I’ll just slip this in before midnight…
Another packed day, another bike ride with the boy – followed by a long drive home in the post-Easter traffic (at least the views were nice) and friends staying over this evening.
Back to life, back to reality tomorrow.
Let’s chat again then.
Towards the end of last year, Vodacom upgraded the internet service in Suiderstrand from EDGE to HSDPA. That was great, although quite why they didn’t go all the way and make put an LTE connection in, I don’t know. But perhaps that’s because I’m not a mobile telecommunications expert. Maybe there’s more to it than just plugging in one ‘magic box’ instead of another. Who knows?
(Obviously, mobile telecommunications experts know, but I’m not one of them.)
(I may have already mentioned this.)
The whole HSDPA thing is great. It allows Skyping, blogging and Flickring without the constant frustration of waiting. For.
Things.
To happen.
But sadly, today, it’s gone away again. And we’re back to EDGE. Once more, I don’t really understand how this can happen. Surely you either have a connection or you don’t?
The strength of the signal remains solid – it’s the speed that isn’t there. S’odd.
Still, recognising the need of my readers, I did manage to upload some pictures to flickr. <~ That’s the link, right there.
Of course, it hasn’t cost any more to upload all those photos, since we’re charged by MB and not by time for our internet these days. It did take nearly two hours though. And that’s easily enough time to get through a nice bottle of red wine, I have discovered.
A day of contrasting meteorological conditions, from heavy rain, to hot sunshine and then back to a sudden and vicious squall in the evening, which almost put the braai out. Crikey.
This was earlier in the day: more cycling – this time down to the southernmost point and the wreck of the Meisho Maru on the way, before battling back against the wind and rain to a well deserved hot bath and hot chocolate.
Today’s the day, tonight’s the night. One Direction madness has taken over the Mother City as everyone looks forward to seeing the Famous Five Four on stage later. I surrendered my tickets -in exchange for a reasonable sum of money – to someone who actually wanted to go, so I’m going to miss out on all the excitement in Green Point. Still, being just 11.21km from the Stadium (as the crow flies, and providing it avoids Devils Peak), I’m going to have to take extra care of the beagle this evening: it has very sensitive hearing, you know?
For those of you who are joining me in not being there this evening, here’s just a taste of what we’re missing.
Those voices. That confidence. That chorus! Such power.
If you are going along – have fun.
I’m almost sad to say I’m not going to be there. Almost.
Remember the Three German Warships Off Struisbaai? The Three German Warships that weren’t really doing anything very sinister? That was, until they tried to blow up a fishing boat with 10 people on board later that evening.
These things happen.
Captain Jaco Theunissen, spokesman for the SA Navy’s joint operations division, said on Saturday: “The South African National Defence Force acknowledges that the unfortunate incident that was reported on in the Cape Times on Friday, March 27 did take place.”
The navy has said warnings about naval exercises are sent out as navigation warnings on radio and to all fishing clubs and harbours. Day has said he got no warning.
To be fair to the Three German Warships, it’s actually unclear whether it was one of them or their SA Navy counterparts which fired the shots.
Fishing boat skipper, Anthony Day (perhaps understandably), isn’t happy though:
“…no one from the navy has contacted me. It is very disturbing that you can nearly take someone’s life away and you don’t even contact them.
I understand they don’t want legal implications, but if I shot at someone in the street, I would be locked up, and here nothing happens.”
Fair point, but if you fired a dual-purpose 62-caliber, 76-millimeter gun manufactured by OTO Melara at someone in the street, there would be other questions to be asked as well, like “Where on earth did you get that massive gun from?” and “Wasn’t there a house at the end of this road – you know – where that heap of smouldering rubble is now?”
And then, yes, you’d be locked up.
Seriously though, this was an unbelievably careless incident, which could have had huge implications and led to loss of life, and thus it needs proper, thorough investigation by someone senior in the naval hierarchy. I guess that means they’ll be bringing in the big guns.
Again.