winter thrills

We are expecting guests today. visitors from the first world. So we
have been busy trying to make our living space ship shape. Its a good
thing we get the occasional visitor i think for this reason, and we
are forced to speak in real sentences instead of grunts and personal
code. The onset of guests also pushes us to Get Things Done that we
have been putting off. Yesterday we finally succeeded in getting a
Fireplace installed in the lounge. Every winter we have talked about
how nice this would be, as we huddle under blankets, wearing jackets
indoors and hiding from the biting wind. OK its not all our fault -
this area is famous for slowness.

 The motto should be 'never do today
what you can put off until next week'. When you phone someone to
support their business, you can hear in their voices that their knee
jerk reaction is to stall you. Quite often it is a case of 'give me
your number and i will call you back' - ha we dont fall for that one
any more. you can wait and wait and wait until the cows leave home for
the umpteeth time.


Another one is "how soon do you need this?" NEVER EVER SAY "oh its
not urgent" - its the same as saying "dont worry I am just calling
because I am lonely and wanted to chat to someone - anyone"

Anyhow, the fireplace is in, and has been fired up for the first time. I am so impressed i have taken some pictures of it from different angles. And then i took some more of my relatively tidy spaces because i was equally impressed with those. I might bore you with some.

Lately we have been having the best fun with the camera trap.  Its very interactive, and quite often things go wrong, so it keeps you thinking - but recently we have had some fabulous candid night shots. All along our main aim was to catch sight of the leopard. We see his tracks, we even hear him calling very occasionally - a sound like someone sawing wood; but its really hard to find leopards here amongst the granite boulders, and scrub bush - combined with the years of hunting and trapping that ended only quite recently.  We finally 'caught' a magnificent male leopard on camera at night, while we were snoozing at home.

The night creatures are strange AND mysterious.  And there is definitely something voyeuristic about the camera trap.  The hide in the dark for their own reasons, but we insist on blowing their cover!  My second best shot - or maybe my first best - or maybe its a tie - is the aardvark.  Look at those ears and those eye balls shining like diamonds.  They have sparse fir, and look a bit like mobile kiwi fruits with extraordinary heads and tails. They eat ants for goodness sake!  Thanks guys.

Then there are the exotic civets, hyenas, lions, shy bushbuck, stately kudu, baffled impalas and baboons being, well, baboons.