Author: 6000

Slow progress

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The infernal painting mission continues. Ugh.

It’s taking up all my time and the progress is very slow. Such a frustrating task.

The results (such as they are so far – I’m only about halfway done) do look good, but my worry is that I’ll be so sick of the sight of the room by the time it’s finished, that I won’t actually enjoy being in there.
It certainly feels that way at the moment.

I just, obviously. I’m sure once we are finally finished – whenever that might be – all will be well, and it’ll quite possibly my favourite room in the house. Right now, that honour goes to the one with the bed in it.

Knackered.

No let up this weekend either: dodgeball, riding, catering, shopping for trips away: an overnight West Coast trip (not me), a week-long school tour to the Garden Route (not me), and that trip to Robben Island (me). And probably some more bloody painting (definitely me).

Busy times.

Balance

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After a lovely morning wander on the Mountain…

…the gas fire in the new bar was officially fitted, and then it was lots of jobs for me which had been on a bit of a hold pending that work. Mainly horribly fiddly painting, which isn’t anywhere near finished, but is at least now started. And with the 6Music soundtrack, a blast from the past from Mary-Ann Hobbs, which will have to be shared:

With loadshedding having done for tonight’s football (thank you, ANC), I’m at another Dodgeball training session. Sigur Ros is on the noise-cancelling Marshall earbuds, wiping out the overtly loud Amapiano mix here.

Tomorrow will bring more painting (oh joy!), but I’m hoping there will be a tangible, noticeable difference by this time tomorrow evening, which will – obviously – make it all worthwhile.

Meanwhile, in South Africa…

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Here’s today’s news:

> Stage 5 loadshedding: meaning an average of 10 hours without electricity each day.

Here’s our local supermarket’s tongue-in-cheek repsonse:

Yes, those are candles. A huge array of many different types of candle.
And yes, that light top right was being powered by a generator.

> There’s a massive fuel price increase this week because the government has f*****d the Rand:

“Motorists are in for a shocking fuel price increase from Wednesday. The price of petrol will go up by R1.71 per litre, diesel by R2.84 and paraffin by R2.78.”

> The President is attending the inauguration of Zimbabwe’s President, even though the entire world knows that the election was more rigged than a particularly complex 19th Century tea clipper:

…the elections were marred by controversy – including issues with the voters’ roll, the banning of opposition rallies, reports of biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.

> Cyril will then be heading home to “address the nation”, and tell us that the enquiry by the SA government into whether the SA government supplied arms to Russia has found out that the SA government didn’t supply arms to Russia, but the SA government can’t show us the SA government report exonerating the SA government, because that would “jeopardise the work of the SA armed forces”.

> And all this is being rubbed like salt into an open wound as the ANC shitterati dance with each other while the country falls apart:

“The mood [fire emoji] [fire emoji]”?
Is it,? That’s weird, because the mood is very different across everyone else in the country. But then I guess that it’s easy to be happy and dancey when your continual mismanagement, gross incompetence and widespread corruption only negatively affect other people.

Ugh. Trash.

Training

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I mean, if you’re going to have a beagle, you’re going to have to train it to do something different.

Otherwise, why bother?

Here’s my… our… latest effort:

Yep. We now have a bipedal beagle. It’s like walking along with a little monkey. Passers-by are both intrigued and impressed.

We might even be able to make some money when the circus next comes to town.

Run

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Early morning Dodgeball training today ahead of the Nationals and the International v Saudi Arabia for the Boy Wonder, so I braved the rain and popped in a nice 5.5km around the sports complex.

Well, I say “nice”, but it wasn’t. I don’t mind the rain, the wind and the cold. I’ve never minded them, as long as I know that they’re coming, and I was well-prepared this morning with fresh clothes, a towel and some coffee.

But the smell…

Not me, I hasten to add. I’m all good.

But this whole area STINKS. Is it the nearby oil refinery, or the local sewage works? I don’t know, but the sickening, nauseating stench of what seemed to be human faeces lingered across the whole area for the duration of my run.

And beyond.

The good news is that I’m now in my car, in my car park, and I feel pretty much protected from it. But what was it, why did I have to breathe it in, and how on earth do people live here*?!? I have worked with poo in laboratories for many years (how else do you diagnose someone with Salmonella spp.?), so I figure that I’m fairly immune to the smell. But at least when you put the cap back on the the specimen jar in the laboratory, the whiff goes away.

This is constant. Pervasive. Offensive.

I am very much looking forward to a long, hot shower to remove any and all traces of… whatever it is… from myself ahead of an afternoon of football in front of the fire.

* a reasonable question about Milnerton at any time.