.
Don’t know when I’ll get a chance to write again. At the moment I feel as if I’ve jumped off a building. I’m still travelling forward, but haven’t quite started to fall yet. That may happen on Tuesday, and the day after, and the day after…
I arrived about midday yesterday (Saturday), unloaded the car, and went to call on Gerhardt to collect the little refrigerator he’s lending me. I offered to buy it, but he declined, saying he’d thought about it and decided that it would be useful in “The Shed”.
“Ahaa!” I said, “Yes, very useful for keeping ‘technical beers’ cold!” Gerhardt, you see has a shed bigger than his house, and in the shed is an incomplete 50 foot ocean going yacht he bought last year. The previous owner had spent 16 years building it in Caledon, but was about to run out of marriage long before he would have run out of either enthusiasm or money… how Gerhardt got the 50 foot steel yacht onto a low loader using two bottle jacks is another story altogether…
Anyway, he also found a little microwave oven he’s not using and lent me that too, so now I can “Nuke” my coffee when it gets cold because I’m either writing or battling my cell-phone internet connection. At least the microwave will use less electricity than my single hot-plate.
After popping in for a cup of tea at Steve & Sandy’s place, I came back to unpack and get settled in. I only had time for a cursory walk around the property, but Jeff has cleared fairly large areas of invasive saplings. Those that were cut down early last year have already coppiced, with annoyingly healthy growth half a metre high, so they will have to be trimmed again and dug out – it is really the only way, unless one poisons the stump immediately after cutting.
The area is incredibly dry. Everyone is hoping that we will get decent rain this winter – there was very little last season. Ironically, Christa phoned me in my hotel on Friday to tell me about her two-and-a-half-hour journey home through the downpour that had hit Johannesburg. Without water, growing veggies will be impossible. I have ideas to harvest water from the mist that rolls in quite often during winter, but more og that later…
Much later, probably! I’m down here for six months this time, since I’ve taken a job! My first “real Job” in nearly forty years! Sheesh! I spent a week at a training centre in Durbanville, “swotting” under pressure such as I haven’t known since my third year at University! The job involves installing financial services terminals in shops and spazas over a wide area in the Overberg, so I’ll have an opportunity to get to know the area. The technical side doesn’t worry me, but there’s a fair amount of selling the idea involved, so that will be a learning curve for me.
I’ve just had a text message from my Area Manager – 08h00 meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday, when I’ll discover the exact extent of my area.
Don’t know when I’ll get a chance to write again. At the moment I feel as if I’ve jumped off a building. I’m still travelling forward, but haven’t quite started to fall yet. That may happen on Tuesday, and the day after, and the day after…