Decisions, decisions

A quick change of plans for the day this morning as the guy who was coming to help us out in the garden today tacitly announced that he had decided to get drunk last night rather than help us out in the garden today.

I think we’ve all had that “drink now or work tomorrow?” decision to make at some stage in our lives, and I’m quite sure that most readers here have – even if they’re only willing to quietly admit it to themselves – come down on either side at least once. I know I have. Sometimes I have tried to come down on both sides, but that’s not pleasant for anybody the following day.

It did leave us with a fair amount more work to do in the garden though, although ironically, we also have a bit more beer money for tonight. What goes around and all that…*

Anyway, the garden is looking better after a quick makeover and haircut and the neighbourhood What is Up? group has been pinged for suitable replacement garden assistance for the future (this wasn’t the first time our guy chose to fall on that side of the fence).

It’s been a wonderful few weeks over the festive season and holiday, but Real Life™ begins again tomorrow with a return to work, school, gym and all the hustle and bustle of term 1. I have high hopes that the kids will fly this year – 2018 ended on such a high for them.

I guess it all comes down to making the right decisions.

 

* hence me tagging this with the BLF category.

Call the ambulance(s)

“Forewarned is forearmed.”
“Be prepared.”
“Being ready isn’t enough; you have to be prepared.”
“To be prepared is half the victory.”
And all that.

Hi, I’m here to help.
Let me explain.

New Year on Struisbaai beach is an experience. The combination of several thousand drunk Afrikaners playing with several hundred thousand Rands worth of amateur fireworks in the dark, with the Indian Ocean on one side and some flammable grassy dunes on the other makes for an exciting combination. If anyone bothered to do a risk assessment on this annual event, it would rank alongside swimming with hungry sharks, poking a puff adder or tickling a sleeping dragon for sheer stupidity

I love it and I can’t wait til this evening. Oh – and it’s all perfectly legal, too:

Vuurwerke

Die afvuur van vuurwerke/klappers op enige plek, datum of tyd is onwettig. Gemeenskap Polisie Forum, Buurtwag, Suid Afrikaanse Polisie Dienste en Kaap Agulhas Munisipaliteit Beskermingsdienste – het besluit dat vuurwerke vanjaar tydens ou-/nuwejaarsvieringe slegs tussen die Struisbaai Hawe en die Hoofstrand afgevuur mag word vanaf 20:00 op 31 Desember 2018 tot 02:00 op 1 Januarie 2019.

Boom – quite literally.

The only real variable in the heady mix described above is how much beach is available. The spacing out of holidaymakers and fireworks is key to the reduction in the level of danger on this one given night. And so I had a quick look at the tide tables for this year’s event.

It’s… it’s not looking good.

The last high tide for 2018 in Struisbaai is going to be at 23:58 this evening. This means that there will be very little beach available. But there will still be several thousand drunk Afrikaners playing with several hundred thousand Rands worth of amateur fireworks in the dark, with the Indian Ocean on one side and some flammable grassy dunes on the other.

Can I suggest the the powers that be organise several (or more) ambulances in advance of this evening’s festivities? And perhaps also that anyone going along takes an umbrella. A thick one that can stop falling fireworks.

Whatever your plans for this evening, have a safe one. Enjoy.

And so to 2017

Everyone does these “here’s what I’m going to do next year” posts and it’s a bandwagon I’m more than happy to jump upon.

But first, as 2016 draws to a close, I’d like to say thank you to those readers who have stuck with this blog through thin and thinner this year. You loyal, gullible fools, you. Also thanks to The Guru, without whose invaluable assistance, this blog a) would not look as good as it does, and b) would not actually look like anything at all. And then also to Mrs 6000, who pretends to read this crap every day just to keep me happy. Although in all fairness, I doubt that she’ll have actually got far enough down the post to have seen this.

So, what plans for 2017?

Well, more photography is a good bet. This holiday season has been disappointing in that regard, so I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

And more health stuff: I got lazy in the second half of this year, and that’s something you can’t afford to do at my *ahem* ‘advanced’ age. It’s apparently also harder to come back from, so I’ve got my work cut out. Rest assured that you’re not going to be seeing exercise programmes and healthy eating recipes on here though. Unless I find a really nice salad that you simply CANNOT miss out on or something. I think we can agree that that would warrant a blog post or two.

Next up: better communication with friends and family that don’t read 6000 miles… Because not everyone does Internet, and a letter costs nothing.  Well… almost nothing. (Actually, how much is a letter these days?) Again, readers on here will not be troubled by this, I thought I’d just tell you that it will be happening.

And then the drone thing. It’s ordered, it’s paid for, it’s due any day now. And I think it might be mentioned once or twice on here over the next twelve months.

2016 has been fun, and personally speaking, much better than both 2015 and 2014. Thus, 2017 surely promises even more (n=1). Come join me for the ride.

Happy New Year.

New Year

Having spent the first morning of 2016 on the beach and in the Indian Ocean at Struisbaai, attempting to avoid being completely roasted, here’s a photo from the same spot just 12 or so hours earlier:


Ironically, it seems like we’ve spent very little time there this holiday, but the motorboat post was from there too. You do the math. I obviously can’t.

I took a lot of photos of the fireworks last night. It was point and shoot really, because I looked up how to take photos of fireworks and then basically couldn’t be arsed to go through all the complicated steps when there was MCC to be drunk and good times to be enjoyed. At first look (unsurprisingly) some were better than others (the photos – although it’s true for the fireworks as well), but I haven’t had chance to go through them yet.
I did manage to upload a couple via my phone. They’re on Flickr. Go see. More to be added later.

Happy New Year.

Pocketed photography (1)

I’ve got a couple of galleries of amazing professional or semi-professional photography which I have placed in Pocket for sharing as and when I have time, inclination and energy. Amazingly, despite this being a Monday morning, it appears that those metaphorical planets have aligned and now there are going to be fireworks – literally.

Yes – belatedly, some photos of the New Year fireworks around the world via an email from professional and semi-professional photography website 500px:

20481
Hinterthiersee_2015
20483

Some Germany, some Austria and a bit of Dubai there. Yeah. Pretty good stuff, putting my Instagram efforts from Struisbaai beach over recent years (which I was going to link to, but frankly, they’re not worthy).

I’m not going to shoot my bolt on the other gallery of amazing professional or semi-professional photography just yet. It’ll probably make its appearance later this week when there’s nothing better to blog about or when I have a spare moment. Or, more likely, both.