A breath of fresh Eire

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Exciting news in that we have booked some flights to Ireland for a break in the school holidays in June and July. Having only been to Ireland for the briefest of times before, I’m looking forward to seeing some more of it, and enjoying more than just a couple of airport terminals.

If you are expert on touristy stuff to do it Ireland – especially involving Dublin and Cork – please can you email me with your hints and tips on 6000<at>6000.co.za?

Also added into the visit will be the Isle of Man, and London and/or Barcelona, depending on how things pan out. Looking at the way that the Rand is tanking like a German-supplied armoured vehicle heading for Kyiv, I think we need to book everything over there as soon as possible.

I’ve had a quick at accommodation, and I’m already terrified – I literally thought that I’d added several (or more) extra nights, so plainly wrong were the prices, but then I checked and… it was all correct. Interestingly, accommodation in London (and I’m comparing like with like here) is about half the price: so only eye-wateringly pricey, and not ball-wringingly expensive. Is Ireland actually Norway in disguise?

Anyway, the flights are booked and so we’re on our way, even if we end up sleeping in a wheelie bin.

Happy days. Excitement. Probably some Irish beer. #6kTrip23

A crazy day

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Happy Valentine’s Day, if you’re one of those people who celebrate such things.
Or even if you’re not. I don’t like to discriminate.

I know what you’re going to ask: is the kitchen work finished?

No. Of course it’s not. That would be far too straightforward. And so we’re stuck without a sink and a cooker and a hob for at least another 24 hours. The pile of washing up is now hiding the beagle out of sight, and some of the stuff from last week is growing some beautiful Aspergillus spp..

To be fair, apparently the hob guy did turn up this morning, but he didn’t tell us that he was coming. Therefore, when he arrived in the middle of loadshedding, the doorbell didn’t work and our local Vodacom tower was having a nap as well.

“I did throw some stones at the window,” he said.
He should have sung up at the balconette. Julliet would have let him in.
As it is, I shall have to check the front for broken panes.

Eish.

So we’ll try again tomorrow. And maybe we can wrap everything up in one go.

Just like we were supposed to have done last week.

Kicked out

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Work on our kitchen that was going to be finished by last Thursday or Friday “at the latest”, will now only be completed tomorrow “at the earliest”. This marks – at least – an impressive 125% run over. The work being done isn’t huge, but it does mean that kitchen is out of bounds as far as actually using it as a kitchen is concerned.

Thus, we have had to be inventive with our meals: using the oven on the one evening it was available. A couple of takeaways, the airfryer balanced on the pool table, utilising an entirely different abode for a couple of days, and tonight: a braai.

Once the work on the kitchen is completed, I need to finish things off by getting the gas hob professionally (and therefore legally and safely) connected. To that end, knowing that the other work was nearly at an end, I rang the gas people today to make a booking and got one of the most bizarre answer machine messages I have heard a business deliver:

Thank you for calling [Gas Installation Business].
Our office hours are 5:30 to 8…

Ah… I’ve really cocked that up haven’t I?

Yes. Yes, you have, but you’ve than also saved it for customers to listen to.
And you’re already playing it to them at 4pm.
And then cutting them off.

I’ve emailed them instead. I hope their Gmail (and their gas connecting) skills are better than their answer machine efforts.

Incidentally, I’ve just called them again – outside their office hours (no, not those ones) – they’re closed, but now they’ve switched their answer machine off.

That’s not how those things work, guys.

Done

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Ah yes. The blog post after the cathartic experience that I had been waiting for. Yes, hot and sunny, and yes, I do prefer the more tempestuous side of Cape Agulhas, but it was just amazing to get out, get some fresh air and have the beach (almost) to ourselves.

Normal service is resumed.

And that includes unsuccessful fishing in the rockpools.

We’ll be heading home shortly, but as ever, it’s been a wonderful getaway, and I’m already looking forward to our next visit.

Happy daze.

That’s better

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Over the festive break, I wrote about the tourists here in Cape Agulhas. How I recognised the importance of their hard-earned Rands for the local economy, but how much I disliked the crowds on roads and in the shops and restaurants and on the local cellphone networks, that were never made to deal with those numbers.

I said:

I don’t like it when it’s so busy here, but I get it: without these two weeks each year, there wouldn’t be anything here for the other 50.
But I am looking forward to some February sunshine and a beach to myself (and the beagle) again.

Well, this weekend is it. Cape Agulhas is back to its normal, sleepy self, and I’m loving it. Albeit that we had some business to attend to this morning, and then it was far too hot to head out for a walk. Tomorrow is looking full of promise, and the beagle is straining at the metaphorical leash to get out and about into the rockpools again.

There are a few fishermen out and about on the shore, making hay while the sun shines, but the angling competition starting this weekend is all about catching marlin and you need a boat, fluency in Afrikaans and the ability to sink A LOT of brandewyn and coke to enter.

It won’t involve me (I only fulfil 1½ of the conditions), and it won’t involve our beach.

And so tomorrow, early(ish) before the heat makes things difficult again, I thing that we’ll go and exorcise the ghosts of this Christmas just past with a nice little wander out to the lagoon and back.