Category: no electricity

Flying high

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This isn’t a football blog. This is a me blog, but I do like football and so there will be mention of it on here from time to time. And particularly at the moment, given that Sheffield United are top of the table going into the first of this season’s international breaks.

Mmm. Healthy stuff.
It’s early days, but I’m reminded of the line from KonKan’s 1988 dance classic I Beg Your Pardon:

Come along and share the good times while we can

Because there are still 36 games and therefore [kwik maffs] 108 points to play for and it might all go pear-shaped at any time.

So why not enjoy it while we are flying high?

I love this: so much joy in one image. No, not the steward, obviously.

In other news: perhaps an opportunity to get some extra posts done this afternoon, with a massive 4½ hours of loadshedding coming our way. We’ll be without power today – on a Sunday, nogal – for 9½ hours in total. Scary times.

I ‘ll probably do some exercise and get some sleep as well (plenty of time for many activities, after all).
I’m still a bit tired after hula-hooping the night away in a repurposed watermill last night.

As you do.

That was close

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It’s been a weird day. We went to look at sunloungers and shelving units this morning, before the usual chaos of work and school stuff in the afternoon.

Then cheese and wine in the loadshod bar in the evening – on a school night as well! – with a unexpectedly large percentage of guests from Weymouth.

I’m knackered, and I almost forgot to write a blog post. Which is what this is. I’ll write something proper tomorrow, but I need my bed right now.

See you in the morning.

Is it Spring yet?

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Well, as we’ve said before on here, yes. But actually, no.

But if it’s not quite here yet, it’s certainly coming very soon. I can’t recall a year when I’ve noticed so many things in nature are just “ready to go”. The plants, the weather, the birds… they all seem to be priming themselves in preparation for the joyful explosion that is the end of winter.

And indeed, from my current position atop the deck at the cottage, while I have my warm top on because the wintery wind is rather chilly, it’s also serving a dual purpose in preventing my neck from getting burned by the springtime sunshine. Being from Northern climes and a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic bloodstock, I have to take things a little carefully in the powerful African sun, especially when it hasn’t been around for a few months.

But the yellow-billed kites are back and the greater striped swallows are here, whizzing around me (not sure of their unladen velocity), the bulk carriers are rounding the southern tip of Africa at a safe 10 nautical miles, on their way from China to Nigeria, and Durban to Fortaleza (technically not necessarily a spring thing). There’s a Cape Weaver begging for some of my loadshedding lunch of some chips (crisps) and a Black Label. And across the way, two male Rock Kestrels are fighting for the attentions of a female of the species.

We’re nearly there.

But even as I type, the weather is turning for the worse. Nothing dramatic, but it’s noticeable that there is more white water on the ocean that when I came up here an hour ago (no, I haven’t been blogging the whole time), and the wind is definitely getting up. I have no worries for the evening braai, though. The cottage was designed to be protected against both the ubiquitous southeasters of summertime and the vicious northwesters of winter. So somewhere in between, as we find ourselves right now, should be no problem at all.

Apologies for any typos: the sun is actually ridiculous now and I can’t see a thing.

I think it might be summer already.

Loadshedding – now available in California

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Indeed.

So let’s add the USA to the ever-lengthening list of loadshedders and near misses:

Dear old SA
Switzerland
UK
China (including Shanghai)
Australia
Finland
USA
We’re currently (no pun intended) in the middle of a 4 day Stage 2 sesh here, due to breakdowns at six different power stations (including Koeberg), and a late return to service for another unit at another power station.

Swiss next?

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Loadshedding is very annoying, but we’re coming closer and closer to the realisation that we’re not the only ones who are chronically short of electricity.

As documented, the UK and Australia have come very close. And Shanghai and China were recently rolling their own blackouts. Now, there are warnings that Switzerland – yes, Switzerland with its neutrality, mountains, engineering brilliance, intricate timepieces, army knives and just general perfection – is likely to run out of power this winter.

When Switzerland is struggling, you know that there’s a real problem.

“Repeated, hours-long power cuts”. That sounds awfully familiar.

As I’ve mentioned before, some other country experiencing loadshedding doesn’t make the situation in SA any better. And our loadshedding is for a different reason to theirs (tl;dr – it’s massive, wholesale, unimpeded corruption), but it does remind us to maybe drop a bit of the exceptionalism.

The Alpine grass, despite what you’ve seen in The Sound of Music (that was Austria, I know) (although €707.23 per MWh there, too), is not always greener.

UPDATE: Loadshedding: now with added Finland.