You know that I’m not the biggest fan of padel. But that’s neither here nor there in this instance. Because I’m not really into squash either, but I do know enough about it to know that hitting the wall is very much part of the game there. It’s pretty much the entire way of playing the game.
Ask Google about padel and it says:
Padel is often described as a cross between tennis and squash. It’s played on a court similar to tennis but smaller and enclosed by walls, which are used as part of the game like in squash.
“Squash”, you say? “Walls”? Hmm.
It’s hardly subtle stuff. The clues really are all there.
What makes this even funnier (for me, but then I’m still recovering from that meeting) is that ironically, Bredasdorp (where this padel tank is) is very much an Afrikaans speaking area (83.1% first language), and the Afrikaans word for squash is Muurbal, which literally translates as “wall ball”. I actually only worked this out this a few years back when driving past the Bredasdorp Muurbalklub, and they’d cut the trees back.
See?
I’m just waiting for Miskey’s to open their 10-pin bowling business: “the only sport where rolling a ball is actually part of the plan!”. Although I’m sure that the Bredasdorp Rolbalklub (yes, seriously) would have something to say about that.
This wasn’t planned, but quite by chance, it’s almost a year to the day since I waxed lyrical about the Checkers Xtra Savings Plus card in my post: Xtra Savings Plus.
It wasn’t an ad than, and it still isn’t an ad now.
I give Checkers R99 a month, they give me several benefits including free delivery on my Sixty60 shopping, extra personalised deals around the shop, and 10% off one shop a month. That discount can be up to R200, and it always is R200, because I carefully hold fire on the big (expensive) items that we need, and lump them all together in that one shop so I make sure that I get all the benefit of that R200.
I’m not daft, hey? Despite what they say.
Today, I did even better than usual:
That was on a shop totaling about R3,300 before discounts. That’s more than 30% off, and while it’s still a lot of money to spend (because life is f*****g expensive!), it’s also R986.66 better than it could have been.
I’m still telling you to sign up. It’s such a good deal: spend a bit to save a lot.
Absolutely:
Best mundane grocery shopping thing I’ve ever done.
How’s the whole 6Music thing going, then?
Yes. The 6Music overseas listening thing, which started here, and continued all the way through to this much more recent post, which has been doing HUGE business for the blog. Zeitgeist.
Yes, you can still listen to 6Music outside the UK, but it’s a really crap experience. It’s via a page on a browser, there are frequent breaks and crashes, but there are no bells, no whistles, no rewinding, no listen back later options. It’s seriously basic. When it works.
But it does work. Mostly.
However, I’ve found that using a VPN is still the better way to listen. It’s a pain on my phone because it drains the battery quickly, it makes all my other browsing slower, and all my ads are…
NOTHING BEATS A JET2 HOLIDAY!!!
…on repeat.
But it does work SO much better than the straight link.
“Wow. He must be very special,” I hear imagine them whispering, and yeah…
And they are going from strength to strength, with several (or more) new locations being added all the time: Canal Walk (which has a Checkers), V&A Waterfront, Gardens Shopping Centre etc etc etc. It’s just a great system, and you can get some free parking by signing up on my link:
TRE162273
…when you get the app on Apple here, or Google here.
Still down for a good time
Ostensibly, there’s one more month of winter left down here. We’ve had quite a lot of rain already this time around, and after 10 crisp, cool, sunny days, yesterday was a whole 28oC. And then the next cold front hit us. So how are we staying warm at night?
We’ve had that duvet for 13 months now and, well, it’s that “No Ragrets” image all over again. I cannot fault evolution when it comes to the down of the Hungarian Goose, or fault the goose-plucking (careful now) farmers plucking their geese. It is so deliciously light and warm, but without the rubbish bits of the goose, like the honking and the poo.
This one was another success story.
We can dance if we want to
Let’s tie it all (well, some of it) together. I heard this song on 6Music while I was at the shops this morning, not buying a duvet. It’s fun, it’s mad, it’s… The Safety Dance.
Right. Let’s light the fire and prep for this incoming nastiness.
Little Miss 6000 has left the country. I know this because we have one of those apps which tells us where she is, and where she is is not in this country. I’m not too perturbed about this: we have known that she would leaving the country today for quite some time, and I’m hopeful that before she comes back to this country – sort of medium-term permanently (see below) at the end of the week – that she’ll have a great time.
Crossing country borders is equal parts exciting and annoying. And in these days of air travel, we often forget that there are two parts to it: leaving one and entering the other. But when crossing land borders, this is brought home to you in no uncertain terms. Especially quieter border posts, where each official seems personally offended by actually having to do something in processing a traveler.
LM 6000 signed out of South Africa with the maximum of fuss, effort, admin and paperwork in Vioolsdrif, crossed a bridge over the Orange River and took this photo out of the bus window…
[you can see why they called it the Orange River/s]
…in no-man’s land (are we still allowed to say that?), before entering Namibia about 750m later at the Noordoewer border post with the maximum of fuss, effort, admin and paperwork. Two separate countries, two separate buildings, 54000 different documents required by each.
The weird thing is that in paddling down the Orange River – the “middle” of which marks the boundary between SA and Namibia here – her whole group will be repeatedly crossing from one country to the other without any form of fuss, effort, admin or paperwork at all. When we did this trip 8 years [weeps] ago, we even camped in alternate countries each night.
Human imposed borders are sometimes bizarre things.
Ag, just looking at that screenshot is making me jealous. The landscape there is beyond lunar. It’s stark, angular and unforgiving, with that incongruous green strip right through the middle of it.
But it’s also absolutely breathtaking:
It’s been a long day. Meet-up was 4:30am this morning, for a 5am departure, and no-one sleeps properly when they are excited about a week away in another country or they have a 3:45am alarm set.
A good night’s sleep tonight will do no-one any harm. Some of us will get up tomorrow morning and live our daily lives, with jobs to do, tasks to complete and all that other mundane stuff. Some of us will get up tomorrow and set off on an adventure down (some of) Africa’s 6th biggest river.
