South African Halloween

This time last year I was in a meeting and I left Hubby and youngest son to decorate the fairy cakes for halloween

I love halloween, I love decorating the outside of the house, I love carving the pumpkin and getting the treats ready for when the children call.

Every year I sit in the kitchen with the front door ajar and listen to the kids walk up my drive, several times I hear 'it's the cake ladies house, I love her cakes'

I wonder how many people will call at our house as usual this year to discover we don't live their any longer.

This year, I'm decorating the inside of the house, I've made the cakes, but no one will come calling, it's not exactly safe to walk the streets here.



And there won't be a bonfire night either :-(

Dear Mr Cameron

We moved to South Africa in January, leaving our 22 year old proundly disabled daughter in care in the UK. This WAS NOT an easy decision.
She cannot feed, wash, dress or toilet herself, she is a risk to herself and others.
We have been informed today her budget will be cut by 50% putting her at considerable risk.
Her care home have asked we raise our concerns.
To whom?
We were assured her funding was for life when she turned 18. this appears not to be the case.
We need your help to sort this matter out please and an explanation of how you can do this to her.
It has been hard enough moving to a new country, we left our 3 adult children in the UK, one in the army and the other working to fund his studies.

What’s left to do?

Flights home to UK in December booked and I must remember to remove any codeine from my hand bag as I don’t want to be arrested at Dubai airport on my way through.
I now have a mobile phone contract with Vodacom, it’s a galaxy tab and I love it, please excuse the typos as the swipe is still getting used to what I may be going to type.
I’m not finished for Vodafone in the UK and I’m making a complaint to OFCOM, despite Vodafone cancelling the last 3 months of my two year contract as a gesture of good will for taking 9 months to sort out my online access and refusing to supply me with a reference for Vodacom and ignoring my many requests for assistance to fix a broken phone.
SAFA have finally agreed to sign foreign players, but it’s been 9 months now since we started the process and Dan has decided he doesn’t want to play football anymore and SAFA have ignored my complaint of Poor practice against the local officer for telling me ‘I don’t like you and I won’t sign your son as he’s English’
I’m also waiting for a reply from HSBC about a service we were miss sold. OK we were told from the off that they don’t actually have a branch in South Africa, but continued to open up an account for us, not once telling us that all the benefits such as someone opening an account for us on arrival and credit history would not apply to us. They even cancelled my bank card in our first week here due to ‘unusual activity’ I’m sure we mentioned we were moving here when we asked for ‘off shore’ banking.
There’s the matter of sorting out my visa, that or I’m going to have to find another way of getting an income and finding something to do with my time.
I complained to the rental agents in the UK, who messed us around when we moved here, no communication or response to emails, got back to me to say ‘sorry’ the person we were dealing with has since left the company for a variety of reasons.
I’m getting feed up of the agent we’re using here; the balcony doors have been broken since we moved in, in March. Would you believe it they were stuck open all winter when temps dropped at night to -5c and after being ‘fixed’ they are now stuck shut, it’s 30c in the day and I need the bloody things to open. I’d like to be able to water the tomato plants, sunflowers and herbs.
The garage Barloworld, Toyota owe me a tyre pressure gauge, after mine was faulty, been 3 months and caused a blown tyre.
The South African postal service continue to ‘misplace’ my mail from the UK and although there is now a new system in place for signing for collection of slips, it still doesn’t address the issue of token gifts, letters and cards from family and friends.
I’m still very angry with the local removal firm we used in the UK and the way they took our money nearly £4,000 then became unavailable when the agents here ‘lost’ our container for 2 days and customs forced us to pay a release fee, so I will be writing to Britannia Removal Company to inform them of the facts. Probably won’t do much but will make me feel better that I’ve said something.
And the very last thing? @london2012 will be emailing me by the end of November to let me know if I have been successful in my application to volunteer next year at the Olympics, what role, where and when. I’m hopeful as I’ve already had 2 call backs asking for further information.

Groenkloof – where I walk with the giraffes

This was the first nature reserve in Africa, founded in 1895 by Paul Kruger to protect a species of antelope. In 1998 Zebra were introduced to the reserve and Giraffes in 2002.
There’s the usual Braai areas and picnic sites, a camp site, mountain bike hire and horse riding. A wonderful restaurant and bar and a miniature steam train that runs in the summer on a Sunday.

This place is beautiful and with so little public outdoor spaces, other than malls and the golf course we live on, it’s wonderful to be able to go for a walk on marked footpaths, with a variety of terrains and be at one with the wildlife.
Ok I don’t like the snakes and there aren’t any dangerous animals there, other than Ostrich, Wildebeest, Giraffes and Zebras and it is up to you to exercise some common sense and not walk too closely to the animals.

What I don’t notice now

Everything is starting to merge. The TV jingles are so familiar now I sing or hum along with them and hippo.co.za South Africans version of go compare really gets on my nerves. I listen to Highveld 94.7 on the radio and sing along, I listen to the traffic reports and don’t wonder anymore why the lights are always out at Bryanston and know where they are talking about when they say there’s been an accident near the Olifantsfontein Road.
I now know where I can buy everything I want/need, finances permitting of course. The local Spar shop sells Dr Pepper, Rowntrees fruit pastels and gums. And PicknPay sell Hula Hoops. In a Cadburys taste test between SA and UK the local chocolate won hands down.
I’m still finding the weather a little strange, it seems that Spring started on September 1st and summer the following day, its rained twice since June 2nd, the temperature is in the high 20s in the day and around 15c at night, the winter took us by surprise, never thought it got cold enough to burst the water pipes.
I’ve stopped pointing out large numbers of people shoved in the back of buckies, speeding along the N1, but was alarmed to see a small child sitting in the back of one the other day.

The crowded trains with people hanging off the side no longer draw my attention, but the sight of kids walking along the railway line on their way home from school was a little alarming.

I still smile when I see the Johannesburg sign on my way home from collecting the kids to school, and as I drive towards Johannesburg I still love seeing the skyline.

Say football, mobile, text and sat nav despite it being soccer, cell, sms and GPS, but I get by, it’s definitely Braai and not BBQ and I still get a bit confused at the ‘circles’ (roundabouts) as to whose right of way it is, no ones.