My first week in the granny flat has sped by. I think I am settling into a bit of a routine and find that I have a lot of spare time. I feel at a bit of a loose end and can’t remember when I had this much time on my hands and now I’m not really sure what to do with myself!

The big push on the sale over Black Friday and coming into Christmas is basically over, and that was taking up a lot of my time, so now I need to fill my time with something worthwhile. I feel guilty just sitting and reading, although Betsy tells me that it’s work because I’m a writer and I am doing research! But I have a hard time justifying sitting and reading for hours on end.

In this country, the whole country comes to a standstill over the Christmas period. Which makes it a bit difficult to sign up for any volunteer situation. But when everything opens up again, I’m planning to go up to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre in Hillcrest and touch base with Paula and hopefully start helping out there again.

Plus, I am going to take art lessons from my dear friend Sue Green. For those who don’t know Sue, she is probably my oldest friend here, as her Mum and my Mum were best friends and our Dads were business partners. She is an amazingly talented artist and gives lessons, so she has volunteered to start me out as a real beginner. That is going to be very interesting, because as a young child, I was told that I would never be able to draw. And as a young child I believe that person and never really attempted any drawing or painting at all.

Senior Moment

I recently had a senior moment. Not one in the generally accepted sense, though. Last week, we had a huge amount of rain and I had a bit of cabin fever so decided to head out. We were also having load shedding at that time so there really wasn’t any place to go, so I went to one of the local grocery stores, which generally have some sort of alternate power to keep the lights on. And when I walked into the mall area, I saw a bunch of grey hairs sitting off to the right around a table, drinking coffee. And I wondered, “Where the hell did they get the coffee?” because there was no power.

I discovered that the local supermarkets, usually on Tuesdays, have Pensioners Day, where they give you a discount on groceries. But they also set out coffee, and all sorts of different goodies for the pensioners, (which means anyone over 60) and I fit right in there! So on my way out, I stopped to join them.

And I learned that this is something that retirees here do. The people there do this every Tuesday, it’s a sort of rotating group around the table. They’re all very nice and welcoming and wanting to know where I was from etc. I met one couple who are part of the Masters swimmers group here in Westville. I’ve been thinking about swimming, so on my way from there, I went into the local pool where I used to swim during high school. In fact I must have swum thousands of miles there and done numerous dives off the now non-existent diving boards.

Serious Case of Déjà Vu

I had forgotten how big the pool is and there isn’t a lot of chlorine in it, which was good and there were only two people swimming, probably because it was pretty cold and rainy.

I just sort of stood there and had visions of myself diving off the diving boards, practicing and practicing, wearing rugby shirts so I didn’t sting myself as I mastered new dives from the 1- and 3-metre diving boards. And swimming literally thousands of miles there. And standing on the side of the pool in my ugly bathing suit (remember, it was the early to mid-60s and the suits were awful) and being so embarrassed because the team that I was anchoring was coming last. I got into so much trouble because I was laughing. But I used to have a very nervous laugh when I was embarrassed. However, I swam the 50m so fast that we won the relay race.

It was a really weird feeling being there. 

But I thought I would start swimming here at home in the small pool so I don’t embarrass myself when I go to the big pool.

Because I definitely need to get some exercise, and I don’t know how safe it is for me to really walk around here on my own, although I can take Kaiser, the Rottweiler for walks and I don’t think anyone will bother me.

But the need for exercise really showed up yesterday when I did the local park run. It’s a real trail and rather muddy, with lots of ups and downs. The full course is 5k, meaning 2 laps on this course. I managed 1 lap! And I stopped fairly frequently to take photos, because it is just gorgeous on the eco-trails.

The Compound

The relationships that surround my granny flat are quite convoluted. Sam is my bestie Rosemary‘s daughter and Jonathan, her husband is one of Mick’s best friend’s son. Kate, Jonathan’s, or Boonie as he is known, sister also lives here, as does their Mum, Angie who was at school the same time as me, but I don’t remember her from that time. My mother and Boonie and Kates grandmother, Eileen Keegan, were dear friends and Eileen was my ballet teacher. And Mum used to babysit them, which I did not know. Their uncle Mike is one of Biff’s oldest friends. (There will be a test at the end of this blog!) Kate is moving out at the beginning of the year apparently and moving in with her boyfriend, Johnny in Ballito, a beach community up the coast. 

This morning everyone, including Sacha, a student who also lives on the property, took the five resident dogs for a walk. We must’ve been quite a sight. We went to a local park that is used as a dog park, so all the pooches had a good run. 

One of My Big Issues with South Africa

But we ran into one of the big issues that really bothers me here in this country. It’s the trash. At the park, “they” had obviously had a party, as there was a big tent still erected, and surrounding it was an indescribable mass of rubbish. Apparently the party that was held there was the actual City of EThekwini Christmas party. And they just left everything there, so there are bottles and trash and rotting food everywhere. And this from the city. A city that touts cleaning up its act!

There is such a different culture about the cleanliness of the streets and locations. The other day, when I was driving, a guy walks across the road and just drops his coffee cup on the road. I thought about stopping and saying something but I might have got myself into trouble. But it was just so blatant and he did it without a thought. Anyway, I did post pictures of the trash on the city website.

Not that it will do anything, but I had to say something.