01 Jun. 12


Officially the first day of winter in the southern hemisphere. I am still able to wear shorts during the day but at night a jersey and beanie is required. There is a vast difference between the temperature here and in Joeys. In Joeys this time of the year is extremely cold and I would have to wear tracksuit trousers covered by denims, vest, t-shirt jersey and jacket. Not to mention two pairs of socks and shoes. In a way I am glad that we decided to winter it out here and not in the Cape because the Cape is also extremely cold. The cape has its good days but even in summer it can get very cold.



Yesterday I replaced one of our old solar panels with one of the new ones we had bought from GW stores. For about an hour I tried to figure out a way to make the old panel work. I just couldn’t accept that the panel could supply eighteen volts but have absolutely no amps. As far as my knowledge went I believed that you couldn’t have voltage without amps. After conducting the same test a few times and getting the same results I decided to go and ask someone for advice. They advised me to try connecting a twelve volt globe directly to the panel, if the light comes on, the panel must supply some amps. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about trying that but I suppose it has to do with being too close to the problem. Sometimes a bit of outside assistance is required. In my specific case, a lot of outside assistance is required, all the time and should actually be mandatory.



Last night Lola loaded some airtime on my phone and unbeknownst to us it was mahala Thursday at MTN. Mahala is an African word meaning “for free.” Since we don’t have a TV we don’t know about these specials so it was a pleasant surprise getting R30 free airtime. Since the free airtime was limited to calls from MTN to MTN only, we decided to use the special offer and gave my son a call. Ten minutes of phone call and the thirty rand was gone. He was having a bad day involving an issue with one of his friends. I felt helpless sitting down here whilst leaving him up there having to solve this problem by himself. I think our phone call helped raise his lowered spirit and thought that someone up there in the heavens knew that he needed the call.



02 Jun. 12

Watching Lola do the washing this morning and she tells me that luckily she didn’t imagine this trip to be all about cocktails in the sunset but rather about doing hand washing in the cockpit. Her statement was just so true it made me laugh.



Washer woman


Being back on the walk-on has been so much more convenient with endless electricity and water on tap. Because of this we can have cold coke and keep frozen meat in the freezer. We will of course have to sort out our power problems before we leave again, but for now it at least, our lives have some semblance of normality.