Happy V's Day!

Just look at the date..... need I say more?

Valentine's Day has never loomed large on my horizon, mainly because in my life I have received precisely two cards.... one from my best friend... and one that I sent myself!! To myself!

I love the cherub's face!

To me, it's just another day with the same challenges that we faced yesterday (load shedding) and that we shall face today (load shedding) and tomorrow (guess what??)

And as I write this I am keeping one eye on the clock as we are in Stage 3 of Stage 4, and that means more off than on!!

Let me explain the stages:

Stage 1. Eskom (affectionately known as Eishkom) has to shed 1000 megawatts, so they 'share' the power that they have, and that means 1 load shed of 2 hours daily.

Stage 2. Upping the shedding, they have to shed 2000 megawatts... so 2  'outages' of 2 hours daily.

Stage 3. Yes, that means 3 x 2 hours 'outages' daily!!

Stage 4. You guessed it, 4 'shares' of 2 hours daily.

Stage 5. Now, this is the fun part.... Eishkom come to your house and blow out your candles!!!!

This is much funnier to read than to think about!!

We are teetering on the brink of a complete shutdown..... great fun. Eskom is bankrupt!  And basically it all comes down to complete incompetence and lack of skilled people at the top... they are all in Australia, Canada and wherever!! And of course the fact that millions of people do not pay , so every month the losses add up. Throw in corruption and it doesn't take a genius to see that this situation has one ending.....

We are lucky here, we can easily cope with the 'rolling blackouts' as our traffic is light, we only have 3 traffic lights in our nearest town and people here are very patient and well-behaved. Our main shopping centres have generator power. But the bigger cities are a nightmare with traffic snarls and taxis pushing and shoving and small business' struggling to keep going.

Anyway. To all of you who are celebrating Valentine's Day, I do hope that you have your special scented candles at the ready.

Not to make the meal romantic... simply so you can actually see what you are eating!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Darkest Africa!

When I was small, I used to think that Africa was called 'Darkest Africa' because it was all jungle and the sun didn't reach the ground!

Now I know better. It's because there is no power for most of the time. And so the lights don't work.

When I moaned about the power before in my blogs, I started off with a joke. But there are two reasons that I am not doing that this time.

1. I cannot think of one.
2. It's not funny any more.

We have had rolling blackouts for two hours at a time, often twice a day, for the last goodness knows how long. In fact, we have a blackboard in the kitchen on which we record interesting things, like shipwrecks, whale sightings, the honeysucker visit, and 'Eskom Einas'. For those of you who are not familiar with our South Africanisms, an eina is a sore like a stubbed toe, a cut finger, and an Eskom blackout! Anyway, it is happening so often now that I cannot keep up with it and I am going through chalk like crazy. Maybe I should change it to 'A day without blackouts'.

Eskom or Eishkom as I like to call it, keep waffling on about lack of diesel, wet coal, poor dam levels, normal maintenance, turbine breakdowns, etc etc, but to be honest they have no clue what they are talking about and think that platitudes will keep Joe Public happy. But, it isn't working and there is rising anger here. And the new power stations that were promised for this year are still not completed. We are lucky in the Western Cape, most of our things work for most of the time, (and it is still light at eight o' clock) but parts of Johannesburg have been without power and water, and for much longer than the 'promised' two hours! Friends of ours were off for nearly twenty-four hours, no reason or excuse, no apologies for meat that has gone off in the freezer etc.

Down here that would be a good reason to have a huge braai in the street, but the frustration levels have gone beyond that. Traffic is snarled for hours, businesses cannot run, people can't get to work and the economy suffers. Imagine being stuck in a lift for two hours? It's happening.

Catherine whatsapps me when Knysna is off and we are often on the same schedule. We had two blackouts yesterday but friends of theirs in Somerset West were off for eight hours. (Eskom would like us to refer to the blackouts as 'outages', or 'power sharing', eish). This morning we heard on the news that things were improving and we were in Stage 2 load shedding. That was minutes before we lost power, but luckily Rob had managed to make coffee!

Fortunately we have a gas hob, solar water heating, solar lamps and paraffin lamps, and we can braai, so we are coping. This morning we had an 'Eskom Breakfast', Rob made a lovely fruit salad, yoghurt and a sprinkling of muesli! No power required!

Our Eskom Breakfast! (pic thanks to Rob)

But it also means that sometimes we cannot watch our soapie 'Eastenders' and, here is the really bad thing, I cannot vacuum or do the ironing, sigh!!

And I also think we shall be moving forward to the past.........we shall buy a clock that needs winding and goes 'tick tock' and has hands that move round and round!!!!!

That's progress!!

Wonderful Wonderbag!

Just about a year ago I remember starting my post off with a joke about Eskom (our Power Supplier) and the Prince of Darkness. Well, here's another one:

What did South Africa use before candles? And the answer is................Eskom!!!

We have been warned again about using and saving electricity, every evening on the radio and TV, there are red/orange or (very rarely) green 'adverts' telling us that our usage is too high and sharing hints like wear a blanket, hug a hot water bottle, pop a beanie (a woollen hat) on your head, shove an extra pair of socks on, read with gloves, you get the picture? The words 'load shedding', 'rolling blackouts' and 'power outages' are bandied about like threats, and our tariffs are going up with a promise. The new power station that was supposed to be completed and on-line by the end of this year is now only going to be 'ready' by the middle of next year, if we're lucky, so the chances are very very good that we shall suddenly be plunged into darkness just as the programme we are watching gets really interesting!

So, for a while now I have been thinking about alternate ways of producing a meal! Or rather, how can Rob do his potjies and soups without using electricity! We are lucky in that we have a gas hob, and our wood burning stove works well for re-heating, but for the really slow cooking stews an oven is a necessity. Or is it?

Powerless....but not for long!

We have a joke here in South Africa that goes something like this:

A woman goes to answer the door and finds a hooded figure holding a scythe, on the doorstep. "Yes?" she asks. "I am the Prince of Darkness" answers the cloaked figure and the woman turns and calls to her husband, "Darling, the man from Eskom is here!"

(Eskom is our power provider! And we have Koeberg, the nuclear  power station, just down the road near Cape Town.)

Koeberg Power Station (thanks to the website)