Eskom, you won this round!
- The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
- Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together
- The Gathering
- Baptisms at The Gathering
- Preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen
- Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
- Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng
- Thankful Thursdays
- HOPE Home Based Care Team
- Gathering Ground
- Staying fit as a family
- The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
A Year In Review
Like most government run institutions in South Africa, the health service is very badly broken and on its knees, to the point that it's best avoided at all costs (treasure and fight for the NHS!).
Even trying to get our daughter's wisdom teeth seen to has been a nightmare and not an experience we would be keen to repeat any time soon!
Merry Christmas 2022
And yet, somehow it has managed to sneak its way through a very broken South African postal system (to call it a service would be to overplay its abilities), and even managed to get redirected from the Somerset West post office to our address in Strand. An impressive feat given the state of the post office.
Loadshedding Corner
Yes, we actually have a corner of the house dedicated to just keeping various items charged and running for when the power goes off.
So far in 2023 we haven't had a single day without loadshedding, and recently we seem to have graduated from mostly being in Stages 1 & 2 to mostly being in Stages 5 & 6 which often means we get to enjoy four hours of uninterrupted blackouts at a time.
Eli's Matric Results
He's passed his National Senior Certificate with flying colours, getting an A equivalent in Maths and Bs in CAT & LO.
He qualifies for university admission, but he's busy chasing his dream of joining the British Army, so maybe Plan B one day...
Just two weeks after his first attempt, and at a different testing station, Joel passed his driving test and can be unleashed on the world.
This is another step in our change of lifestyle as not only do we no longer need to do any school runs, but now Joel can sort himself out for lifts to and from work, church etc.
Thank you LORD!
This move should lead us into a positive change in lifestyle which is exciting us. We'll be just a five minute walk from the beach which will make a big difference to our mental well being, and having a sun room that spills out into the north facing garden is also a big change for us. We'll also be a bit closer to church and won't have to drive through the town centre to get there!
Heartbreaking
Desperate For Power
Our power situation doesn't improve.
We had loadshedding until 4am this morning followed by scheduled maintenance from 6am until 4pm which stretched out 'til 5.30pm. The only bright spot in this was that our scheduled loadshedding from 6pm was skipped this evening.
Cracking On
So yesterday for the first time we were able to crack on with The Gathering's Homework Club through the scheduled two hour blackout thanks to our mini inverter which not only charged the tablets but then kept the router and wifi running for the 2½ hours for which the electricity was off.
Take That Loadshedding!
Loadshedding celebrates its 15th birthday this October.
Yes, this country has been rolling out planned energy blackouts for fifteen years because Eskom the state owned utility is too incompetent and the ruling ANC are too corrupt to get their act together and actually resolve the issues. The main issue being the $24bn+ that have been stolen by those in power!
Loadshedding
Well that was some welcome home!
During my week in Blighty our putative electricity supplier decided to ramp up loadshedding from Stage 4 to stage 6.
What this means is that six areas in the Cape Town municipality are off at the same time but rather than being off for the usual two hours we get the joy of being off for four hours at a time. Deep joy!
International Day Of The African Child
Today is Youth Day, a public holiday here in South Africa in which we remember the senseless slaughter of over 100 children and the thousand plus who were injured in Soweto by the apartheid regime as the kids protested against the then new law forcing them to be taught in Afrikaans rather than their own indigenous languages.
Sadly this day is barely acknowledged in the Western world and the first time we heard of it was in 1998 when we were in Tanzania, where today is celebrated as the International Day Of The African Child. Personally I prefer this more internationally minded celebration of the day, it feels more positive and more outward looking.
Home Again
After an exciting ten days back in Blighty with family to celebrate our middle niece's wedding, Paula arrived home this morning, much to the relief of all the trousers.
The junior trousers survived and were fed, watered and made it to their various commitments on time as well as getting home again safe and sound, so I'll call that a win.
Third Greatest City
In fact they went even further and declared that Cape Town is "the greatest city in the world to visit right now". High praise indeed!
However, Cape Town wasn't ranked as the #1 city due to its appalling murder rate, which was one of the criteria taken in to consideration for each city considered.
In Support Of Ukraine
Like many other folk I'm appalled by the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and feel powerless to do anything, so I'm proud of my favourite band for joining with Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox to raise funds for Ukraine.
The new track can be purchased here.
C Is For Cristiano Jesus Ndombassy
Cris is the real deal! Also known as The Warrior of Faith, he is a professional boxer and belt holder, he is currently holder of the World Boxing Federation (WBF) Welterweight International Champion. He also held the African Boxing Union Title (ABU) Champion which he successfully defended twice. Cris now coaches boxing for the love of the sport.
A bit of background: Cris is Angolan but lives in South Africa, he's part of the Angolan diaspora caused by the civil war in the country which eventually ended in 2002. He arrived in SA as a youngster and now resides here permanently. Cris started boxing in Luanda aged 15 as a distraction from the gangs he was involved with and his passion was sealed.
Day 730 Of Your 21 Day Lockdown
Initially there was broad support for the lockdown despite the fact that before it started there had been no local Covid related deaths and infection rates were minimal.
Loadshedding And Then Some
Somehow they think it's all made more acceptable and manageable by having an actual schedule for this nonsense, but this schedule is adaptive depending on which particular stage of loadshedding we happen to be enjoying.
Robbery & Kidnapping In Firgrove
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