No point in digging

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I found a map of antipodean points. It’s both interesting and disappointing.

The purple is the world map. You may recognise it from geography lessons at school.
The yellow is the world map superimposed upside-down on the purple map. Thus, you can see pretty much where you will come out if you were to dig a tunnel straight through the core of the earth and out the other side. Let’s ignore the science and heat and death and stuff for the purposes of this blog post.

The first thing you’ll notice is that wherever you live (unless it’s half of China or most of Argentina), there’s not much chance of you hitting anything but ocean if you give it a go. That’s because the surface of the earth is 70% water, so there’s not much land on land overlap.

And there’s no overlap in SA at all. Dig through from Cape Town and you only reach somewhere Pacific, rather than somewhere specific. In fact, the only “local” place worth tunneling from is Ngamiland South District in Botswana. Next stop: Hawaii.

Have shovel. Will travel.

Aloha.

Get down

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Our winter duvet was causing us all sorts of problems. Mostly warm enough, but with a lot of patches that weren’t, super heavy and bulky, rather uncomfortable, generally getting old and falling apart.

It’s basically me, but in duvet form.

It was affecting our sleep, and that is never a good thing.

So, time for a new duvet inner, but OMG, the choices, and THE PRICES!

Having gone through a rigorous process of elimination on the price front (not difficult, we’re not remortgaging the house again), we found ourselves staring down the beak of the Hungarian goose. Despite being a bit of a bird nerd, I’d never heard of a Hungarian goose before, although using some basic etymological, geographical and biological knowledge, I had kind of worked out at least the basics.

But why Hungarian goose and not any other goose stuff?
Well, here’s a Hungarian goose, and wow, just look at this bad boy:

BEHOLD HIS WARMTH!

But I still had to consult the experts:

The simple difference between Hungarian goose down and other goose down is that it is from Hungary. 

Thanks, Einstein.

Hungarian goose down has many characteristics that make it a superior option to other types of goose down. It provides superb insulation properties, exceptional comfort and high-quality durability, thanks to larger natural cluster sizes, greater resilience and high fill power.

I have no idea how natural cluster sizes work or what fill power is, but they’re large and high and that sounds good.

Hungary faces long, freezing winters each year, and Hungarian goose down is sourced from the coldest parts of the country.
It’s also more humanely produced than many other goose downs.

There’s a whole world out there that I had no idea about. But now I do and the Hungarian goose down is clearly the premium goose down that there is in that world. And this is coming from a company that sells a lot of other downs as well.

So we ordered. And it arrived. And it was SO DISAPPOINTINGLY THIN.

“That’s going to have to go back,” we thought.

But we gave it a try with some Egyptian cotton covers. At this point, it’s important to note that good cotton is Egyptian and good goose down is Hungarian.

DO NOT MIX THESE TWO UP.

Hungarian cotton is (possibly, I haven’t really checked) generally of decidedly poor quality, and don’t – DON’T – get me started on damn Egyptian geese.

But I digress. Often.

Incredibly, when it comes to the sales pitch on the Hungarian goose down thing, all that stuff that they eulogised about is absolutely true. So warm, so nice, so light.

In a competition that I never thought I’d be dull enough to judge: Best Duvet Ever.

I am planning on test driving it plenty more over this weekend, specifically investigating if its thermal loveliness can last well into the late mornings on Saturdays and Sundays.

Them again

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As Sheffield United draw media-favourites “Hollywood Wrexham” in the League Cup first round, Sky Sports has announced their new channels for the coming season:

I’m not sure how much lovey-dovey coverage Disney FC are going to get this time around, but honestly, why would it be any different this season?

Really hoping that we can ruin their party early on again.

Of course, thanks to my muting their name on all of my internet settings, I’ll only find out about it when I see who we’re playing in the second round.

I doubt that I’ll even be able to see this post.

Oh deer

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Right. Back from Agulhas a bit early so that I can fit in a friendly game of football this evening. And it was a good journey back, with only several near death experiences. Honestly, driving in South Africa really is something very special. And making it safely to your destination is even more remarkable.

We’ve left behind the peace and quiet of the Southern Tip for the ongoing building work next door, with the constant drone of the jackhammer welcoming us back. Again. It is already very wearing.

But before we left, we did see this girl out of the front window. Watching us, watching her:

This is a Cape Grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis) resplendent in full winter coat. I’m guessing female, because there are no visible horns, but there is quite a lot of eye-shadow.

It’s been a great few days away, with some good exercise and some amazing wildlife, from whales through to geckoes, this bokkie, more than one mongoose, and loads of birds including fish eagle, spoonbills, ostrich, a defaecating cormorant, and that petrel.

I can already hardly wait until next time.