Tag: #6kTrip23

Not a great start

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It’s not been a great start to the day. No one single thing that’s brought me down*, just a collection of unfortunate events and occurrences that have made the morning worse than it really needed to be.

At the present time – well, any time, I guess – I could do without these sort of mornings. But really, right now, we need the cream cheese of hope and positivity on top of the carrot cake of despair which is daily life in South Africa at the moment.
That mild, sweet veneer keeping your thoughts away from what lies beneath.

Mornings such as this one act as granny’s invasive finger, swooping in over your shoulder and stealing the thin layer of optimism, leaving you with the realisation that all that is left is the god-awful, soggy, weird vegetable gateau below.

I’ve never been a fan of carrot cake since being forced to eat it in Mrs Finch’s History class back in the 1980s in the homeland. Apparently, it was a staple during wartime rationing. Christ, I’d have switched on all my lights and waved welcomingly to the Luftwaffe. Horrific.

On the plus side today, we have a lovely bergwind. This is nature’s way of telling you to open all the windows and get the damp winter out of your house, of getting you to do all your washing because it will dry in minutes, and of warning you that there are probably a couple of days of very wet weather on the way.

That would be the weekend.
I am already prepared with firewood and some Wonderbag potjie plans.

And on the other plus side (two in a day?!?), things are moving fast towards our trip Up North. Mrs 6000 is away next week on a work thing, then there’s just a week until she heads away again, and then just one more week until we go and join her in the top half of the world. It’s soon.

See? Replacement cream cheese. We’re all good**.

* Although bumping into the Greenpeace loonies at the shopping centre didn’t help
** T&Cs apply

Filthy

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An utterly filthy day, as predicted. 42mm of rain in the back garden so far.

I took Mrs 6000 into town to get her passport back, and with it came added visa-ry goodness, so we’re all clear for takeoff to Europe in a few weeks time on #6kTrip23.

On the way back, we were astounded by the amount of water coming off the back of Table Mountain, so I grabbed my camera and popped down to Newlands in the pouring rain to ‘tog it quickly. You can probably imagine that the light wasn’t all that it could be for this enterprise (it was horrendous), and so I was most delighted to make use of the new AI-powered (because what isn’t these days?) denoise tool on Lightroom.

I mean, this is far from great, but it was a lot further from great before I pressed the button on the computer screen.

And while it isn’t going to win any awards, this does at least document the waterfalls, which we’ve seen before, but were much bigger than usual. And the scale is important, but not hugely visible in this pic.
The total height from where I was standing to the top of the rock is 950m. I think this little lot were probably dropping around 500m.

I’m back to my car park this evening, and I’ll probably take the camera along because wet days are the best days there.

A few things

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Firstly, go and play Puzzgrid. It’s like the wall on Only Connect, but online.

And if you want a 4-star difficulty challenge to begin with, try this one that I made earlier. I’m planning on making a few more (because mainly they’re stored in my head at the moment, and quite honestly, I need the space.)

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Next up, remember this quote?

Well, my rule of thumb is going to be a bit broken if this happens…

Wait… Watt*?!?
But that would mean 32 hours… and there are only 24…

Wow. Who would have thought that the straw that finally broke the network’s back was simply running out of enough hours to shed in a day?

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Then: Was Eyjafjallajökull the final volcano?

Year 9 iGCSE Geography dictates that one must do a class presentation on a volcanic event. And additionally, that one must build a model of said volcano to demonstrate your knowledge thereof.
I helped transport a model of Eyjafjallajökull (remember him?) into the school today, and was asked by the principal, who we saw along the way, if this was the final volcano project for our family.

I hadn’t really thought about it. But just maybe it was.

Volcano models are a rite of passage throughout your school years. You can learn more, and more, and more about them, depending on how far you want to go. You can do loads of geography, sociology, history, English, art and science about them. And yes, you can build models, from the super simple, through the vinegar and bicarb stage, and onto geographically and morphologically accurate representations, including glaciers, treelines, and – somewhat inexplicably in this case – a café.

And we’ve done them all. Twice over.

In total, our kids have over 24 years at that school.
And yes, this might well have been our family’s final volcano project. That’s actually rather sad.

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Also: Qatar Airways unilaterally cancelled several of our flights this morning without any explanation. And then emailed me and asked me to “Acknowledge the changes” or “Request a refund”. I think I’m going to have to click both buttons there, aren’t I? I don’t think it’s quite enough for me to choose between the two, given how much COLD HARD CASH has gone into buying the tickets, and the CONTINUING NEED to be in certain places at certain times – with accommodation and car hire and connecting flights already booked. Because of many reasons (but mainly because of emigrating nearly 20 years ago), I have done a lot of international flying. This is the first time that I have used Qatar Airways. And this really is the first problem I’ve ever had.

Sadly, we’re kind of tied in with them now, so we need to rearrange another lot of flights with them, and hope that these ones actually exist when we try to fly on them.

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And finally – in the style of Trevor MacDonald – this:

I mean, if even he is saying it, then it must be true, right?
Full marks for whoever cropped this meme (it wasn’t me) so that we were spared a sight of the offensive (and sinful) footwear.

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* so many apologies for this

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