Around the block!

Here are some of the photos that we took on our stroll around our block of the neighbourhood.

These pictures were all taken at around 6.30 in the evening and as you can see, although it is a bit overcast, the shadows are beginning to lengthen and show signs of night approaching. For those of you reading this from SA, we took these on a Sunday evening which meant that you were all probably still abed - the time there being 7.30am Sunday.

We thought you might like to see what the neighbourhood looks like - we have been so amazed at how neat and tidy everything is - not a scrap of litter in sight, no jungle front lawns and no suspicious looking characters lurking anywhere! There are very few houses on our block that have any sort of a fence in the front - most of the homes are open to the street and very often the garage (pronounced garridge here like in the UK) door is open basically all the time! This means that for the most part people just amble in through the garage from the street! The sidewalks all have trees planted - you can see that our area is not that new anymore by the size of the trees - some of the other areas that we contemplated moving to, had no trees established yet and the whole area looked a bit forlorn and sad. There are places where there are islands in the middle of the streets- even in the suburbs and these are always planted with something shrubby and usually pretty!

The pathways are kept very level and safe - the idea is that they are used by kids on their bikes, folks out for a walk and older folk with their electric wheelchair 'cars' - so all the pathways have ramps at the kerbs - makes for a much comfier ride for the tots in their prams too. On one of the photos you will see a netball post beside the road - we assume that it belongs to the people in the house right there and that their kids basically practice in the street - we didn't see a sign that said who may and who may not make use of the post so we assume if you feel like shooting a few hoops, have a ball handy then you can just go for it!

The other day we found there was a stray cat lying in one of our flowerbeds beside the street - when we approached it, it didn't run away - just lay there looking really tragic. Maree, who lives in the house sort of behind us on a panhandle, came out and chatted for a while since she had provided the cat with some milk in a tuppeware dish. Once we had established that the cat did not belong to us and she had ensured that the previous tenant's grey cat had indeed moved with them, she called the SPCA to come and fetch it. It had been lying in the same spot overnight and didn't look to happy about life - although it wouldn't allow us to touch it or pick it up. The SPCA guy duly arrived in his special little van and tried to catch the thing, but of course as is usually the case with such things, it chose that moment to leap into life and fly over the fence next door ! We were duly issued with a special 'trap cage' and two sachets of REALLY fancy cat food so that we could lure the bugger in - on the understanding that we would call them once we had the cat duly subdued and in the cage. The POINT of the story is that there is a functioning SPCA here with guys who go out and pick up stray and sick animals and take care of them etc etc. The chap said that the cat was really old and quite sick so he didn't know if they would find much of a market for him - but at least they would give the poor bugger a chance! When I saw Maree again after the weekend, she said that the cat had disappeared for good and had returned the cage to the SPCA.

Jo has had a different sort of week this week - the guys go out every now and again on a night inspection - makes sense really - they check out if there are any things on the routes that need attention with the view to it being dark - like are all the roadsigns bright and clearly visible at night and are the lines bright and shiny and are there any weird curves in the road which make it difficult to see oncoming vehicles at night and so on - for you in SA, potholes are a rare occurrence and are attended to within 12 hours of them starting to look like they might appear! That is the rule apparently - within 12 hours or major explanations to try to come up with.

Jo and one of his colleagues ( a Pommie who has a broad accent) went out last night from 7.30 to midnight and will do so again this evening - (Thursday - for those of you who haven't quite got the time and day thing difference down yet!) In a way, they kind of do double shifts for two days, but the up side of this is that they get tomorrow off - Friday(!) so we have a long weekend ahead! Our lawn is looking like lions and snakes could attack you should you venture into it - however, since there are neither to be found in NZ, we need to get it mowed so that we don't stand out in the neighbourhood as the slack South Africans who just moved in and whose place looks like a jungle!We have a couple of options lined up in the way of available lawnmowers to borrow, so if it doesn't rain (which it very well could) we will neaten up our little patch.

On Saturday we have planned a little trip up to Tauranga to check out that part of the world - we've heard it's worth seeing so will take the trusty camera with us so you can have a little look too! Tauranga is North East of us in Hamilton and evidently has a little 'mountain' with really spectacular views of the East coast.

For any of you who might be interested - what we call 'slip slops' or 'plakkies' are called jandles here. Pronounced like 'candles' with the 'a' being really flat and almost an 'e'.

'English cucumbers' are known as 'telegraph cucumbers'.The television has loads of ads for various things you can buy - the 'special, that's not all' variety - all sorts of things from gym equipment to special healing type blankets for your bed - it's just weird to us that they NEVER list any sort of a price - 'call right now' and so on, but NO PRICE - I guess they are hoping that once you call they can get you to buy it whatever the price might be! I wonder what it costs to be one of the people who have colour advertisements printed on the back of all the till slips from all the major supermarkets?

Dis al!