Amazing Beach

Hout Bay, old fishing harbour, chill-some Atlantic Ocean side

We had a lovely walk yesterday morning - it was sunny and windless since we were out relatively early. We picked up our friend Jeni's dog to join us and returned to the scene of the lost wallet. All cards have been replaced and Michael is going to apply for a South African Driver's License while he waits for a new one to come from Vermont.

Yesterday was a good garden day - with me planting stuff and working on weed clearing - not exciting but feels good to be making some kind of progress against some of the bigger projects of putting up artwork and arranging an art space for myself.

We are looking forward to a number of social things for the weekend which includes visits to a local farmer's market at the Tokai Forest and the Potter's market in a nearby town called Rondebosch. Not that we need any more pottery but as this is the place where Michael first developed his love for pottery and he is keenly interested in getting to know many of the local artists we may just come home with something new.

One of my projects for today is to check out printing photos from the digital camera disk directly at the store.  The other plan since it is truly going to be a warm summer day of 25 centigrade (over 80 farenheit) is our first beach for swimming outing at Michael's favorite beach called Fish Hoek. It's the Indian Ocean side so the water is just barely warmer and possibly warm enough even for me to get in it.  We shall see.

Working in the Garden

This past weekend we started to work in earnest on parts of the garden. I planted some lettuce and herbs in a patio box just off the kitchen. There's lots of basil so Michael can be the mad pesto maker.  I am trying an experiment by planting in multiple locations to see which areas the plants do best in - midday sun or late afternoon sun.

We are creating a vegetable patch near the one small lemon tree and yesterday I spent a few hours with Nomfus clearing out weeds. Nomfus is the 4 year old daughter of the woman who cleans for us once a week. She is very curious and likes to follow me around and help me with things. Of course she speaks Xhosa and I speak English so it can be quite funny.  Yesterday she was trying to teach me some Xhosa - like the word for mole, of which I found a dead one while clearing. Actually that is a current problem in our lawn - lots of mole hills. Apparently they like bulbs but I certainly have no idea where we have bulbs. I have noticed though a bunch of loose little onion like mini bulbs floating around so there must be something. I will have to learn about humane ways to discourage them from hanging around here. 

There are some trees here called Eugenia which were brought from another country to be used as hedge plants but they are ruthless self-seeders so one must control them carefully if you want to have them in your garden. In South Africa there is a lot of discussion of alien versus native vegetation and trees - and we seem to have quite a few of the alien, and invasive, trees and shrubs. At first I was like, so what? But I am beginning to see the light and now of course it means there will be much more to do in recreating our large garden. Today we had the very satisfying experience of pulling out one of the small trees which has grown up around the fish pond. It was not planted and blocks much light from the little pond. We are hoping that opening up the pond to the light will minimize the duck weed and allow the water lilies to thrive. 

There are lots of similarities in the summer plants except that here I suspect they have longer blooming times and some of the plants that are annual for us are perennial here and vice versa. I am hoping to get plants from friends' gardens. Tim in particular has a very big and complex garden with lots of thriving native plants so he'll be a good resource.

Anyway, it is time for me to return to the garden to do some clear-up of our earlier activities.

Oh, one thing we should adopt that happens here is the big "L" which appears in some car back windows which means the person is a "learner driver" - very smart. It is big enough to be seen from afar and you are forewarned. I'm thinking of getting one for myself as I get used to driving on the other side of the road. 

Differences to Note

Moving to a new place always includes learning the new ways and customs - here are just a few one learns quickly:

Mail is delivered but not picked up. You must take it to a post box. Unusually sized cards require a cost premium, like at home, but instead of a small up charge, it is 3 times more so; therefore all cards and letters sent will be standard sized.

Movie DVD rentals are due the day after you rent them by Noon! even if you rent them at 9:00 pm. We were so shocked that the manager at the rental shop gave us the extra night just this once.

People are very serious about security and burglary prevention such that every home has an alarm system and they sleep with it turned on! We just learned how to turn ours on at night so that we can have the additional security too!

A lot of the English language used here is just that - English, not American so I am changing over my usage of words like yard and garden, trunk and boot.

We just ordered a turkey to make for our Thanksgiving celebration and it will come from Brazil - can you imagine? There is plenty of poultry here but not big fat turkeys like in North America.

Pedestrian crossings are called zebra crossings because of the white stripes but they are not nearly as well observed as in Vermont so be careful crossing the road.

Everyone is very polite, saying thank you all the time and people are helpful if you have a problem. Today a woman let me borrow her cell phone to call Michael when I could not figure something out - she even offered to give me a lift home.

It is rather chilly today - in the 50's and dreary so I asked Michael to make us a fire in the fireplace - of course since it has been raining most of the night and day we have no dry firewood - but he has some ideas so we shall try.

Catching Up and Moving Forward

Please excuse the craziness of the photos - I put too many for this post. The first group are of Emma on the journey beginning in Frankfurt. She is there being turned over to PetAir the very expensive freight cargo service. They took her to the "Animal Lounge". Her passage cost more than one of ours round trip! Ah but she seems pretty happy now.

There is a mixture of photos including the sweet little Cape Batis bird that sat on our patio door the other day. The delicate pink flower is a native gladiolus that grows wild on the hillside of our friend Jeni's home on Eagle's Nest.

The bouganvillea grows on a wall in our courtyard garden and there's a picture of Emma walking on Eagle's Nest with a view of Table Mountain in the background.

One of the first things I have learned about living here is that to become an official recognized person you must show proof of residence and proof of your credit worthiness. It is a real pain when you are the non-South African but we are slowly taking the steps necessary to get my name on some contract or other paying items so that I become "real" as I like to say. The other aspect that one observes quickly as an American is the much slower pace with which things are done. Initially, this is frustrating but I'm sure I shall get used to it and it does help one to stay in the present.

One nice thing we have been experiencing lately as Americans, is the ability to hold one's head high for our history making election. I show off my Obama purse regularly as I shop in the stores.

As we start our second week here all the suitcases are unpacked so we are almost ready to get the 5 boxes of things we left with a friend this past January. I am eager to get everything put away so it feels more like a home than a way station. We are also planning to have our own Thanksgiving celebration with friends here but will have to make a slight modification to hold it on a weekend since, obviously, no one here gets the Thursday as a vacation day!

The English guests who were staying with us and visiting South Africa for the first time left on Sunday. It was really a wonderful distraction from having to focus entirely on our chores. It allowed us to show off some of our favorite things - like walking on Muizenberg Beach and going to the Olympia Deli in Kalk (pronounced like caulk) Bay. We also benefitted from their excursions to learn about a lively local bar/restaurant at one of the beautiful Constantia wineries where we went for dinner last Friday night. We took along one of my niece Sophia''s friend's who has been studying here in Cape Town at UCT. Even with all we need to do, they were such easy guests that we were sorry to see them leave.

The best stories thus far are about our experiences with friends, nature, and the dog's reaction to the creatures here. We have been very warmly welcomed by our good friend Jeni who is like a sister to Michael and our friend Tim who returned from a long visit to England just recently. They both live here in Constantia and are great about giving us ideas for where to get things, have invited us over for a meal and such. We have walked at Silvermine Nature Reserve and gone to a local farmer's market. We even went to a Saturday night movie and have plans fora chamber concert this weekend. Our friends here are very social and go out together more frequently. We shall have to figure that into the budget! It is a much easier transition to already have so many contacts here.

On to the creatures: the first day we came to the house I was excited to see a lizard popping its head out of a yucca tree stump in a garden bed on the patio. His tree stump home is surrounded by the lavender we planted just before leaving that thrived since its planting. We were fortunate that the plants had a very wet winter so got well established during our absence. Everything we planted has grown and it has been good to see improvements in the garden overall. The gardener has been slowly but surely clearing out some seriously invasive plants that had grown up over the past 7 years. There are various flowers in bloom including a very showy bougainvillea pictured below.

the second morning here I came into the living room and saw a huge brown bug which was hoping about like a cricket - I still have no idea what it was but it was funny to watch Emma chasing it around the living room. Fortunately she has no killer instinct so we simply hopped it out the big sliding door.

Will sign off now as this is more news than even I could absorb! Please continue to send me your comments.

Arrival and settling In

Congratulations to all of us - we have a new President elect - Yea!

We were quite eager to get information on the election last night when it was still just your morning; it was odd to be so far from home with such an important and momentous election taking place there. I woke up early just in time to learn that McCain had conceded and Obama had won! Yippee. We met a woman while walking Emma this morning who recognized my accent as an American and asked whether we were glad to hear the results. Of course we said yes indeed and she was pleased on behalf of the world too. It was marvelous. Now we just need to find some Americans with whom to celebrate. I'm thinking that we might have an inauguration party on January 20, 2009!

As for us, we are settling in - and just today succeeded in getting the new mini mac computer hooked up with an internet connection. One thing I've learned quickly is that things take time here. I've also learned that to be "in the system" you must prove all kinds of things about where you live and whether you have money, etc. So we are getting those things going for me - the invisible one.

We have emptied all the suitcases but have not yet figured out where to put it all. The house is as lovely as we remembered it. The tenant moved out on Saturday after telling us how much he and his children enjoyed the house. Emma is trying to figure out what is going on but we keep telling her that this is her new home.

We had our first minor calamity on Saturday when I lost Michael's wallet with all his identifying information and credit cards at the Hout Bay Beach parking lot. It was truly a stupid thing but we are back in business with new bank cards so we continue along.

Pictures of the house and surrounds will have to wait for a next post when we get the camera photo uploading worked out with the new computer.

and for those who are interested it turns out that Emma is a true world traveler - she got out of her crate at Cape Town airport, had a long pee, a good shake of her head and has been just fine since then - amazing!