Rain, Rain and more RAIN.

Ok, it has now been raining for 24 hours and the weather is risking the wrath of Caron. We had a very nice evening in Magaudie which already is and will become an even nicer campsite in the future but had to pack up in the rain which is not so pleasant.

We drove down to Sarlat going through Salignac, yes saligna with a 'c' which had a very picturesque castle shown below but to be honest, there really isn't a shortage of these. Of course the castles make johannesburgs walled suburbs look somewhat trivial and unpreposing.

Sarlat turned out to be fantastic, we happened to hit it on market day which is like a flea market but with a lot more things to buy, specifically food related. We went to the 'easy planet' internet shop to pay our blood money and was pleasantly surprised to be charged only for the 3 cups of coffee which we bought there while we posted and downloaded. 45 minutes of internet time and we were both feeling much better; me because I had caught up with the blog and caron because she had two cups of coffee in her. We walked back through the market just enjoying the spectacle which wasn't dampened by the fact that it was raining quite hard. The people here are so used to the rain that what would have us south africans scuttling for cover is simply ignored as if it wasn't there.

I took several pictures of stalls but I thought that I would show the one all you meat lovers at home would appreciate the best. I know that this will have george salivating!

A short while later I spotted a serious cheese which I needed caron next to to give some relative size. We couldn't help but think of Laurel while we were were walking through, from the people to the clothes to the market itself; this would be her natural home.

When we got back to the car having spent a very enjoyable hour or two in the market this was parked just a couple of cars behind us. Now, I ask you; who would pimp a citroen!

From Sarlat we drove down towards Bordeaux following the Dordogne marvelling at the castles and chateaus that seem to be around just about every bend. We stopped next to the dordogne for a brief lunch of baguette and the brie cheese which we had bought at the market before carrying on down to bordeaux.

After a very pleasant drive and morning the afternoon wasn't so great as we had a bit of a job finding a decent campsite. The one we went to looked like an upmarket squatter camp but a squatter camp non-the-less but we finally found a campsite run by yet another dutchman. What is it about hollanders and running camp sites?

This evening we are camping at the Vieux Chateau campsite just on the outskirts of Rauzan which is very picturesque if a little wet which meant that we had to pitch camp in the rain. The rain here isn't the buckets we are used to at home, it is more like a continuous drizzle; just enough to actually get things wet but we are now warm dry and comfortable after a supper of soup and baguette. We are camped just below the battlements of Chateau Rauzan and we took a stroll into town where they're holding a 4 day antique/junk sale. We had just arrived when we were approached by the gendarmerie who wanted to know if we had seen a tall man with lots of hair come running past about 5 or 10 minutes ago. Even though we couldn't speak french and they couldn't speak english we managed to communicate enough to answer their questions. It would seem that someone stole some of the antiques from the sale! The crime seems to be following us, maybe we are crime magnets.

Tomorrow we are going to see the chateaux around St Emilion which I am really looking forward to.

Good Friday ain't so good!

A long drive ahead down to the bordeaux region ahead but to start the day had some fun with Mellman whom we caught having a wallow in the Loire below one of the chateaus.

We stopped at an intermarche store and filled up with fuel and some things eat over the next day or so. Having real problems finding replacement fuel for the stove which would be a real problem. Even though we have the instruction manual with the fuel described in french, we still can't find it so we bought some 'lamp oil' which the salesman said was equivalent as a good salesman ought to. When we were in the store I saw some bottles with turpentine on them so maybe the 'white gas' I bought last time isn't actually turpentine although it sure smells like it. This evening I tried out the lamp oil and the white gas. Both work but the lamp oil only just, the white gas actually works quite well although you have to be extra careful how one lights it as it takes much longer to heat up. At least it is an adequate replacement although benzine is definitely a better fuel.

Driving through the countryside we left the gentle rolling flatlands of the Loire Valley behind with the large green fields and interspersed forest remnants and climbed onto the 'massif central' which is a lot like the natal midlands but colder. We went to an out of the way campsite but decided not to stay there because it was just a little bit rustic for us. So far we have been just about the only tent in the campsites, there have been a fair number of campervans and caravans but not much in the way of tents. The other thing that is noticeable is that we are by far the youngest people touring around, just about everyone else seems to be ready to expire. Maybe I'm just thinking that I look younger than I really do!

Had another fight with the internet today and came away from the battle having lost by about 55 points to 9. I did manage to download my email and send all the replies which I haven't been able to do at any of the free internet access points and I was almost but not quite, able to post another blog. I got as far as clicking on the 'post' button when the connection died and refused to resurrect itself. This time we had gone to another Formula 1 which, amazingly, did have a wifi hotspot and I thought my time had come but alas it had more tribulations in store for me. At one stage the %^&*( thing would take me to a login page which is fair enough but when I logged in, it would tell me that I was already logged in but wouldn't go to the page I originally requested and nor would it give me the option to log out. A real catch 22 situation and my view of 1st world technology is plummeting by the day.

Finally, we ended up at a very pleasant campsite run by some dutch people who speak very good english and it was such a pleasure to be able to communicate reasonably effectively. In desperation to get the internet back, it really has turned out to be an unexpected security blanket, I tried our sims in the gsm modem but it didn't work. I'm not really surprised but, even at the exhorbitant data roaming fees, it would still have been cheaper and more convenient than using wifi (I think!).

What I never want my bicycle to look like!

The chateau of the Loire Valley

We spent the day visiting two chateau and I think two is enough. We visited Chambord which was a royal chateau and simply huge but not nearly as interesting or elegant as the Chenonceaux which was built by one of the kings mistresses; with the kings money of course! Caron says that you can see the womens touch in the architecture and that quite often mistresses wielded more real power than actual queens which seeing as the queen at this time was Catherine De Medici means that it must have been quite a powerful woman.

In the centre of the Chambord chateau is a double helix staircase which is rumoured to have been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci who stayed his final years in this area. It really is quite impressive and at the price 10EUR per person, it ought to be. When we went across to Chenonceaux we decided not to go into the actual chateau and only to have a look at the grounds but the frenchies were one step ahead of us, we had to pay to get into the grounds and the chateau was thrown in for free so we paid another 10EUR each which brought it to nearly R600 entrance fees for two of us for one day.

I really enjoyed Chenonceaux (below), much more so than Chambord (above), perhaps because it is visually more attractive if a little less impressive in the size stakes.

On the way out from Chambord we caught a 'rare' sight of a wild boar which looks sort of like a warthog but bigger. They seem to get quite excited about this here and there are a number of animal sightseeing venues which, needless to say, we are avoiding like the plague!

Down in the kitchens of Chenonceaux I caught Caron at the butchers block, I don't know whether it was an expression of some unexpressed desire to be a butcher or if it was simply stress relief. It's a bit difficult to see but the butchers block is seriously worn down.

The great electricity and internet access debate rages on in my head. The going price to have both electricity at a campsite and internet access is about 10 EUR per day which I find exhorbitantly expensive but as a traveller, they pretty much have you at their mercy. Imagine paying R3000 per month to be able to charge a laptop and browse the internet! This annoys me but there is little I can do, I thought I would be clever and buy access to orange hotspots so we have access but we can't find any hotspots. In an effort to find one we went out of our way to a Formula 1 but it doesn't have an orange hotspot. The only one in france not to have orange internet access according to the proprietor who was less than accomodating and helpful.

I finished the day of with some stress relief and cycled from the campsite down to the Loire river and then along the river for about 10km which, because it is so flat, is quite hard work. So there I was cycling along the Loire with the fading sun throwing its light over the river and onto the chateau on the other side. There are definitely worse ways to end a day.

Travel day from Mont St Michel to the Loire Valley

Travel day! Although travel distances in France aren't big, we wouldn't think twice about a 300km journey, it takes forever because you can't go more than about 10km before having to slow down to go into a town. On the motorway the speed limit is 110, on country roads it is 90 in general and as soon as you hit a town it drops down to 50 or sometimes even 30. It is a little self inflicted because we have chosen to use fewer motorways and more country roads for two reasons, the tolls which soon add up and one gets a better sense of the french towns and countryside going through the villages; I think!

Our first stop today was Chartres Cathedral which is in, one would never guess, Chartres. The guide book says that it is in the middle of undeveloped farmland. Strangest farmland I have ever seen, loads of asphalt and buildings! The Cathedral turned out to be more interesting than I expected simply because it is just ginormous, the ceiling is 37m in height and the photo below is of us standing next to one of the many pillars. The 'wall' behind us is not a wall but the foot of a pillar just to give you a sense of just how big they really are.

What I found quite fascinating is that the monks had invented a sort of internet/TV equivalent in the 12th century, the labyrinthe pictured below was used by pilgrims in lieu of actually going to jerusalem on a pilgrimage. What they would do was crawl the labyrinthe from start to finish and that was considered to be the equivalent of and actual pilgrimage in much the same way as we use internet or TV in lieu of actually doing the real thing; it just isn't somehow quite the same!

Coming out of the Cathedral we had a stoke of luck because we saw an 'Internet' sign in the tourism office and went in to ask and it was FREE not the typical 6 EUR for an hour which is the normal charge. I am still smarting from paying for wi-fi access through Orange at '30 000' points of access which we have been able to find exactly one. The one at the formula 1 where we stayed after coming off the euro tunnel. So we made hay while the sun shone and published a whole load of days and we'll be making a point of finding tourism offices in future if we don't somehow bump into an Orange wi-fi access point.

We are now camping in the Loire valley between the towns of Blois and Tours at a campsite called 'Parc du val de loire' which is so, so; the showers leave a lot to be desired but at least they are hot. The weather has not been kind to us today and it is wet, windy and cold but we hope that tomorrow will be better!

We had the most awesome supper of onion soup, bread with a camembert like cheese, bordeaux wine and pudding and coffee. Camping like this really makes one enjoy some of the smaller things in life.

The car went much better today for some reason, almost no juddering at low revs so we hope that this will continue. I tried to buy more fuel for the stove but ended up buying turps instead of benzine; it's quite difficult explaining what benzine is here, even trying to do it in england was pretty difficult.

On our way down to the Loire river we passed some towns names that just have to be mentioned; La Sagne, obviously the home of lasagne and Dorat obviously the home town of Borat.

St Malo and Mont St Michel

We were going to go all the way down to Carnac to see the neolithic stones which are very similar to stonehenge just more of them but in the end decided that the 350km round trip just wasn't going to be worth it to see them so we drove along the coast to St Malo. St Malo featured in Neal Stephensons 'System of the World' as the pirate port which, as it turns out, was essentially true albeit state sanctioned pirates.

The old St Malo was a fortified city on an island similar to the photo of Fort National pictured below but on a much bigger scale. The buildings in the town are four or five stories high and only the top floors can peek over the walls. We walked around the wall for a bit before traipsing over to Fort National and back.

The tide was out and when it goes out here, it really goes out. At Mont St. Michel it recedes 18km, from the top of Mont St Michel which is about 600m one can barely see the shoreline in the distance. Back in St Malo, we stopped to have some coffee and a 'crepe nutella' which was every bit as good as I remember it from Avoriaz.

We're not having much luck with internet access, we can't find an orange wifi point anywhere and ended up war driving through towns looking for wifi hotspots. There are lots of them but no orange ones, this is not looking good. While walking around St Malo there was a statue of Surcouf the legendry pirate which was pointing out to sea but some smart alec had put a condom on his outstretched finger.


From St Malo, we went back to Mont St Michel and paid the 23 EUR entrance fee which is exhoritant but worth it at the end of the day. We got these audio guides which talk you around the attraction and give you loads of information about the history and people that have been there. Very interesting but there is absolutely no way I could have been a monk; aside from the chastity thing, to sit in prayer for 8 hours a day, have meals in silence and live in an abbey which is absolutely freezing just wouldn't have worked for me!

By the time we left Mont St Michel, I was feeling decidedly edgy and needed to get on my bike and get some endorphins racing around which is what I did, cycling the 35km to Mont St Michel and back. On the way back I saw this photo opportunity. Holland obviously doesn't have a monopoly on picturesque windmills.


Had another great pasta with pesto meal with wine, I'm really going to get used to this. Shower and in bed by 21:30 - this is the life!

Bayeaux and Normandy Beaches

An early start at Reine Mathilde at about 09:00; we collected our pain chocolat and our baguette from the reception as we were leaving and munched the pain chocolat as we drove. Mmmmm! It was really cold last night and although we didn't freeze we weren't far off it. Showering in the morning was a pain because the water turns off after about 20 seconds and it was really hot so you would be scalded while it was on and freeze as soon as it stopped. Emerged from the shower all pink and clean!

Seeing as we are so close to the Normandy beaches where D-Day took place we thought we would take a quick look at them. I wasn't expecting to find it paticularly interesting but I was wrong, it was absolutely fascinating. Firstly, to say that they were beaches is something of a misnomer; there were some beaches but on the whole it is a line of cliffs with rocky beaches far below. On the tops of the cliffs were fortified gun, mortar and machine gun emplacements and the allies didn't just waltz onto the land unopposed; the battle of Normandy sucked up 100,000 lives in total. Looking at the size of the concrete emplacements is mind boggling; some of the walls are 2 or more metres of reinforced concrete thick. At the first place we went to, Longues-sur-mer, of the 5 gun emplacements only one was really destroyed and another partialy by the 1000 tons of ordnance dropped onto them. That is pretty impressive!

Mellman the giraffe cannon ball gives an idea of the bore of the cannon. 150mm for those interested.

We moved on to Point du Hoc where a group of american rangers had to scale the cliffs and then take the gun emplacements by hand. Of the 250 rangers that landed, only 90 made it through the next two days unscathed although given my recent brush with firearms, unscathed doesn't mean unaffected!

The size of the shell holes is amazing as you can see from the shell hole below, just imagine digging this with a spade and then think that this thing appeared in a second.

We were running a little low on fuel so we pulled off the highway into a town but everything was closed for lunch and I mean everything so no luck there. Once again we were stymied by the french road construction and had to backtrack a bit and while doing so we had baguette and cheese on the banks of the l'Elle river which was very picturesque. Caron is finally learning to sit still and ignore me when I take photographs.

We arrived quite late at Mont Saint Michel, one of the must-sees for me, but decided not to go in so i took a few photo's and then went in search of a blanket and a camping site. We were quite cold last night so we really needed to buy an extra blanket seeing as we're going to be doing this for 3 months. We found a great campsite called haliosis which is too close to halitosis for comfort and finished the day with a supper of pasta and tuna in a tomato sauce washed down with some very delicious red wine.

Calais to Bayeux

The french build their roads like they build their cars - way too complicated; by far! If it wasn't for the GPS we would have been hopelessly lost within a couple of hours of departing. If it wasn't for the GPS we would have arrived a couple of hours before we actually did. It is very important to have up-to-date maps which ours clearly aren't and it kept on trying to take us onto roads which have been blocked off due to road works so we had to navigate the old fashioned way for while until the GPS finally forgot about the way it thought we should be going.

On the motorway there is a layby about every 50km or so which is usually quite nice but the french drivers are true to their reputation - rude and arrogant although outside their cars we have had quite the opposite experience. If you don't know where you are going you shouldn't be here is their basic attitude.

We were going to stop in Rouen to see where Joan of Arc snuffed it but we were running out of time so we gave it a miss. There was a long tunnel through a mountain and into Rouen so on the GPS we could see the streets above us. I'm not sure how the GPS showed us where we were while we were in the tunnel but it was pretty impressive!

The camping ground guide said that there was a french chateau which had been turned into a camping ground so we thought it would be nice to camp there but unfortunately it was closed but how is this for a driveway!

After a while driving through the french countryside which was quite nice anyway while the electronic brain had it's schizophrenic moment we finally arrived in Bayeaux to see the tapestry which is, I admit, pretty impressive. It's like a 70m long embroidered comic strip depicting the norman invasion of england which ended up with Harold with one in the eye.
Rumour has it that it was embroidered by nuns but I doubt it, nuns ought not have knowledge of some of the more graphic images in the tapestry.

We finally found the campsite we were looking for more by accident than anything else we couldn't find it on the GPS no the map so we headed in the general direction and followed some signs. I think that navigation is going to be combined effort between GPS, map, signposts and a little bit of luck.

The campsite is pretty great and there is a wonderful air of freedom at the campsite. I think I had a bit of an anxiety attack, not really sure why and I'm not even sure if it was; I was just feeling very anxious for no particular reason. Europe in spring is still cold and even with the jackets and beanies we were still a bit on the cold side.

Taking the chunnel

We did our final packing and then took our leave of john and julie after a very necessary period while we sorted ourselves out. Once again a very big thankyou for the hospitality.

We weren't very sure what to expect from the chunnel and as it turn's out it was quite a painless if long winded process. We left at about 10:00 even though our booking was for 17:00 because we weren't sure just how long it would take and thought that once we were there we could maybe explore dover or something. This was not to be, once you go down the offramp to the tunnel there is no turning back so we ended up waiting for about 5 hours in queues of various sorts. Firstly to actually check-in and then once checked in, in the parking lot waiting for our letter to be called. Each departure is assigned a letter and then when they are loading your departure they call your letter over the intercom which was difficult to hear firstly because it is plain just difficult and then secondy because my ears have been blocked for the last couple of days. Caron says that I don't hear so well in any case. Once out letter was call it was really simple, just follow the signs and drive into a double decker railway carriage which looks like the picture below.

I was busy taking the picture below when the french train people walked past and saw what we were doing - 'Ah! le artiste?' was the first french which we were to hear on this trip.

The trip is almost completely inside a tunnel so there is no scenery to speak of and the trip takes about 45 minutes before we finally made it into france. At last, our trip is really beginning! The GPS is absolutely fantastic and we found the formula 1 hotel with no problems at all.

Once we had finished checking in we went for a long walk into the calais and stopped at a restaurant for some soup and coffee on the way back which was great. It looks like the french have some significant security issues because almost all of the houses have roller security shutters over their doors and windows. It made me feel a bit better about our open air prison back in south africa. We walked past the 'pale of calais' which doesn't even feature in either of the guide books but thankfully I have my resident history boffin to enlighten me!

More preparation for the great escape

A great nights sleep, slept like the proverbial security guard!

The first order of the day was to arrange transport over the ditch and into 'old Europe' as the American's are fond of saying. I was expecting it to be expensive but we had one quote of over 200GBP which was quite demoralizing although we have settled on using the chunnel for 90GBP but it means that we arrive in France quite late in the evening so we've gone the safe route and booked into a formula 1 hotel for the first night. I've checked that the GPS knows where the hotel is so we shouldn't have any issues finding it.

We went to get a pukka MSR bottle for the stove today and driving by the GPS is simply amazing. We had absolutely no idea where we were going, just followed the arrow and miracle of miracles we found the shop we were looking for. Dead easy!

We stopped at a 'thorntons chocolatier', it sounds so much more sophisticated in french, shop and had a couple of hot chocolates and something small to eat. It was very nice but it actually cost the same as a full meal including drinks back in johannesburg. Caron has managed to lock up her credit card and it can't be reset without appearing in person at a standard bank branch - in south Africa! Fortunately it isn't our only card but methinks this is a significant flaw in the EMV implementation. Just wait until someone's one and only card gets locked and they're overseas; I predict a hissy fit of note!

We spent some time in the afternoon cleaning the car, packing and then repacking several times and then went out with John and Julie to an Italian pizzeria for a
farewell dinner. The table next to us had 28 people at it, 26 women and 2 men; talk about being outnumbered. When it came time to pay for the meal we called for the bill but john had surreptitiously already paid it. We're not really sure when he managed to do it because we definitely didn't notice him doing it but he was very pleased with himself, grinning like a cheshire cat that got the cream! John and Julie have been very kind and hospitable to us while we have got all the threads of the trip together.

On the way home we drove down the high street and there were girls in 'little black number' type dresses. I was cold in jeans and a fleece jacket so I don't want to know how cold they were; what people will suffer through to look good!

A long day's night

I can't get 3G without paying 5GBP per megabyte, yes that's right, per megabyte. How utterly frustrating so I'm not sure how I am going to keep my diary up to date, maybe I will write it offline and upload when I am able to find an internet cafe; I'll just have to play it by ear.

The flight was pretty uneventful and taking a couple of sleeping tables elevated my class up to an equivalent of first class which means that I actually slept for about 6 hours of the flight. We were traveling in premium economy which, I have to say, was really nice! It has just that little bit of extra leg and arm room so you don't feel quite so cramped. When the meals came around the hostess offered caron a choice of beef curry or vegetarian pasta which I thought was very civilised. The vege's are taking over; entering the mainstream as it were! When caron ordered the vegetarian pasta it turned out that there was chicken in it; strange vegetarian fare indeed. Maybe the cook was the fabled namibian farmer.

Disembarking at the famous terminal 5 was very efficient and totally uneventful, even the baggage all arrived pretty much as we got to the baggage travelators and the immigration had a two person queue and before we knew it we were out and found John who was waiting for us.

We had a bit of a job getting all our baggage into johns car but remarkably we actually managed it although I had to lean forward the whole trip to john and julies house because we couldn't quite get the seat into the normal position. This meant that I had to duck if we saw any cops because apparently it is quite illegal to drive like this here.

Arriving at johns house we met our transport for the trip which has yet to be named but since it looks a bit like a single humped camel will probably be something camel-like. John had kindly taken the day off so we spent the day driving around trying to find various things that we either couldn't fit in like foam mattresses or had been disallowed like the bottle for the MSR stove. The stove proved to be quite an issue and, despite what the shop assistant promised, it HAS to be a genuine MSR bottle so we ended up spending 10GBP on a bottle which we can't use. Shop assistants don't seem to change from continent to continent but by the end of the day we had most of the other items required.

We went for a drive in the dromedarius and within about 100m we knew that there was a rattle which was going to send caron ballistic so John and I spent a few hours locating the source and fixing it. It turned out to be a loose shock absorber which was quite easy to fix. We also fixed the spare wheel back into it's holder underneath the car so we don't have to have it floating around in the box and we also fixed the bicycle into the back of the van in what I hope will be a safe and secure manner. The photo below should show the ingenious method of method of restraint along with a stowaway who has followed us from south africa.



We were very glad to get to bed at about 21:00, not a moment too soon.

April Fool Day, 2009

After about 4 years of planning, the day of departure has finally arrived and as usual, the last few days have been more than a little hectic. Especially given our brushes with the criminal elements of late. We've been having repairmen of all sorts traipsing through our house trying to get it back into shape so that rosie can live in it safely for the next few months. One of the things that has been at the bottom of the priority list has been what our exact itinerary will be aand we still don't know. We know the broad strokes but we're going to have to make it up a little bit as we go along.

Going for this long and especially since we will be doing a fair amount of financially enforced camping; luggage is a real problem. Even more so since I want to take my bicycle along for the ride. After carefull examination of the BA website we found that in addition to the normal baggage (2xhand luggage + 2xchecked luggage) we could take 'sports equipment', one piece maximum of 23 kg. The bicycle box I borrowed from graeme weighed 16kg on its own so that wasn't going to work so I had a cardboard box made and the bike, the box and a couple of sleeping bags ('packaging' to anyone that wants to know) it came to 22.5 kg. In the end all our luggarge was within 0.5kg of the maximum allowed which is quite and achievement.

From the photo you can see the bicycle on the left in the big box; I had my doubts as to whether they really would allow it on the aircraft but surprise, surprise - they did and no questions asked.


We weren't so lucky with the benzine bottle for the cooker even though it was open and empty; it hadn't been washed with soapy water! I ask you with tears in my eyes; so we left the bottle behind but have managed to get everything else through.

An unexpected disadvantage of traveling with a bicycle is that one can't see over it when pushing the trolley and I accidentally ran into a person in a wheelchair who had crossed my path. Felt a bit bad but I'm over it now.

I'm currently sitting in the news cafe waiting for caron to return from a foraging expedition for cancer sticks and we should be boarding the plane in about 10 minutes.

Oh No! Not AGAIN!

It was a week almost to the hour that we had had the armed robbery that we had yet another break in. This time we weren't at home thankfully so we arrived home to find that the bedroom window and the 'intruder proof' lounge window weren't so intruder proof after all! I would hazard a guess that these two incidents were related. The second group weren't the same as the first I think but were definitely looking for the replacements that were a result of the first. Unlucky for them, the first group got away with just about everything and the second got away with just about nothing, I think the only thing they actually took was a 7" digital picture frame without the power adapter. What all these guys (I assume it was guys) do with the electronic equipment without the power adapters is beyond me. In particular the apple equipment has special power supplies and one can't just go and buy them. So now, on top of all the work to repair the damage done last weekend we now have to replace window and clean up the house - again!

Strangely, although the second incident wasn't as physically intimidating it has had a far more severe psychological affect on us so instead of sleeping in a glass covered bedroom with no windows we went and stayed in the sandton holiday inn for the evening. When I was parking the car I didn't know that there was reserved parking for hotel residents so I parked in sandton square and then tried to move it. Unfortunately for me, leaving co-incided with the end of some huge event and the queues for the parking payment were literaly about 40 people deep so I went in search of another pay station and each one I got to had a similar queue or was out of order and my sense of humour was fading fast with each successive one. So in addition to all the normal last minute things that have to be attended to when going overseas we had to get the glass replaced, alarm repaired, gate remotes replaced and re-programmed, garage door lifter fixed, electric fence fixed and so on. Damn but I really actually do need a very long holiday!

I should be in Lagos

but I'm not and here is the story which I have been told that I have to write by the trauma counselor. Trauma counseling appears to be a booming business in south africa, just about every organisation we have to talk to offers us some.

The problem actually started on thursday or friday although I didn't know it at the time and even now, I can't really prove it, when I went to standard bank to draw foreign exchange for my tip to lagos and then for our overseas trip next week. As a general rule, we never have large amounts of cash in the house but in the few days before an overseas trip it is hard not to.

We arrived home on saturday afternoon at about 16:10 from the holmes's place and saw two men walking down our road and one's instinct warns you that there's trouble coming but they were about 100m up from our drive and aside from thinking that we're just being paranoid, we thought that ought to be enough to get in and close the gates so in we drove. Well, weren't we wrong! The next moment the doors were flung open and we were both dragged out of the car while being threatened by two 9mm pistols. Caron told me later that the she had seen the second of the two attackers just squeeze through the gate as it closed but didn't even have a chance to shout before I was dragged out. It is not a great feeling having a pistol pointed at one and even less hearing the click as the pistol is cocked, it really does chill the blood and we're still trying to get over it. Even writing about it is distinctly uncomfortable and the pistols looked a lot bigger than they really are.

The first thing they wanted was that we don't make a sound and the second was to know how many people were at home and how many dogs.

The criminals held onto each one of our arms and shepherded us around to the back door, clearly not comfortable with using the front door but since we only had front door keys we had to go there to get into the house. They gave me the front door keys back and before I opened the door I warned them that the alarm was going to go off, I didn't want it to take them by surprise and end up with a bullet in me because he got a fright. We opened the front door and the alarm went off and I carefully punched in the code, this being no time to have finger trouble. Alarm off, the taller of the two criminals used me like a shield as we moved into the lounge just in case I had lied about there being nobody at home I guess. Once they were happy that the room was clear we both had to lie face down on the floor while they took rings, watches, cell phones and wallets. This done, they wanted to get into the rest of the house but it was all locked which meant lots of close contact with the criminals in the passage as I retrieved the hall cupboard key and then the passage key from the hall cupboard. Each time I had to do something which I thought may make them nervous I would explain exactly what i was going to do and then let them tell me to do it before continuing and doing everything slowly and deliberately.

Once the hall doors were open, we were again used as shields and marched into the bedroom where we both had to lie on the floor while they drew the curtains and used shoe laces to tie our feet together and our hands behind our backs. Once we were trussed up like turkeys and totally incapacitated the tall one asked where the socks were and used a pair to put over his hands so as not to leave fingerprints. The shorter one had gloves on the whole time. The questioning started in earnest about where was the safe, where was the cash, where was the jewellery and so on. Fortunately or unfortunately we don't have a safe in the house but as soon as I told them how much I had in my wallet in USD they persisted a while but changed the focus onto jewels which we told them where to find and then after the jewels to electronic goodies. It's hard to argue with someone who has a 9mm pointed at one's back so we basically answered as truthfully as we could without volunteering anything more than necessary. As soon as we were incapacitated their cell phone started going off and they must have made or received between 4 and 8 calls during the next 10 minutes so I don't think that this was just an opportunistic hijacking, I think we were specifically targeted. While we were being tied up, the taller of the two tied my hands quite tightly and an involuntary "ouch" came out, I remember his answer quite clearly, he said "sorry, master"! Strange words indeed for a criminal who is tying me up while intimidating me at the same time with a 9mm pistol.

They wanted to know what was in the garage to which we replied a bmw320d which would, I thought, be of interest to them. A bit of to and fro occurred on the cell phone while they negotiated with whoever was on the other side as to which one to take; the mini it was which was a huge relief because getting the bmw out of the garage would have prolonged the ordeal just that much longer and we were already starting to take strain. I don't know if they were or weren't in the room but I asked caron how she was doing and she bravely replied "fine" which under the circumstances was about as good as I could have hoped for.

We heard some noises from the other side of the house and the scrunch, scrunch of them walking on the path before they came back to ask how to open the gate and how to start the mini which we told them in detail. They had also previously wanted to know if both cars had tracker on them which they both fortunately had but it didn't worry them enough to risk not taking them.

Suddenly everything went quiet and we heard the gate opening, the car reversing, the car pulling off gently and then the gate closing. At this point I thought there was a reasonable chance that we were alone and managed to get onto my feet with a bit of effort and head butted the panic button but nothing happened so I used my tongue to set the alarm and hopped through to the kitchen while caron moved around as much as she could so that the alarm went off. I got a knife out of the kitchen drawer which is a lot more difficult than it sounds and went back to the bedroom where Caron had managed to get one of her hands free enough to hold the knife and cut the shoe string. On the way back to the bedroom the phone rang which I thought was ADT responding to the alarm but I couldn't answer it at the time. From there on it didn't take more than a minute or two for us to be completely free and get onto the phone to call ADT, police and tracker.

We were no longer victims but survivors now!

Road rage continued again!

I turned up at court at the appointed time only to find a notice that all cases have been transferred to another court so I went to that one and sat at the back waiting for my case to be called but after a couple of hours of nothing I thought I should check that I was really at the right place which, as it turns out, I wasn't. The time spent watching the wheels of justice move, although 'move' is entirely the incorrect adjective, was not without benefit to me. I now understand why we're in such a mess, all the magistrate or judge or whatever she was did was postpone and transfer cases. What an utter waste of everyone's time and because everyone knows it; people don't take it seriously and just use any old excuse to not appear which results in a postponement.

My experience, thus far, of the police and justice system is that it is more the justice system that is broken rather than the police. The police also have their challenges but right now it looks like the justice system is incompetent and incompetence over a long period of time leads to irrelevance which is exactly what is happening in south africa. Since the justice system isn't seen to be dispensing justice it leads to frustration from the victims and eventually statements like 'Just shoot the criminals if you get the chance' by one of our politicians or was it assistant to the someone or other.

Back to my story, I was then told to go and speak to whoever was in an office opposite court one which I did. At the end of my explanation as to what happened, the prosecutor simply told me that he wasn't going to prosecute and that I could just go. I think that he's seen this tit-for-tat type of charge before. I now wait with baited breath to find out what is going to happen to my case against the bmw driver but given my experience of the courts today, I should unbait my breath because it is going to take a long, long time and may never actually happen.

Road rage continued

On thursday, the day after the incident, I received a call from the police requesting that I come into the police station because they wanted to clear some things up which I did at about 16:30 to be informed that they had to arrest me! This was a bit of a surprise, apparently the driver of the bmw had laid a charge of reckless and negligent driving against me. I think it was just in an effort to get back at me for laying an assault charge against him but it just goes to show that if one decides to wrestle with pigs, one can't expect to come away spotless. Being arrested was a bit of a novel experience having avoided it for 43 years but the police were very polite and just went through the motions as quickly and painlessly as possible and I had to turn up at court on the friday morning. My shiner has really blossomed in the last day and there are some quite fetching colours starting to make their appearance. I took some photo's with my cell phone which I would have posted if it wasn't for the events of the following week.

Road rage Strikes back ...

It has taken me little while to put this down in writing but on the 11th of this month I was involved in a road rage incident; apparently south africans are the world road rage champions.

I was driving my motorcycle between the stationary traffic and as the traffic pulled off I pulled into one of the gaps which naturally form as traffic starts but the bmw driver behind me, instead of driving at a normal distance decided to tailgate me. Having someone tailgate one when one is in a car is plain annoying but having someone do it to you when you're on a motorcycle is just downright dangerous. I couldn't speed up because of the cars in front and pulling left so the moron can squeeze past on the right is very dangerous so I gently put the back brake on, not so much to slow down as that would have been plain stupid but just enough to get the brake light to go on so he would back off. Needless to say (now!) this just infuriated him and his antics to get past me just got worse. At about this time the road ahead and to my left cleared so I pulled into the left hand lane so he could overtake which he did at a furious rate but I think he was so busy shouting at me that he didn't see that the traffic ahead had stopped at the next set of lights and he only just missed going into the back of the car stopped at the traffic lights but in doing so he swerved into my lane and across my line. I had fallen back by this time so this was all happening in front of me so when I pulled up on his left hand side I hammered on his window with my fist and gave him a piece of my mind which wasn't very polite at all but at the end of the day it was only words and there weren't any threats made. I should have known better given the way the idiot drove but sometimes I just can't keep quiet. He took this very badly and got out of his car and walked around the back of it and up to the back of the motorcycle. I was looking at him over my right shoulder when the first punch arrived; I can remember thinking "What does he think he's doing trying to punch someone with a helmet on!" and it was a really big surprise to find that a fist fits neatly into the slot that the visor normally covers. I tried to duck as best I could but there wasn't really anywhere to go because the robot was red so I took a bit of a beating to the back of the helmet before he got bored and got back into his car. I pulled forward and memorised his number plate and drove off to work. Another motorcyclist pulled up beside me at the next traffic lights to ask if I was ok because there was blood dripping out from the bottom of my helmet from the one punch which made it through.

When I got to work I went and washed up and sat quietly for a while trying to decide whether or not to press charges and at the end of this I decided that this could not go unpunished. It is not acceptable to deck someone no matter what they've said so I went off to the police to lay a charge before going to casualty to have the cuts stitched up. Two cuts and three stitches in the one and a couple of hours later I was sporting a really impressive shiner.

Aaargh! Sometimes things are just so frustrating

I read today about a $1.5 million "investment" from AECF to Monitise to "develop m-banking services" in africa. AECF which is backed by the Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations is supposedly to be helping africa to develop, which it obviously desperately needs, but I fail to see how this kind of "investment" really helps africa.

If this investment was really to help africa it should be "invested" in african companies that will develop real skills and IP that would stay in africa and be of long term benefit to africa. If it is not going to do this it just ends up being the first world gaining an aura of respectability by appearing to "invest in the development of africa". I can just hear the nay-sayers saying that an "african" company couldn't possibly develop this kind of product to which I say bullshit; there are probably at least 5 small companies in south africa alone which can and have developed mobile banking platforms and this is without even looking at zimbabwean and kenyan companies which could do just as good a job.

If you don't believe me, just ask yourself what IP this investment develops that will remain in africa? What are the software development skills that are developed that remain in africa and loading an OS and installing an application doesn't count as real skills development. My prediction is that on both counts the answer will be NONE and if this was really about the development of africa the answers should not be NONE.

Even worse, this not only takes an opportunity away from an african company but actively keeps african companies from developing by removing potential customers from what is already a small market place. The "investment" effectively subsidises first world software development and helps to ensure that third world software development can't and won't compete.

Now that the rant is over, I have to say that I really hope that AECF is doing this unwittingly and that their intentions really are what they consider "best" for africa but what they consider "best" doesn't make much sense to me.

"Don't call me stupid ..."

... as the immortal line from Kevin Kline goes in "A fish called Wanda".

Last week the UCT rag magazine had an article which insulted and basically called christians 'stupid' which led to a torrent of responses from indignant and insulted christians. What a mess and all because people fail to distinguish respect of people from respect of beliefs and ideas and then within these two domains, the stupid from the clever.

By way of example, a person with an IQ of below 100 is commonly held to be, dare I say it, 'stupid' in the same way that a person that has an IQ over 140 is commonly held to be a 'genius'. But just because someone is below average in IQ does not mean that it is acceptable to insult or be derogatory of them as people.

Illustrating a 'stupid' belief; if I was of the opinion that if I dropped a ball it would remain suspended in mid-air, people could justifiably consider my opinion to be 'stupid' even though I myself may not be 'stupid'. Unlike calling a person 'stupid'; pointing out unsubstantiated ideas and beliefs as being 'stupid' does not hurt the feelings of the beliefs or ideas. If, however, people holding those beliefs or ideas choose to feel insulted that is an emotional problem where people can't distinguish between what they are and what they believe. Unfortunately, this is a reality that needs to be addressed which isn't so easy.

So while we should not shy away from pointing out ideas and beliefs that are 'stupid' it is not the same as pointing out people to be 'stupid' - that is just insulting behavior and shouldn't be tolerated. If you need to point out the opposing person as stupid rather than the argument they are presenting as stupid; you're the one with the problem or as Desmond Tutu so succinctly put it: "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument."

http://jv.news24.com/Rapport/Suid-Afrika/0,,752-2460_2474006,00.html
or in english:
http://www.women24.com/Women24/ChatWin/Guest_Columnist/Article/0,,1-2-147-151_21738,00.html

signed kkkkkkkk...Ken

A funny thing happened on the way

In one of the newspapers this weekend there was a really great article about someone who was fed up with the number of potholes in our roads and the incompetence of the municipalities in maintaining them so he planted about 100 trees, one per pothole, in and around bloemfontein I think it was. This sounds like a great idea to highlight a problem but I didn't realise that I would fall victim to a pothole the very next day.
This morning I did a 2:45 ride with Jason and Sam and at one stage Jasons orienteering skills let him down and we ended up riding across some mowed grass to get back onto the path. I wasn't concentrating too hard and rode right into a hole dug for a tree but the digger had forgotten to plant the damn tree. The grass had grown and pretty much covered it so the first thing that I knew about it was when my front wheel went in and I went head over the handlebars - much to an oncoming mountain bikers amusement. I didn't actually fall very far; it was more like the bike just disappeared from under me and I skidded to a halt having landed chest first on the grass beyond the hole. Very undignified but nothing hurt or broken so no real problems although my head is a bit sore at the moment.
Having experience the first hand effects of tree holes without trees in them I am in complete agreement that potholes really need to be greened!

Dischem Ride for Sight 2009

Well, the day finally arrived after what seems like ages of training for us to ride the race. I picked Carl up at 05:30 and Hennie and Hannes were meeting us, also at carls at 05:45. Carl and I were waiting outside and we heard a motor gunning it down the road and I said to Carl "Here's Hennie" as a car roared past the front gate. "Obviously not!" quipped carl and I had to agree although i did see bicycles on the back of the car and the odds of that happening at 05:45 on a sunday morning have got to be slim. Two minutes later Hennie reversed back to the driveway looking sheepish at having missed a house he has been to dozens of times.
We drove in convoy out to Boksburg stadium for the 116km long race which fortunately doesn't contain any real hills but it is still 116km long which is a good days riding. We decided to stick together and ride as a group which we pretty much accomplished for the majority of the race.
Up until the 30 or 40km mark we just rode at our own pace and didn't realise that we had attracted a big peleton of about 50 riders all tucked in behind us; it felt quite good riding at the head instead of lurking in the pack like I normally try and do. About the first 60km is gently downhill which is great fun but at about 40km I got a puncture - the second in a month which is a lot for me as I normally get punctures quite seldom. After fixing the puncture I didn't check my brakes and as a result spent the next 70 odd kilometres riding with the brakes rubbing. I don't know how much of a difference it really made but I can say that I struggled over the last 40km. In the end; Hannes and Carl finished together with me a couple of minutes behind and Hennie another minute or so behind me which is actually great that we all finished so close together. I actually think that Carl looked the freshest afterwards. Hannes, Hennie and myself were all knackered but now that there is some distance between me and the finish line; it really is a great race to ride. Highly recommended even though I spent the rest of the day recovering and even a bit of monday.

Licenses have a habit of expiring at inconvenient times

I went to get my international drivers license last week friday for our upcoming trip which starts on 1 April only to be told by the AA (No, not Alcoholics Anonymous) that my license expires while we are away. Bugger it! Getting a new license takes some time and a lot of time queueing in government offices waiting for people to come back from their lunch break, waiting for the computer system to work, waiting for - oh, any number of totally unbelievable excuses. In addition to this I actually couldn't get my license application in because the JMPD was on strike so I had to wait until this wednesday to hand the application in. It takes 6 weeks, or so they say. I leave in 7 weeks so it sounds like I'm going to be in for a nerve wracking time during that last week.

Blood sucking

On Saturday morning I had a PR disaster in my subtle anti-smoking campaign waged on Caron. It all started innocently enough, we took Samuel and Hannah to the health shop to show them their blood under the microscope which was fascinating and entertaining. The lady operating the microscope picked up that samuel was gluten intolerant which, given his parentage, is actually quite likely and would really explain certain things. He isn't violently gluten intolerant so I don't think that is going to lead to massive changes in his diet; he just has to be a little careful. Hannah had just recovered from a bout of flu and the number of bacteria in her blood was noticeably higher than the rest of us. It's amazing to see the bacteria swimming between the blood cells; I was hoping to see a white blood cell pac-man gobble one up but it was not to be. Not really much wrong with either of their blood which is quite cool to know but it would be really nice to have a copy of the slides so that one could track the blood with time. The last to go was caron and I was hoping for another arrow to my anti-smoking armoury but I was sorely disappointed! Caron, who smokes and does no exercise had better looking blood than me who doesn't smoke (much) and exercises perhaps more than strictly required. Eish! boomerang arrow!

The builders are ....

GONE and just not having them on the property has increased the quality of life dramatically. For the last 4 months we have been building a patio as shown below which is quite a long time for a fairly small job.

but then expecting the 'quality german' builders to actually finish on time seems maybe just a bit too much. Anyway, it's done and despite the numerous imperfections it does actually look quite good at first glance.

At the moment we are both sitting at the table with out laptops connected via wireless while the cat looks on from his perch on the puke green cushion. The night is one of those perfect african evenings, cool and quiet with the sound of cicadas and the odd bird to entertain us. Sometimes life down here really is just too terrible for words!

New TOY!

There is something about being in IT (pronounced as "it" as in "where is it?" if you're my mother-in-law) and requiring a constant stream of new toys. 'Officially' my new toy is a necessity for our upcoming travels in the first world in order to continue writing my blog whilst away from my latop which is just "too big" to lug around europe. Enter the EeePC pictured below ...

with my current laptop in the foreground for comparison. Aside from the actual size of the EeePC it has a SSD drive of 20GB which has no moving parts. When I purchased it I thought I was buying the linux version but when I booted it up the windows virus had spread and greeted me with the BSOD so I just had to nuke it and put ubuntu (being all african and that) on which had been pretty impressive. A small amount of problems with the wireless network card because of hardware drivers but fairly simply sorted out. What is really remarkable is how usable it actually is given it's tiny size of screen and keyboard. This is my first blog from my new laptop.

Professional Fortune Tellers

It seems to me that there are a significant number of professions that ought to have the tag "Professional Fortune Teller" appended to their qualifications. Here's how it works:
Everyone knows that it is not possible to predict the future however people and businesses need to know the future in order to position themselves advantageously so they hire, to avoid responsibility, these professional fortune tellers to give their opinions on the future and these opinions become quasi-reality. At some point in the future the present catches up and the predictions made are either mostly right or mostly wrong; if they were right, the fortune teller gets tick next to his/her name and the employer feels that the money invested in the prediction was justified. If however the fortune teller was wrong he/she gets a cross next to their name and the money invested is written off to experience. Either way, the next day the process starts again but the future is like a quantum state; if you observe it - it changes so who's to say that one didn't actually observe it but by doing so it changed.

Professional Fortune Tellers : Economists, Investment Advisors, Project Managers, Financial Forecasters, Traders, Budgets, Retirement Planners, Risk Assessors
Employers of Professional Fortune Tellers: You, me and everyone else.

So what is my point? There is nothing wrong with hiring Professional Fortune Tellers after all; an educated guess is better than an arbitrary guess but one should never lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day it is still just a guess.

Belated Xmas

On christmas morning we were at Kim & Laurels house watching Sage open her numerous xmas presents, one of which was a new dress which she had to try on immediately. Laurel wanted to have a photograph of her in it and when she was ready Sage struck a pose like she was a model but the way that she did it had us all in stitches. It looks like she is going to be a natural in front of the camera!

Happy New Year!

To everyone out there in cyberspace; may 2009 be better than 2008!

The tyranny of labels

We're busy building and surprise, surprise what we are getting ain't quite what we would consider acceptable so we have ended up making compromises, to a certain degree, on the quality of the workmanship. It is frustrating to the n'th degree that we get to pay someone to do something just so that we can complain at how badly it has been done. The builders of course know that some things just can't be redone without a huge cost so they play the "what will they accept" game and try to get away with as much, or little, as possible.

A strange way to start a post on "the tyranny of labels" but what got me to thinking about the labels we commonly use to simplify life and discussions was a meeting with the builders where I was complaining about the quality of the carpentry which is pretty shoddy. Surprisingly, the builder agreed that the workmanship was shoddy but blamed it on "South African Quality" and this after having vouched for the (future) quality of their workmanship. By blaming the poor quality on "South African Workmanship" they were implying that, in their particular case, that if it had been done by "Germans" it would have been of better quality. I beg to differ, quality or lack thereof has nothing to do with nationality, it has everything to do with individual training, aptitude and experience not to mention price but it is so convenient to blame it on something that everyone knows is a problem in South Africa i.e. the skills shortage.

This got me to thinking about the labels we commonly apply like "Swiss Quality", "Fat Americans", "German Humour", "Nigerian Corruption" and how really unfair and wrong it is to treat these commonly held conceptions as the rule and the converse doesn't really exist. Personally, having worked with some swiss products, they aren't as good as they should be and I have met numerous thin americans and germans with a sense of humour do exist; as long as you don't mention "the war" (joke courtesy of John Cleese).

The problem with labels is that they stick, we innately like using labels and both marketing departments and those with prejudices to share know it and abuse it. So why do we continue to make these labels? Well, it's because they are partly true but the trick is that they are not wholly true and we have a bit of a weakness for extending what may be generally true to making it absolutely true.

Taking american obesity as an example, 55% of Americans have a BMI of >25 whereas there is a negligible number of Indians that are overweight; so are americans fat? Well, compared with indians, definitely and on average, yes they are, but there is still that 45% of americans who are at the ideal BMI or below it and 45% of a population is a big percentage to ignore by making a sweeping statement like "Americans are overweight"

Labels are particularly dangerous when used either derogatively to put a group of people in a negative light; for example "militant muslim" used often and indiscriminately enough leads people to believe that if you're a muslim you are therefore militant. This example is a bit more tricky than the BMI of americans because objectively assessing whether muslims, christians or any other faith or non faith are more or less prone to militant behaviour is not so easy. I would guess that we are all equally prone to militant behaviour but the point is that nobody really, I think, knows; the label is just attached to an identity and prejudice soon follows.

Some presents are more effort than one thinks

A few months ago Kim and I were standing under her large Pin Oak looking up into the branches and discussing how it was just begging to have a tree house built in it. Little did I know just how much effort building a tree house 5m off the ground actually is but now I know so my career as a builder of tree houses is officially over and emotional blackmail isn't going to bring me out of retirement.

It's not that it is that difficult, it's just really awkward working between the ground and 5m off the ground. The first thing was to build the "A" shaped structure on the ground which I then lifted into the tree with a minor whoopsy on the way but nothing broken or damaged. Once in the tree I added on the rectangular piece which one can't quite see in the picture. Having finished that I put the OSB board on and nailed it in place and rigged the suspension wires to points that weren't resting on boughs. A dash of paint and 20 hours of work later; voila! I really hope that Samuel and Hannah use it because if they don't; I'll be a bit pissed off to put it mildly.

Quote of the day

"Common sense is soluble in testosterone!"

www.cultcycling.co.za

The Toyota MTN Cycle Park

Ok, I think I'll get the embarassing end result out of the way first. The score, jump 3, roland 0.

Since all my riding partners are away having lazy holidays I thought it would be fun to go and try out "The Toyota MTN Cycle Park" located where Main road goes over the N1 so I put all the kit on and chugged off to see what gives. The entrance fee is R50.00 which is pretty steep but unlike Northern Farm which charges R10.00 the Toyota MTN cycle park really does put a lot of effort into enabling you to have a whole bunch of fun. Fun in this instance means that you have at least a chance of breaking something, most likely your bike but there is a indemnity form you have to sign before you get in to take care of liability in the event that you break yourself instead of your bike.

There is a perimeter jeep track with well marked entrances to to the single track which eventually exit back onto the perimeter track. All single track is one way which is great and hopefully nobody is going to meet someone going the wrong way. The single track is graded into green, blue and black like ski runs and like skiing, black is to be taken with caution. There are tons of arrows but I think it would have been better to have made the arrows the same colour as the grading.

I started off on some greens, then blues and finally some blacks which I found to be pretty challenging. A note on the establishments use of "caution" signs; they really mean it! It would really be best to get off and have a good look at whatever one should be cautious about and going slowly doesn't work as often you need some speed to be safe.

Next to the BMX track there are several drop off's which were great fun but there was one I didn't do because I think I would have been arse over kettle. For the record it was the one with the roots half way down. The first drop off I did was exhilarating but the first jump at the bottom caught me by surprise but no problem, a quick jump and I flew over it and almost landed straight on top of the second jump which would have been a spectacular stop. As it turned out I just used the compression from the landing from the first jump to launch me over the second one; I must have looked like a kangaroo bouncing over the jumps. Great fun!

On to the jump that I couldn't get right pictured below. The problem with this jump is that you need some speed to clear the 1.5m gap but the S curve before the jump means that although you can get the speed it puts you on a path to the bushes. Landing a little short is not an option on this jump unless you don't mind buying a new back wheel each time you visit so speed is vital. Direction is unfortunately also vital. Hmmm, eish and eina!

Note the caution signs, they aren't joking! I think that the line to take would be starting at the left of the path and take off should be just to the left of the black stump. That way you ought to land in the middle of the right curving path after the jump. I think, but not having successfully negotiated this I can't say for sure.

Note the expropriated pavement waiting to buckle some back wheels; I think the bike shops may have had a hand in constructing this jump!

First attempt I wasn't going anywhere near fast enough, being cautious and all that and the back wheel caught the pavement and I took a sideways dive into the bushes on the left. Second time, a bit more speed so I cleared the pavement easily but the aim wasn't so good and I ended up doing a forward roll over the handlebars in the bushes. Third time speed was good, direction better but landed very hard and lost it taking a dive into the bushes on the right. This is going to take a few more visits I can see. Anyway, nothing broken but I think that I'm going to be a bit sore tomorrow morning! I can however confirm that the bushes to the left and rights of the path make for a pleasantly soft landing should one get it wrong!

Christmas 2008 at the Vaal

Caron and I have given up trying to second guess what the other actually wants and solved the annual gift buying conundrum by going shopping together; the one chooses and the other pays. It takes the surprise out of opening one's present but there can be nobody other than yourself to blame if you don't get what you actually wanted and having to wait until christmas to actually open the present made it still feel like a gift.

The morning started with the holmes tribe for early morning coffee and breakfast which was a bit of a quiet affair since there was only one child, sage, at home and there is a limit as to how much noise a single child can generate. Put another child into the equation and all bets are off; it is not a linear equation.

After breakfast we drove down to the Marina Letata on the Vaal to have lunch with Kirsten, Carl, Bruce, Charmaine, my parents and assorted children which was very noisy and chaotic especially in comparison. After lunch charmaine and I took the children down to have a swim which started out innocently enough but ended up as shown below:

From left to right Liam, Jordynne, Austin, Alistair and Megan

Alistair, Liam and Austin leapard crawling through the mud. Alistair looking a bit confused as to whether this really was fun or not. Megan on the other hand had no such qualms and really got into the swing of things.

The five mud monsters.

This looks like one of those photos to be buried away and resurrected on someone's 21st.


As the children progressed from clean to completely filthy charmaine was worrying what grandma was going to say when she saw the demise of jordynnes brand new red and white costume. Nothing as it turned out and I got the distinct impression that somehow we, as adults, are missing out on a whole bunch of fun because we collectively refuse to be children again. Towards the end of the mud bath Austin and Liam were running down the banks and diving headfirst into the mud and sliding a few metres and right into the water; I would do this as well but I think I might break my back.

After the photo session everyone waded out to relatively deep water to wash the mud off and out of their costumes before the rest of the parents saw them. Megan managed to drop her bikini top so there was this frantic search by everyone to locate it while megan kept her modesty intact by keeping her shoulders well below the water surface. The whole episode was very funny as viewed from the sidelines of course.

That was pretty much christmas for 2008; I think that the mud wallow is going to be remembered for a long time to come.