The end of the road ... for 2011

With the clock ticking down the life of 2011, a new pretender to the crown
waits in the wings. The year is dead, long live the new year!

I guess in timely fashion with the passing of New Year our house is finally
finished. Well okay if I am being totally honest there are a couple of
outstanding items but hey what the heck, pop the corks, set off the
fireworks, have a toast, who's to know! It has been a long time in the
making, at least it seems like it, October 2010 to December 2011. Now we
have a place to finally call our home, and with the new year around the
corner we can get our new lives here in Underberg into 1st and even 2nd gear
without having to babysit any builders. Despite that good news there is many
a thing for us to still sort out external to the house. Our main headache at
the moment being drainage. Living on a sloping property may be good for some
things but not with regards to heavy thundery African downpours. With the
summer rains not really having arrived in full force yet there have been
very few opportunities to watch and work on a plan. However last week with a
quick 50mm falling and a small flood of the garage we now know where the
weakness is in our existing strategy. A few hasty ditches and channels dug,
in the pouring rain I might add, and things are better if not perfect. Just
need to wait for the next deluge to watch and learn some more. Tsunamis
excepted I think we may have almost cracked it.

Apart from the water issues our other workload is the garden still and will
be for quite some time, probably until we are pushing up the daisies as
opposed to planting them! The veggie garden is bearing fruit slowly and with
a bit of luck and some sunshine the early new year will be a prosperous
time. The plum nightmare is almost coming to an end with the apple nightmare
soon to hit the headlines. Plums are delicious, love them fresh off the
tree, as jam, stewed, and frozen for another time. There is though a limit
to how many you can quite physically consume. Bags and bags of them have
been distributed out to neighbours, who knows how many bucket loads have
been picked off the bee infested ground and fed to the compost. The birds
have nailed many kilo, the bees have got drunk on them, and the wee striped
mice have had their fill. At least we only had one fair sized plum tree to
contend with. Apples though, 2 huge trees heavily fruit laden and one
smaller tree with quite a handful. They are not ripe yet but there is still
plenty of windfall to scoop up already. You soon discover when they are ripe
as the birds, bees, and mice make are to be seen back in town again!

As for now, after a very quiet Christmas in our new house we are celebrating
the New Year down on the coast with family. Well in celebrating I mean me
sitting here tapping on a keyboard. An hour to go and I am last man
standing, in here at least. Outside the music is booming, fireworks are
cracking, at least someone will be awake even if not bright eyed come the
hour. Tomorrow should be exciting as the natives head to the beaches in the
thousands for who knows what sort of drunken behaviour and most likely many
a death sadly too. Best observed from a distance if not avoided completely.
Perhaps the forecast of rain will dampen the spirits a bit.

Anyway, with a last tap, and a parting word, Happy New Year 2012 to one and
all wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing, celebrating or
sleeping through! Cheers.

As Time goes By

I find it hard to believe that just over a year has passed since we took
possession of the keys to our newly acquired property. A lot happens as time
passes. The Earth has wandered its way along its orbit just over once, and
amazing things have happened in the world. Libya has been saved from the
sweaty grasps of Gaddafi. Michael Jackson has headed into the ether, and Dr
Murray has succumbed to his fate. England have destroyed Australia in the
Ashes down under. The population of the Earth has screamed past the 7
billion mark. World economies have hit new lows. Greece is almost erased
from existence. Our house is now finished. Oh, hold on a sec, no its not.

I guess we are at the finishing line, our torso pushing against the winners
tape, but it resists to our slow if sometimes non-existent momentum. Yes the
house is built, walls, roof, floors etc., just like a nice newly baked cake
from the oven. However, like a delicious Victoria sponge lacking a gentle
dusting of icing sugar, our house is awaiting its final touches. Part of the
roof is still yet to be finished. Some of the guttering needs to be re
aligned. The bathroom is still yet to be ticked off lacking its vanity and
the final tiling. We await a new bedroom door as the previous one was
warped. Our nice new shelving units are in but damaged and waiting to be
replaced. The garage door has to be fixed and properly polished. It is
however, despite these few remaining annoyances, nice to have a home and to
have it to ourselves. No builders making a mess both out and in, no noise,
just peace and tranquillity, well as good as it will ever get. Most of all
no worry of sleeping in and waking up with builders knocking on the door or
peering through the windows.

Now with a garage to fill with everything that was cluttering up our living
area we seem to have more space than you could possibly shake at least two
sticks at. Swing a cat, make it a tiger, big one at that. Mufasa has a nice
home to sleep in, with all the stuff crammed around him. Alas though, with
no bed yet for the main bedroom, and the unfinished bathroom we still reside
in our open plan guest bedroom. We almost had a bed, well we do have a bed,
just the wrong size. Our beautiful solid oak bed frame sits awaiting its
friend, but we made a mistake, just a small one. The divan bed set it takes
is a UK King, an SA Queen. We bought one, had it delivered, tried it before
removing the plastic, wisely, oh. Right width, but too short, oops. Not that
I am saying people here are all short and fat, but the beds above double
size here are 12cm shorter than in the UK. A replacement, 'Extra Length',
has been ordered and they will take the one for short fat people (oops)
away, just don't know when.

So what now? No build, nothing to supervise. No more lists to draw up of
things that have been done wrong. Ah, the garden, or red dusty wasteland as
we like to call it. Ok, slight exaggeration. Our huge mound of earth that
was waiting for a purpose has mostly been distributed around and about. With
some of the projects we have in mind now we wonder if we need to reclaim
some of it! Sue has done a marvellous job of creating some instant colour
with various plants and flowers, some bought, some 'acquired'. The veggie
garden is slowly coming to life despite its very late introduction.
Everything is green, the sky is blue, the birds are singing. Trouble is it
is too hot outside peak hours to work sometimes. It is now just past 30C and
only 09h43. Thankfully a cool 21C indoors. Along with the heat we still have
deathly dryness. It is almost mid-November and the rains are still not here.
We have had the odd bit of drizzle, some cloudy days, a rumble or two of
thunder, but despite the sky looking murderous on occasion, it has whimpered
into the distance without even a hint of aggression. We trialled sowing some
grass seed. That weekend just as the grass was breaking the surface temps
hit 38C, dead. Watering has helped it to recover a wee bit but I think the
hair on my head is thicker!

To assist with water issues we have purchased and installed two 2200L water
storage tanks to collect rain water from parts of our roof, just need the
rain. If successful we may install another larger one for our largest
capture area and plumb it into the house. Rainwater, if properly collected
and stored, is without even being filtered cleaner than the mains water and
sometimes more readily available. The mains supply has been off more than
once this week, and when it came back it was quite literally brown. Nice.
First flush of the toilet after the water came back looked like someone had
used the cistern instead of the bowl! Welcome to Africa.

Lastly, due to great demand, well from two people at least, I will be
furnishing the web with new photos of the house and even of the local area,
possibly sometime soon. I might even get around to writing another blog
before year's end. Apart from that, it is heads down, and dig that dirt.

Winter woolies snowy wonderland

Well would you believe it? I don't think we ever imagined that the build
would grind to a halt for snow. Yes, snow. The forecast of heavy rain was
accurate in the fact that wet stuff fell from the sky, but it kind of
changed form on its way down to us! Yes we are still in Africa.

Yesterday started cold and the builders braved it out putting on some of the
roof sheets and plastering the outside walls, 2C outside, shame. The morning
drizzle soon became lunchtime rain, and then suddenly afternoon snow. Slowly
falling at first but getting ever heavier, larger, and settling on the wet
ground. By evening we had a good covering of the white stuff. Overnight
however, while we were fast asleep, the snow came and came and came. It was
amazingly bright at just before midnight. I guess any light around was just
bouncing between sky and snow, almost felt like there was a full moon.

Leaping out of bed at just after 06h00, snow, lots, blimey. We had been
warned of snow taking gutters out and we now appreciate why when you have a
smooth corrugated roof. I was sharply teasing the snow from the edge of the
roof and gutters with a garden rake. Up until then it was just sliding down,
building up, and dumping down in mini avalanches, not fun to be standing
under if you weren't paying attention! The garden looked amazing. Sadly some
of the plants didn't, bent over or slumped down under the weight of their
new icy blanket. Our big tree outside the kitchen lost several branches
under the weight of the weightless snowflakes, crashing down when they could
take the strain no more. The neighbours phone line that passes thru our
garden was down, pulled from its pole by the weight of the snow on it. Ours
was under strain but soon relieved of the pressure with judicial use of an
extendable tree pruner!

We decided to brave the elements and walk to the spar, after a cup of tea of
course, to get some supplies before the shelves emptied. You never know when
the trucks will make it to resupply. Stories on the news of many a road
closed off locally and far away. The power was off on our return, came back
over 6 hours later, then off, and back, several times more. Snow is lovely
when fresh and white. The village centre already looked a brown slushy mess
and the thaw hasn't started yet. Thankfully with the Rayburn at full bore we
have a warm house and an ever boiling kettle! With nothing else to do it was
snowman time, and snow shovelling time too. The garden nevertheless looks
more brown and white than pure white now. The thaw has already stated,
dripping snow from roof and trees. The sun is set to return tomorrow
perhaps, back to 20c again, not for a few days I think. Just a slow messy
thaw, and builders back to turn the white snow into a very brown muddy mess.
Our partially roofed extensions are a wet mess already with the snow melting
and mixing with the building rubble and unused sand. I think a good bit of
cleaning out will be needed before much can be done.

Ironically enough I feel sorry for those that have missed this brief foray
into artic conditions. Our neighbours at the end of the garden really wanted
to see snow. They went to the coast yesterday morning and will not see a
drop probably by Friday on their return. Just glad we were here! Saying that
you do wonder how those a lot less fortunate than us are coping with this
severe change of weather. Informal settlements, no power, no heating, and
African blood that is not designed for icy weather. Please spare a thought
for them.

Getting plastered and raising the roof

As usual with the build it feels like we are having a bit of dance; slow,
slow, quick, quick, slow. Everything was steaming along, walls shooting up,
and then it's hard on the brakes. It is always nice to have the house to
ourselves for a week when the build grinds to a halt, but having it finished
seems more of a priority than our tranquillity as that will be there
indefinitely once the builders have long departed.

We were warned that there might be a slight delay with the roof going on as
it may take a week or so to get the timbers cut. That proved to be wrong as
the wood appeared very quickly, there was just no one to get on with putting
it all up! The roofers are sub-contracted and come from the north coast up
from Durban at Stanger and for whatever reason were unable to get here for
over a week and a half. Once here though things got going again pretty
speedily and before we knew it the timbers were mostly up and slotted
together. They may have been slow to get here but they sure seem to know
their game. It has been great watching them work but sadly the thing I
really wanted to watch happened on Wednesday whilst we were at Garden Club.
We are having a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom and had decided at the last
moment to get open trusses rather than standard trusses. Basically this
means we have a huge wooden beam that runs 7.5m from front of bedroom above
the window to rear of bathroom, and this sits at the top of the pitch and
supports the loose trusses that hang from it to the side walls. Perhaps not
a great explanation but check out the pictures and hopefully all will become
clear. Anyway, this beam as you can imagine weighs a wee bit. I couldn't
lift one end up on my own, no surprise there! So I wanted to see the guys
get this thing up to its home using man power alone. Shame we missed it
happen, but it looks great now it is there! The roof panels arrived
yesterday and one side of the bedroom is nearly finished already.

The cutting out has been done in the walls for cable and pipe runs, and the
plasterers have been slapping muck up at a great rate. I am always amazed
watching these guys work, it is a real art plastering walls and they seem
ace at it, despite the bloody awful mess they make whilst doing it. Anything
in close proximity gets splattered, front door and paving, hall window.
Thankfully it all got cleaned up, well sort of, we had to finish the job!
The aim is now by end of the coming week (end of July) to get all the roof
finished, plastering out and in, and perhaps even to have the windows in
place provided the plastering is all done. All sounds good provided it
happens! Only real problem standing in the way is a forecast of medium to
heavy rain for the next two days, eek. Firstly we move back to a muddy mess
for a few days, and secondly part of the hall roof is off at the moment to
allow the jutting in of the roof to the garage! Fingers crossed we can get
the hall watertight before the drops fall.

As for the rest of our life here, no news at the moment. The build is our
main focus for the next few weeks along with anything major that needs to be
done in the garden. I guess the only real news is that we both need glasses!
Oh and to wear and not to drink out of! We have a three panel sliding door
from the lounge to the sunroom and a week or so ago I walked into them
closed! Yep, it hurt. Then a few days later Sue followed my lead and smacked
into them too. We panicked for a moment as we thought she had broken her
nose, thankfully just a bruised ego. Sue then repeated the trick again the
other day. Crazy, and yes we were both sober! Needless to say we are very
cautious at crossing that particular threshold at the moment. The birds do
it all the time with the sunroom doors, I guess they have an excuse!

As mentioned earlier a few more photos are up, more to come if things speed
on this week. Perhaps speed is optimistic, but you never can be sure, the
weather is easier to predict!

The winter temperature falls as the walls rise

It always amazes me how diverse and different to your expectations places
can be. When I was young and thought of Africa did I ever imagine anything
other than hot sunshine? I certainly never entertained the thought of it
being cold, freezing temperatures, snow, shorts and tee-shirts warmth, and
all in every 24 hour cycle. All I can say now is, I love you Rayburn No. 3!
If it was not for our little stove burning away in the corner during the
evenings it would be mighty icy inside as well as out. We seem to be in the
phase of winter with consistent freezing temps at night but mostly warming
to mid high teens during the day, and much hotter in direct sunshine. Agreed
this may not be the coldest place on the planet but some mornings when I
head out early hours to open the gate for the builders it most definitely
seems like it. I am the lucky one though, the poor builders turn up, -5c
outside, and it is on with the day's work ahead. Come midday they must be
sweating like pigs once the sun has reached max power, but it is short lived
as the sun quickly heads back towards its hiding place behind the mountains.
It is on these mountains that the snow currently lays. None down here with
us yet, but here's hoping that we will get some before summer makes its
return.

As for the building progress, its shooting up. The walls on bedroom and
garage are now at roof height awaiting the trusses to be delivered and set
on top. We look at our original small house and how it now appears to have
been put on steroids. Hopefully once all is finished and painted it will tie
in nicely and not look so huge. It all seems to be going very fast at the
moment but things will gradually slow down to a crawl once we get closer to
the end of the process. As things move on the pressure now starts to build
on us to make some decisions about the bathroom and its fittings. It will
not be long before the cutting out for pipes etc. starts and we need to work
out what plumbing needs to go where. It is never easy making decisions about
baths and co. at the best of times but knowing that we could bring the whole
build to a grinding halt if we don't make our minds up over what type of
bath we want to put in makes for a few sleep deprived nights. Why is it that
you wake up in the middle of the night panicking about what to do about
baths, basins and vanity units, fall back to deep sleep, and forget all the
important decisions you made come morning?

The garden as always is our biggest headache. Despite all the effort that
gets put in, more by Sue than me it seems at the moment, you would struggle
to identify where we have been and what we have done. Things just seem to
take a long time to get done. With the freezing, then hot, back to freezing
days we have the seemingly small number of available hours in the day to
achieve something. We know we have done a lot but I guess we don't see it
being here 24/7. Hopefully come spring and when life bounds back to the
garden all will seem worthwhile, well that is until the weeds take over
again! I need to get busy on planning the veggie garden otherwise I will
miss the bus on that one and not get anything grown before winter hits next
year! The borders are mostly dug out now and we need to get a lorry load of
compost delivered to feed the dry dusty earth to give anything we plant a
chance of survival.

It is nice to have some things that don't change wherever you are. Friends
in the garden. In the UK we may have our sweet little Robins that follow you
around when you dig over the soil, here we have Fiscal Shrikes. Yes they may
be twice the size and would probably eat our sweet little Robin as a snack,
but they play the same game in the garden, plucking the insects and worms
out from freshly dug soil. Our resident little bird loves to follow you
around when he is not sat on his new perch in a maple sapling that we have
planted. As to whether he or she would eat out of your hand as the wee
little Robin would time will tell.

At least we have started to get a harvest from one area in the garden. Our
Seville Orange tree. Yep, we made our first Marmalade, well syrupy orangey
goo. Tastes delicious even if it may not look like award winning jam! Sue
has also been baking. To be fair it all tastes very nice, but we both need a
bit of practice! All was made on or in the Rayburn, and Sue had the harder
of the tasks baking as I was not getting a constant temperature in the oven
for her. So be warned, if you turn up on our doorstep you may have to try
some of our home made goodies!

Trench warfare in sleepy Underberg

June, already, are you sure? This year is running away from us and there is
still so much that needs to be done to get to where we want to be by the end
of the year.
Our lovely sunny winter days are such a delight. Well they would have been
if it was not for a week of gloomy wet cloudy cold days that we have just
endured. The whole of SA has been under a blanket of gloom. Thankfully we
have been lucky and the dreadful rains and cold that have engulfed much of
the country stayed away from us. We were just beset with good old English
drizzle! There is light at the end of the tunnel though, or sun at the end
of the clouds, with the forecast of sunny and dry weather for the coming
days and weeks. This is all good news for us. Phase 2 of the build started
this week and rain is not something that we really wanted to get thrown into
the mix.
I am really looking forward to the new build in one way, watching it all
happen. Having not seen a build from the first shovel to the last lick of
paint before this will be an enlightening experience, hopefully in a good
way! With just a single week under the belt our property looks like the
early days of the Somme. Should anyone choose to invade we have a great
trench system to hanker down in and repel from! The downside of having
trenches is the piles of earth that are now mounting up with no home for
them to go to. With the threat of rain and a muddy mess avoided for the
moment we need to make sure that a mud bath is not forthcoming and get on
top of managing the piles of earth and where they end up. Quite a bit will
probably be reused in the build once the foundations are down to level and
get compressed before the concrete slabs get laid. With some sunshine and
dry weather for a while the probability of a mud disaster fades but close
behind is the prospect of a desert like dust bowl. You can't win. As to how
things progress we shall see. The guys at the frontline work wonders with
just a pick and spade. I joined the troops and did my bit with pick and
spade, 'the crazy white guy', trying to locate the old mains water feed from
next door. It still seems to be connected and runs right through the
foundations for the main bedroom. My job, dig a trench and located the pipe
away from the build so that I can cut and cap it off. We did consider
plumbing it in to our house again and get free water, but that seemed a tad
dishonest! A few exploratory trenches later, success. Just need to pop to
the shops for the right bits and hope it doesn't pop and create a natural
spring in the garden.
As far as the 'finished' living quarters go, we have had some closure at
last. After many a visit to assess the situation our third set of glass for
the 11 sunroom doors arrived and was fitted. Hooray. There is the odd tiny
defect in the glass but on the whole we are happy with them at last, we try
not to look too closely. Even if we weren't happy I don't think we could
cope with any more messing around. Our Telkom line is still a bit of a pain.
We returned our original handset and got a new one which seems to have
sorted some of the 'noisy line' issues, although we still have times when
the line is just dead. The funny thing is though if we call it from the
mobile it rings and is alive again. The line has been checked more times
than should be necessary and never a fault found. It seems to have been ok
for a few days now so fingers crossed!
Our trusty Rayburn has been chugging away well. I am slowly getting to grips
with my 'steam engine' as Sue calls it. Certainly smells like one sometimes!
Anthracite can smell quite acrid when burning, a necessary evil. Wood is
still an option but we have nowhere to store a huge stack at the moment and
as the firebox is quite small burning wood would involve a fair bit of
cutting and chopping to get it to fit, not to mention constant attention
when burning to keep it going. There again I am always sticking my nose in
the firebox to make sure my baby doesn't go out. I definitely takes the
chill out of the air in here on a cold icy night. It may not get to tropical
proportions but every little helps. As to when mid-winter hits, we shall
see. It seems to chew fuel quite quickly but we are getting better at
running it at 'idle' until we need major heat to cook in the evening. Is
solar heated hot water the answer to all our problems? We are not sure yet,
but Rayburn hot water is increasingly receding as an option. Solar seems
like a nice 'green' idea, but 'green' means 'expensive'. Our electricity
bill is not huge by any means as we are both fairly cheap to keep, but once
we get a bath installed Sue's demands on hat water will exponentially
increase! With bright sunshine 90% of the time in winter solar would be a
great option, but the payback time may be at least 5 years with the amount
we use. For a family of 4+ it's a no brainer. So you never know, next blog,
solar may be our new baby.
The local municipality have been very busy as of late 'improving' the
residential roads. They are dirt roads and ours in particular takes quite a
beating. So over the last few weeks they have been grading, rolling,
grading, watering, and introducing new material. It took over a week for the
trucks to dump big piles of rock every ten meters along the road. The rock
turned out to be slate, hmm. Now with it all graded into the road surface it
seems to have largely been ground to dust and what was a dry, rocky, but
lumpy road is now after a bit of drizzle a muddy mess. Congrats! As to what
it will be like in the rainy season, just glad we have Mufasa to get us out
of here! Lesser mortals with little cars will have such fun! I avoid it like
the plague on my bike, although I have braved it a couple of times, yuck.
I will open up a new photo album for the new build 'Phase 2 Construction'
and get my bum into gear to load photos as it happens, some new shots of the
finished house will pop up soon too as well as some local area shots. Yes I
do remember how my camera works if you were wondering! My main photo project
will be a 'Year in Underberg' soon to start come mid-winter, interesting for
us if no one else!

The world at our doorstep, or at least at the end of the phone line

Winter is well on its way now, just around the corner, peeping around to
catch us out when we are not looking! Just to let us know that he is there
in the wings waiting to take centre stage, his old buddy Mr Frost came out
to announce the oncoming rush of the cold months ahead. The garden looks
nice with a white dusting but the cold bites hard on certain plants not
expecting it yet. The autumn colours are fantastic in and around the
village. We have a fair bit of colour in our and our neighbour's gardens. It
will be sad when the leaves have all dropped and the bare branches are left
waiting for the warmth of spring to bring life again.

Progress, yes we have experience of the word, and forwards for a change
rather than in reverse. We have a phone line, and believe it or not an ADSL
connection, WWW watch out we are coming at speed. Speed of a snail maybe but
we are there. It has taken just the mere 8 weeks to get sorted but finally
the wheels of Telkom dragged themselves into motion and things happened. The
new telephone pole arrived, the hole was dug, the pole put up. The wire run
from top of our drive via our new pole and hung temptingly at our door
waiting for it to be connected up. As usual it always amazes me watching a
hole being dug here. It was no more than 0.5m * 0.5m square and went down a
good 1.25m. Now you try digging that out with a metal pole and a shovel! It
may have taken 3 of them to do it working in shifts, but with pole in,
rubble back filled, it was as sturdy as an Egyptian obelisk, without the
hieroglyphics of course! The next step was to wait a few days for the
technician to come and connect it all up. No, that's not right, the next
step was for me to crawl through our loft to feed the wire in and down into
the house. Telkom do not do that anymore after 'problems' in the past. I
presume 'problems' translates into technicians falling through ceilings!
Anyway I did my bit and a few days later the man from Telkom did his. As
usual all is never as easy as it should be. The technician could not supply
us with a modem for the ADSL, oh. He did have one but said it was a rubbish
model, better we go to the nearest Telkom shop and get a good one. The
nearest Telkom shop being a mere 150km away in Pietermaritzburg!

So off shopping it would be. We are always making a list of items we need
from outside the village so at least it would be a multi-purpose run to the
shops rather than just the unlikely prospect of getting a modem. Our fears
of getting what we needed from Telkom were proven accurate. No modems in
stock, anywhere in SA apparently, well not the one we were hoping to get.
They did however dig out one especially for us from the back office, yep the
same model as the technician had which he would have rather used as a
demonstration of the physics of gravity by dropping it from the top of the
nearest mountain peak! We did protest, but knew that fighting a brick wall
with a stick of wet celery never is a successful battle. The only good news
was that we collected our other freebie in the deal, a 3G USB modem with a
8-ta (Telkom's mobile network) and enough vouchers to pop plenty of data
onto it. Being as disorganised as expected the poor lady helping us only had
vouchers of R10 and R20 value and have to give us R150 worth. So scan each
one in she did, convince the system that each one was free she did, take
nearly 20mins to process all required for the R150 she did. Crazy way of
doing business! Job done, will the modem work back at base, another story!
We have the promise of a phone call from them once they find any decent
modems, holding of breath not a good idea at this point.

We finished our shopping, didn't find much on the list, but made the 300km
round trip worthwhile at least, even if the modem was most likely to be a
nice ornament for us to admire during cold winter nights. As expected back
home with the nice shiny modem wired up. Nowt. Several hours later into the
dark of the night, nowt. Help from the '24 hour' support desk, finished at
21h00, didn't manage to get through to anyone even at 17h00. The following
morning, more playing with cables, some joy, even got an internet connection
at one point but lost it. Help desk now at work but not much help and could
only raise a fault on the line to be checked out. Eventually either by
immense technical skill on my part or as some might harshly put it 'luck' I
got a connection. Quick, don't touch it, don't even look at the modem just
in case it changes its mind! They processed the fault and said all checked
ok, what did they check we will never know as we saw no one. Whether me
getting a connection as they were 'checking the line' and finding it ok were
just a coincidence we shall never know! Anyway, even when horror of horror
the power went off, when it came back on we still managed to keep a
connection. So fingers crossed we are in business now. We shall see in the
long run! So those who feel the need for 'speed' we are back in the land of
Skype, well possibly if we can push the snail hard and convince it to break
into a trot. Our telephone number is available on application!

Now, as for build business, we had a visit from the window people. The chap
thought the marks on the windows were fitting marks, not good enough. He was
independent and dispatched by the boss of the company to make a report on
the state of play, good news from our side, and good that he saw the same
issues we do. Will we see any action on it ever, who knows. We live in hope
but the thought of getting all 11 panes replaced again depresses us! As for
the next phase of build for the garage and the main bedroom / bathroom
suite, we are working with Oliver the builder on the quote etc. and hope if
all goes well things can get started before the end of the month. The main
decision we have taken is to remove several things from the quote to action
ourselves, like finding and supplying all the bathroom fittings as well as
the carpeting of the bedroom. It makes the initial quote smaller and gives
us more control over these sort of items also ensuring that we get what we
want and we know what it cost. Obviously it puts more pressure on us to find
and supply things at the right time, but we want to be a bit more involved
in the build this time making sure that some of the silly issues we had
first time don't crop up again. Time will tell.

It was nice that our house has been a busy place for a different reason over
the last month or so. Three different sets of visitors, Kaz Rich and
Rebecca, then Mike Sally and James, and finally Sue's father Bob. It is nice
having people stay even if accommodation is a bit on the short supply at the
moment. We have a nice comfy bed, but our guests have to make do with an
airbed or cushions on the floor. It is manageable but not ideal, but having
people stay is fun and it is nice for friends and family to see where we
live now. The feedback has been good so far, and Mike Sally and James are
set to return for a long weekend in June. Perhaps we need to up our prices!
James (Sue's 5-year old nephew) just wants to see snow, in June, perhaps. He
demolished our raspberry crop single handed last visit, going to have to be
a berry free diet next time!

Last but not least, mice! Along with our ever energetic mole who seems to be
making new flower borders quicker than we can, we now seem to have many a
three-striped mouse in the garden. Well we assume it is more than one. We
see him / her / them rushing around the garden at great speed heading from
where to where we know not. Whilst moving the compost heap the other day I
found him / her / them in the heap along with a wee little shrew, oh and
several large frogs. It is nice to know that the garden is alive with life
providing they obey one simple rule. STAY OUT OF THE HOUSE!!

Peace and tranquility, it is all relative

Ah, is that the sound of hammers and drills? No? Yep, we have a build free
environment, yippee! Make the most of it while it lasts we say. Finally our
list is all ticked off, sort of. All the window sills are done, except the
kitchen, special order on that one! The Rayburn now has a nice flue in place
and h-cowl on the roof. The flush unit in the WC and the leaking basin all
sorted. Last but not least, the glass in all the sunroom doors replaced. Our
venetian and roman blinds for the bathroom and kitchen respectively are
fitted. Done and dusted.

Well, nothing is as simple as it seems, not with us anyway. Yes we had the
door people here for a whole day, taking glass out, replacing scratched
portions of the folding doors, refitting new glass in the doors. Marvellous.
No, wait, what's that? Yep, scratches in the new glass. Why bother. Yes they
may not be as bad as the last lot, but it seems that when the glass was
fitted and they banged the rubbers back in they managed to scratch the glass
surface in places around the edge. Now, the thing is, they have this rule.
If you can't see it from 2m away, then 'no scratch'. Ok, this works to cover
silly manufacturing problems, but when you get 'user error' on fitting? We
are still waiting to hear from the owner of the company. Even a courtesy
call to tell us to bugger off would be nice. Sigh.

At least the window sills look good. Well they did. The wood was not great
when we first saw them in the raw, but after plenty of manual sanding they
looked much improved, well until them getting soaked in a downpour as they
were working on them outdoors. Finally they were painted, sanded, painted,
sanded, painted and sanded some more, then fitted. With the final painting
sanding etc. after fitting they looked fine. However, as with everything
else, the after build drying out period is in full swing. They will need a
bit of finishing off once again when all has acclimatised to our indoor
conditions, as will the joints between walls cornicing and ceiling.
Hopefully when the kitchen sill arrives and is sanded, painted, etc. the
drying out cracks will get sorted too. All a bit frustrating, but to be
expected I guess.

On the plus side, FIRE! All safely contained within the heart of the
Rayburn. Yes we have had the beast fired up. The learning curve on using it
and getting the most from it may prove a long journey, but when we get it
right it gets mighty hot in here. Burning mucky anthracite is ok, but I
think for instant heat wood will be better. Would be nice to be getting hot
water too! We have boiled the kettle, cooked in the oven, enjoyed its warmth
on a cold damp autumn evening. So far with the temps dropping to 4c at night
we have kept warm and snug at over 20c in here with a fire going, over 23c
one evening. As to when it is sub-zero mid-winter, we shall see. Hopeful
though that we will be warm enough and not need another wood burner. I think
the main problem with heat will be in the main bedroom when it is built as
it will not radiate that far. I think the guest room will be our winter
bedroom so we can enjoy the warmth of the stove!

Our last fight at the moment is with Telkom, the phone people. Our initial
order for a phone line was cancelled, we didn't pay the R700 deposit
required. A bit harsh considering that nobody bothered to tell us about it.
Not even the 3 or 4 times we spoke to the sales people to find out what was
happening with our order, or the time we went into a Telkom shop to enquire
about our order. Thankfully we actually found someone helpful and things are
progressing. An engineer actually called on Thursday to do a site survey.
Sadly that was it. We need a phone pole put up in our garden to run cable to
as the run is too long to us from the top of the drive where the lines are.
Crazy really as we already have a pole in the garden taking lines next door
but apparently there is no space on the junction that they come from. So, we
might get some action this week, or we might not. Until the post is up and
cable run nothing else can happen. The crazy thing is that I will have to go
up in the roof to assist with the installation as the Telkom people are not
allowed to do that anymore due to previous problems. Not sure if I will get
any commission. The other silly thing is that we will have to move the line
when the garage gets built and re-run it, my job again no doubt!

We are now getting to the time of year that brought us to Underberg
initially. Autumn. The trees are turning, the days are finally getting sunny
and dry, the blossoms are coming out. Yep, some of the trees in our garden
have been coming into bloom again. Weird. Must be something in the air. I
think they will get a nasty shock soon when the first frost comes! Finally
though the grass around the garden is looking green where it wasn't. The
areas that were two foot high and hacked back are recovering, just in time
for it all to die and go brown over winter, nice. Oh and before I forget,
snow. Yep, the first of the year on the mountains. Gone already though.
Shape of things to come so we hear as they are expecting a cold winter this
year. Stock up an emergency cupboard we have been told! Should be
interesting, if nothing else a large pile of wood and anthracite might be a
good idea!

So, on with village life. We actually managed to get to a meeting of the
Garden Club. Our first guests have come and gone. We went for dinner next
door, and fed and watered their dogs for a night while they were away. Yep,
no stopping us now!

Remind me again why we are doing this?

Oh dear, the gap between blogs seems to get bigger rather than smaller. I
think we just might be losing the will to live at the moment. Okay, so that
may be a bit dramatic but we have certainly wondered why we are doing this
several times over the last couple of weeks!

On the plus side we have collected all the bits and bobs that we had to over
the last two weeks. Three 450km plus trips later we are the proud owners of
a fridge, a sofa, two lounge chairs, a dining table, and 4 dining chairs. Oh
and a shower door. All went very smoothly. Sort of. Our first job before we
started the collections was to get Mufasa stripped down. Everything was
emptied out of the back (all in the house now!) and then with the help of a
couple of builders the roof tent and then the canopy were lifted off. Boy
the canopy is heavy. If it was made of steel instead of aluminium Mufasa
would have died long ago! Poor old Mufasa looks so naked and small with
nothing on him. The up side of shedding a lot of weight was both happy rear
leaf springs and also Porsche like performance. Okay, perhaps not Porsche
like but much nippier than he is fully loaded. Our normal crawl up several
of the hills around here in third is now beefed up into a fourth gear amble!

The first load of dining table, dining chairs, lounge chairs and shower door
all fitted into Mufasa nicely. Thankfully with our glut of straps used to
pack him when travelling it was easy enough securing everything down. The
drive back was nice and dry and we managed to get home just after 18h00 in
the dark to unload everything. The second load of the fridge was a bit more
fun. After eventually tracking down stock for us, utterly useless store and
I won't bore you with the details, we were able to collect one. A bit of
luck after a bit of a disaster tied in with the collection. A few days
earlier whilst having one of our under floor heating units fixed our
satellite PVR box managed to get knackered. The electrician was switching
the mains power on and off and I was too late to save the box by unplugging
it. On the good side it is under warranty, on the bad side we had to go all
the way to Umhlanga on the coast by Durban to get it replaced. As we were
collecting the fridge from the Pavilion shopping centre only a few km's away
it was not a major problem. Eventually we were strapping the fridge into the
back of Mufasa and hoping we had it nailed down for the long journey home.
The weather was not so good this time but the fridge was well wrapped in
plastic. Overcast, misty, drizzle, and very dark by the time we eventually
made it back home. The next fun job was getting it from Mufasa to the
kitchen. Heavy large fridge on back of very damp truck. It was not easy but
we managed it and were relieved when it was unpacked switched on and
working. The third and final collection of the sofa was a breeze. We made a
trip of it and stayed with Roy and Adele for a couple of nights and made the
pick up on the way home. Thankfully we only have a small house and thus a
small sofa that slotted nicely into Mufasa. A couple of days away also gave
us the chance to do some shopping!

With the lack of service we had from the shower door people from start to
finish we eventually managed to get our door into the shower rather than in
the hallway. We had bits missing and no installation instructions.
Thankfully we managed to get two of their fitters out who live locally in
Bulwer and were coincidentally back home this Saturday. When you know what
you are doing it is all very easy. I kind of worked it out but was not sure
100% and without instructions to guide us it was all a bit finger in the
air. With the proper guys 'unofficially' here it was in and sorted in the
blink of an eye. We made it worth their while, probably well paid over their
normal hourly rate!

Now, today as I write this our house is a hive of activity again. Trying to
get our list it outstanding items ticked off has been a slow process lately.
Not much has really happened until now. This week is the final push,
hopefully, although we have found a few things to add to the list! The door
people are here to replace all the scratched glass on the sliding and
folding sunroom doors at last and also some scratched frames on the
aluminium folding doors. Our flue is being fitted for the Rayburn, gulp.
Seems to be going well so far, just hope all is done and waterproof on the
roof before the rain comes later. Our wooden window sills are ready to be
cut and fitted perhaps today or tomorrow. Then finally all the paint touch
ups etc. to finish it all off. We shall see.

Hopefully with all the jobs done, and our collections at an end we can get
Mufasa re canopied and filled up with all his goodies making our life
indoors a bit easier and a lot tidier. Our schedule for April takes on a new
phase with guests at the house. Three different sets. From building site, to
storage, to B&B in one easy step!

As a leaving thought from the local Clover cows in the farms around here
.... 'Eat green grass, make white milk, clever cows!'.

The last two weeks just gush past ... no really

Oh dear, two weeks since the last blog, been busy, and not enthused to get
on with tapping on the keyboard. There again perhaps I just wanted to blot
out the happenings of our 3rd week in the house and move swiftly onto the
fourth!!

We are nearly sorted in the house now, kind of. Just a few wee jobs to get
finished and we will finally have a build free environment for a while until
we decide to push on with the next build phase. Silly things are holding us
up at the moment, 3rd party suppliers, but this week coming should put a
tick against virtually all of our outstanding items. The big effort for us
personally is to get some collection of large bulky items done in Mufasa.
Fridge, lounge chairs, shower door, and dining table on the list this week.
Well assuming that our fridge is available. It was ordered back in Feb and
Sue has been fighting with the shop to get stock available for us to collect
down in Durban. Long story, but we are hoping that one is now there with our
name on, unless they sell it to someone else in the meantime, and a final
call tomorrow morning should confirm that, or not! The fun is going to be
fitting things in Mufasa's load bay. With the help of some of the builders
this week we will get the canopy off giving us the space we need, and then
it will be furniture removal African style. Watch this space!! Our Telkom
landline is on order. Well we think it is. Might get some action on that
this week too. Takes 2-3 weeks to process the order, and then some more time
to actually do anything about it. The question of availability of ADSL still
needs to be answered but is a no brainer I think as our neighbours have it,
but you never know. No ADSL and we will not bother with a landline. Simple!

As to the happenings of week 3. A fair disaster, but could have been many
times worse. We are still slowly getting the Rayburn installed. Water and
Flue on the 'To Do' list. The first objective, get the water tank etc. all
plumbed in. Took a day or so, but eventually with a few goes and the odd
change of plan it was 90% done come Thursday. The water tank for the Rayburn
was up and full. The links to the hot water system and Geyser in place, just
the flue to be done. Also that Wednesday and Thursday we had the wooden
skirting fitted and painted. Looks really nice despite the house being in a
mess with everything we have stacked in the middle of the lounge to give
access for the skirting to be done. Anyway, Thursday evening we sit down to
dinner, glass of wine, very stressful few days getting the job done. Dinner
finished, watching a bit of TV. BANG!. What the F***? Look around, water
gushing out of the Rayburn. OMG! Looking back I think we handled it quite
well, although the odd moment of 'what can I do to stop it' type panic was
thrown in to the mix every now and then. Mains water quickly turned off.
Attempts to drain the whole system externally failing as the Rayburn is the
lowest point. We spent the next hour or so frantically fighting a battle
with brooms diverting the water out of any door possible. The water ran from
the Rayburn in the middle of the house everywhere, end to end, damming up in
the bedroom. We ended up with not only the Rayburn hot water tank of 100+
litres gushing out but also via some strange back feed the 150 litres in the
Geyser too! Thankfully we had kept all the packing paper from our shipping
and we used many a sheet of that to stem and soak up the water. The under
floor heating had its first use trying to fight the damp and dry floors off.
We managed to migrate everything standing in water to the sunroom in between
frantic sweeping of water.

Apart from some very damp skirting, great timing getting that put in, and
the odd soggy box we escaped without any real damage. One advantage of not
having any sofa or chairs yet, they would have been a wet mess. As disasters
go it was a mere teardrop to the scale of Japan, but to us it was very real
and bloody annoying. We think the problem was the back water tank in the
Rayburn splitting. It was the original tank and we thought it was fine, told
it was fine, who knows. It had not been a good week for water consumption.
With all the plumbing of installing it and then the loss of the water in it
we must have blown several hundred litres of water. As to a plan going
forward. I think the heating of water via the Rayburn is off the agenda. We
could get the tank in the Rayburn replaced with a new one, but at a fair
cost. Anyway, we don't think we could sleep at night worrying about whether
it would blow again. I am just glad I did not go cycling with the club that
afternoon and evening otherwise poor Sue would have been on her own fighting
it!

This week just gone has been quiet. The house to ourselves for a while,
which has been nice, waiting for the final push to get the outstanding jobs
list all ticked off. We are hoping that this coming week should get us home
and dry on most things, we shall see. Getting the flue in for the Rayburn
should be an interesting trick, need to keep a good eye and control over
that one!!