Category: this is south africa

Mixed feelings

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Actually, even since I wrote the title, they’re already becoming less mixed.

Because while these guys are very cute, all I can hear is their parents constant honking.

And as my regular reader will know, Egyptian Geese are far from my favourite birds.

Perhaps in an effort to prevent immediate slaughter by means of distraction, their chicks are quite cute. However, Mum and Dad are understandably very protective, which makes them even more unpleasant to be around: now they are noisy and aggressive.

And has it even worked? The neighbourhood Whatsapp group was abuzz with “six ickle chicks” messages earlier, but when I dutifully went out to get some pics, I could only find three. Have the others been sequestered away somewhere for safekeeping, or have they already been eaten by the neighbourhood cats? The one that tries to hang around about under our bird table would be my main suspect, and I would fully support a full-on anserine attack on it, whether or not any accusations of goosecide can be proven.

In the meantime, the next few weeks seem very likely to be full of goose noise.

Joy.

Filthy out

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Warning: Ramblings ahead.

A properly filthy day out, but because the microwave exploded yesterday afternoon, I had to go and take it to the microwave (see if we can) repair (it) shop, to see if they could repair it.

As a scientist, if ever we wanted to know what something did in a system, we would remove it from that system, and see what happened. That’s how we worked out that humans need oxygen to survive.

Probably, anyway.

The microwave, removed from the household system with what I think might be a transformer issue, is clearly very important in warming drinks, hot sacks and Saturday evening’s takeaway curry. In fact, given how much we’ve missed it already, I’d argue that it is almost as essential as the oxygen in the house. “Almost” because no-one has actually died yet, but given the rising levels of frustration each time someone tries to use the defunct microwave, there’s every chance that someone might.

Thus, when the guys at the repair place get in touch tomorrow, if the prognosis is not good, I will be buying another microwave very shortly after I take the call. I mean, RIP to the microwave and all that, but in the cold light of day, it’s a wholly replaceable kitchen appliance, not a family member – whatever it might think.

There’s no time for emotion here.

I’m heading out to my car park this evening, but such are the miserable conditions out, I might even be pushed into lighting the fire for the first time this year. I have to think of those I leave behind, see?
It’s 14oC out, and it’s been raining fairly consistently all day. 30mm so far, but I’m quite sure that there’s more on the way. It feels dark and grey and wintery, so I think that a nice fire would cheer up the living room a little.

It would also dry the washing, so there’s a practical side to things as well.

I shall do it.

One thing which has been noticeable this afternoon is the reappearance of our Cape Rain Frogs. This is the first big rain of the season, and they are already chirping away with both glee and delight, but where have they been for the 6 months of bakingly dry summer? In their burrows underground, that’s where. Because although they are frogs, they prefer stick to damp ground, because they’re a bit rubbish at anything to do with water: they can’t swim and they can drown if they get out of their depth.

Pathetic.

Right, let me sort some dinner (stove top) and light that fire. We might as well dip our toes into autumn and winter and embrace the atmosphere. Before heading to an unheated car park for 2½ hours.

INCOMING! (Winter)

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Right. That’s it. Summer ended a couple of weeks or a bit more ago, and Autumn has clearly just been bypassed.

I say this because OMG WTF BBQ have you seen the rain forecast for tomorrow and Monday in the Western Cape?

Bad in Cape Agulhas:

Badder in Cape Town:

I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations, and that’s a lot of rain.
And this is Black South Easter rain, not a cold front. An overflowing shelf of precipitation, pinned against the Cape coast for 48 hours, not going anywhere.

Might be advisable to check your gutters ahead of the winter, like, now. Today.

And then wrap up warmly, grab some red wine, light the fire, and hunker down.

Hike

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An interesting hike up to the Constantiaberg Mast yesterday morning with friends. 8.8km in distance and 510m of ascent. Sometimes hot and sunny, sometimes cold and windy. Such is the chaotic nature of the weather in the Table Mountain National Park. But on the backside of the mountain on the way up, we were mainly surviving a “bracing” gale force southwesterly, straight off the Atlantic.

Not much animal life around, but a fair selection of birds and plenty (or more) of South Africa’s National Flower, the King Protea (Protea cynaroides):

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of reproducible information about the actual mast that we walked up to. Sitting on a mountain of 902m, it’s either 146m or 154m high, which I guess won’t really bother anyone who’s not flying nearby between 1048m and 1056m amsl. But it does really seem like something that really should be a known value.

It’s about half the height of the Eiffel Tower, which looks BIG whenever you see it. But even when you’re right underneath this structure, it really doesn’t seem that tall. Maybe that’s because there’s nothing around to compare it to. The guy wires holding it up in the mighty Cape wind – the two of which make an eerie and almost ominous sound as they meet – are seriously hefty though, as are their attachment points to the mountain. It doesn’t seem to wobble much.
And although there’s still radio and TV being broadcast from here, the majority of the infrastructure now seems to be microwave-based – I counted over 70 transceivers. And one big satellite dish.

One thing that is a little lax is the security. A waist-high, rusting barbed wire fence (and some healthy self-preservation and vertigo) was all that was stopping us from being able to access and climb the tower. (B)eagle-eyed readers will be able to see the wide open gate to the right of the road: that’ll certainly assist in keeping people from getting very, very close to this strategically important bit of national infrastructure.

We just sat there and had a coffee and some hot cross buns though, before a much less hectic descent back to the car.

A good morning out.