The terrifying size of the upcoming apocalypse

Posted on

Sometimes, it’s tough to get across just how big something is. Measurements are accurate, of course, but sometimes people use the wrong units to describe things:

And even when we use the right ones, it’s sometimes difficult for the average layperson to mentally comprehend what 50m or 5km is. That’s why we often choose to rely on common everyday things to describe the size of an object. In the UK, that common everyday thing would be a double-decker bus. Fairly standard, nationally ubiquitous: a good choice to let us know how big a fatberg in the local sewer is:

But that’s the UK. So maybe we need to look at something else for places that don’t have double decker buses. Like an animal. The elephant seems a fairly good choice, even though they do vary a bit in size:

But in Israel, they don’t have double decker buses or elephants. So those wouldn’t work as examples. They do… they do seem to have an intimate knowledge of the scale of… er… capybaras, though:

That’s a big asteroid, and those are some chunky 1.2m capybaras. Equivalent to 1,700 Nine-banded armadillos or 6,200 carrots. The same size as 112 Fatbergs. Huge.

Thankfully, as the blurb points out, the KiloCapybara lump of rock isn’t going hit us. This time. But we must always be on the lookout for multi-rodent sized bits of space debris about to crash into our planet, and describe their size accurately: whatever it takes

And so I find myself…

Posted on

…overlooking some local vineyards while waiting for my daughter and her friends to enjoy a last-day-of-the-school-holidays lunch. I’ve done a couple of jobs and a bit of shopping, and now I’m back where I dropped them off and I’m enjoying a sandwich while I wait and don’t cramp anyone’s style.

As regular readers will know, I’m well used to waiting in car parks while my kids do stuff, and this one really isn’t much of a chore, given the weather and the view.

At times like this, I’m reminded of a recent conversation about emigration. As a topic, it’s always lurking awkwardly somewhere in the background at parties and braais, ready to pop into the chat in any quiet moment. Honestly, I’d rather talk about other things. Probably with other people. People who want to talk about emigration are usually the ones who want to talk about other stuff I don’t.
I came for the beer and the meat and the happy times. An opportunity for some time off from real life.
Not to wallow in politics and economics and crime stats. (And remember: I’m not just talking about SA here.)

But there was no escape in this case. And this was the “we’re staying” version of the emigration chat.
And the line that has remained with me from the mountain walk that morning is:

If we were in the UK right now, what would the highlight of our weekend be? Probably visiting a garden centre.

I sometimes think that in justifying (or trying to justify?) these sorts of decisions, it’s easy to be biased towards whichever side you’ve chosen, sometimes by over exaggerating the positives of your choice, sometimes by denigrating the other option.

And I do definitely think that this is a bit of the latter.

But as I’ve said before (and fully recognising how lucky I am to be able to say this), for us, the lifestyle here far outweighs the problems of the place.

And without wanting to do the UK down, I can’t help but think that if I were there, I’d more likely be waiting in a shopping centre multi-storey car park and not overlooking the Constantia Valley and False Bay. (Well, obviously. But you know what I mean.) And it’s not like I don’t have the choice of a shopping centre multi-storey car park if that were my (or my daughter’s) scene.

But on a sunny, breezy Monday lunchtime under the oaks in Constantia, the biggest concerns are baboons and tourists. And why they didn’t bring a straw with her milkshake.

And this car park is really good.

A better day

Posted on

I’m on the mend, and some nice drugs quickly made my unmanageable headache manageable this morning, so I’ve been up and about and trying to catch up with all the jobs I’ve missed out on doing this week. The sun has kicked in as well, meaning that I feel (somewhat) more confident in prepping the garden and our outside spaces for Spring and some nicer weather.

The only dissention at this change in season seems to be coming – vocally – from the local Cape Rain Frog population. They’re much happier when it’s wet and cool. These blue skies and warm sunshine aren’t for them. They’re letting us know.

I’m still a little short of oomph, so things aren’t going as quickly as they could be, but on the plus side, at least the sun has charged up the house batteries and meant that I can do some energy-heavy tasks like washing the washing machine. Our Bosch machine has a special programme for this, which is 90 minutes of splashing around clean water at 90oC. Super effective, but not something that you want to be paying for via your meter. Hence today being a good day to do it: we’re dragging 3000W in at the moment, more than 80% of it going straight there.

I know. Sounds like an odd one until you see the colour of the water that’s supposedly “cleaning” your clothes. I’m well aware that even with your own Spring cleaning programme in full swing, you’re not looking for a sign to wash your washing machine, but if by any chance you were, then this is it.

Anyway. Lawn done, washing machine done, energy (mine) depleted. Time to sit down (and probably fall asleep) in front of the football.

Nogulhas

Posted on

We gave up on going down to Agulhas this weekend. The thought of having to do the detour through Hermanus on the first weekend of the school holidays, together with my not shaking this damn virus (it’s not that virus, by the way, I did check), was just too much. Add to that the upcoming final exams and the thought of sharing a car for a few hours with an upcoming final examinee: it just seemed silly.

There’s also the issue of whether the Struisbaai road is open yet. No, says the municipality. But everyone’s using it. Including one guy in a Chevrolet Spark. And if one of them gets through, then you know it’s ok.

We’ll make a plan when we can make a plan.

So instead, we’re stuck at home, watching another “good, but not good enough” performance from United and not going to horse riding (not me), because it rained again last night and there’s just nowhere left for that water to go. I can’t really say that I was looking forward to going out though, so maybe not such a bad thing.

Another early night then, and let’s see if I can get myself mended.