A Key in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush!!

Here I sit, trying to remember what day of the week it is!

We are back from a lovely two week trundle round the Karoo, well the Klein Karoo really I suppose as there is a vast area to the north that we need to explore in-depth! But it was a wonderful trip and we are ready to head off again....so is Alfie I must admit!

Our first stop was at one of our all-time favourite places, Fynbos Farm. People say that animals don't remember places and people, but Alfie remembered exactly where we were, he remembered the ablution block and the walks that we took previously. He remembered the dogs there and I swear that Layla greeted him like a long-lost friend!

Even the chickens remembered us!

Anyway, Evening One and we were just relaxing, wine poured, chips in the bowl, braai planned, loving the absolute peace and quiet of an empty camp, (apart from us), when my phone rang. And on the other end was our house-sitter, with a slight problem! She could not get into the house! We had given her the remote for the garage as usual, but, the garage door was not opening as it should have been doing when she pushed the button! She had even replaced the battery in case that was the problem! And, she didn't have keys as we had neglected to give them to her, and they were lying inside on the little table where we told her that we would leave them this time!!! And we didn't have keys either! And we didn't leave a spare set with anyone else! No problem, we simply assumed that it was the usual Eskom mess-up and the power would be back within an hour or two and all would be well.........


Except it was only our house!! And because we have bars on all the windows and security gates on the doors, it is pretty much like Fort Knox! Rob was even thinking he would have to drive home, but then that would only have resulted in one more person standing in the garden staring at the house!! So, isn't Google a wonderful thing?? Rob found 'Locksmiths in Vredenburg' and phoned one. Yes, no problem, he would be there in half an hour and the invoice would depend on how tricky it was to sort out and how many windows, bars, locks etc were damaged in the process!!! He duly arrived and assessed the problem

Then came the amazing part.

It ended up being a 10 minute job! And our house was not as secure as we thought!!

We have a cat-flap in one of our windows for the four-legged members of the family to come and go as they please. So, he reached in through the cat-flap, released the window catch above so the top part of the window opened, attached a wire hook onto the end of a long pole and simply hooked the keys that were sitting on the side table next to my chair, through the window!!

The cat-flap that made breaking and entering easy!

No damage = a small invoice! (The culprit turned out to be the ultra-violet light in the fish pond pump that had suddenly gone rogue and tripped the mains! So tomorrow we shall have extra keys cut and hand them to the neighbours. Oh yes, and find another place to leave the keys in future!)

And then we relaxed, lit the braai fire, took a deep breath and let the evening continue!

The rest of our stay there was magic, and then we moved on to Sutherland, and I shall write about that next week!

This could end up a serial blog!!