Homes and Lifestyles

I needn’t have worried about forgetting to water last night, since it rained overnight. Not much, just enough. More and more of the transplants are standing up – but some, I fear, did not survive. Time will tell.

I’m thinking of baking some muffins for work tomorrow. Bread is a problem in South Africa, at least for us Germans. We’re used to sour-dough and high fiber breads. In Pretoria there is a proper German Bread baker – but their bread is very expensive! In East London there’s a Spar where you can get what they call Artisan Bread, which is very good. Here in Port Elizabeth, one Spar offers what they call Munich Rye, which is good. Unfortunately it is sized so that I can get just enough slices for 4 days lunch – so there’s always one day a week I have to make a plan. In East London I had a lovely kitchen, it was as spacious as my lounge here! And I started experimenting with baking bread there – mostly successful, but occasionally I’d bake a brick! Here, with my electricity usage already so high due to the geyser situation, I avoid using the stove and oven. I mostly use an induction plate – which took a while to learn to properly fry steak on! Here, my kitchen is ok, space-wise. There is sufficient work-space – even with having to use some of it for the equipment. But I’ve not really taken to cooking much here – in this home my main pleasure is the garden.

It’s strange, but in each place where I stay, I develop a unique life-style. Different habits, different preferences, different interests even. And it’s not merely the different cities or provinces, it’s the home itself. For example, I’ve never been keen on taking baths – always preferred to shower. I’ve had baths in previous homes, just never took to it. Here, however, I prefer to lie in a hot bath – even in summer. Not that I have developed the patience to lie still for very long, I take no longer than I would in the shower.

In East London I got back into drawing, experimenting with different pencils, paints and papers – they had a lovely stationery store there! I also got pleasure from puzzles – which I’ve neglected for years, and I discovered 3D Puzzles! Photography, however, became my main pleasure there – I would get in the car and drive off to either the city centre or some beach, go walkabout and photograph everything that caught my eye! In the city, I loved photographing the old buildings with their intricate architecture – especially against the African blue sky! I became interested in National Monuments (or Heritage Sites, as the current politically correct term seems to be) and started making a point of photographing every one within reach.

And then they started vandalising every monument and statue – don’t ask me who these ‘they’ are, I’ve no interest in barbarians or their motives.

Then, in Pretoria I started going a bit deeper into photography, learning about the different settings, how to set up for what type of photo – for the past 3 years I had used the ‘Smart Photo’ setting almost exclusively! Over December, January there were numerous prolonged thunderstorms and I got a lot of pleasure taking photo’s of lightning! Well, ok, so most of them are black photo’s, but occasionally I managed to capture lightning! I also started gardening on the balcony, soon there wasn’t room for me to move. Pretoria is rich with architecture and monuments – but, as everywhere, mostly in the city centre; and in Pretoria that is now a no-go zone. If you value your life. My last experience with that zone was driving through near the centre with a colleague’s daughter. We stopped at a red traffic light and someone came to my car and said “I don’t want to shoot you, so give me your phones and cameras!” with cars in front and behind and all around on a Sunday morning! I was stunned; literally. I didn’t react at all, he repeated his threat – then the lights turned green and I drove off. We got lucky! I think, if my window had been open any further, we would not have got away like we did.

Africa is not for sissies, eh?

I’m often asked why I don’t ‘go back, home, to Germany’ – which implies that a) Germany is better and b) Germany is more familiar to me. Well, not having been ‘back’ in over thirty years – Germany is a completely foreign country to me, now! So, none of that ‘home’ business applies. And about a)? Define ‘better’? Climate? You know they get the ‘s’ word there in winter, right? Noooo, thank you! People? Last time I visited, in 1986, I was treated as a foreigner, with my english accent – even before I left, having grown up in the North, I was an outsider in the South. So, again: No! Less crime? Really? Different, maybe – less prison-like living, sure – but less? I doubt that. Here, I have a home, a job, a life – I have no reason to leave it all behind to start again in a new, foreign world.

I sometimes tire of the nomad lifestyle and wish I could settle down somewhere, build a home – as in transform a house into uniquely my home with stuff like painting walls a lovely colour, hanging up paintings, etc. But then I come back to reality and the simple truth is I AM a nomad, and I do enjoy the change, turning a new place into uniquely my home! Whenever I live in one place for long, I start changing the furniture around – so what I would need is a place with mobile walls!

I’ve not done much in this flat, though – it’s really too small! There’s not much room for play – the furniture fits right where it is, and any other arrangement wouldn’t work. The only change I’ve made, since moving in was to swap the table and the desk around – when my desk was facing the window, the sun would glare in my eyes.

I always promise myself to spend more time looking, give myself enough time to weigh pros and cons before selecting a new home – but so far, I’ve always made rash decisions ... and regretted them. I fell in love with this place, because of the view, it’s cozy feel and the garden. I overlooked the bad wiring (would you believe the bedroom light switch is BEHIND the door? As in: you have to go into the room and close the door to reach the light switch! The lounge has only one light switch: on the hallway side. As in: if you come home after dark, you have to walk across the entire lounge to reach a light switch! There is only one single plug in the entire lounge! So some tenant at some time put extension cable all around from that plug, cabling over the door to the far side, where a multi-plug now lies! And the TV cabling? Reels and reels of it in every single room! In the kitchen, the plug over the counter is INSIDE the cupboard! So someone drilled a hole through the bottom, plugged in a multi-plug which now hangs in the air through that hole!) When I looked at the flat, I assumed those were the current tenant’s arrangements – it never occurred to me that such slap-dash make-do could be standard! I didn’t check the plumbing – everything leaks! Under the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, even the bath leaked so badly it seeped through to my neighbours ceiling (when she reported it, that leak at least got fixed. The piping under the kitchen sink was ‘repaired’ as well, just after I moved in, but not by a plumber, so it still leaks). There is no mirror in the bathroom, the main towel holder is broken and every other holder is rusting (toilet roll holder, hand towel holder, shower curtain holder). I paid no attention to the careless choice of blinds and curtain rails – kitchen & bathroom window have cheap blinds, all other windows have curtain rails.

And yet, it feels home. My home. Charming, cozy, albeit disintegrating. And the joys and pleasure I get in and from the garden make up for all the crap I have to ignore indoors! I live in the lounge, when I’m indoors – behind the desk, in front of my PC. Mostly. Sometimes I’m in a chair looking out the window, with the camera on tripod, trying to capture the awe inspired by the view. And occasionally I’m in the kitchen, creating delicious treats for myself.

Well, it’s been a quiet day at work and I haven’t done much – except read someone else's blog and write all this. I think, for a change, I should post just text today and leave it at that. That also frees my evening so I can do some battles in my online game. I should also help the fellowship with some tournament attendance – there are two options: either negotiate using resources or battle using troops. I’m low on resources, so I’ll try to make some time to battle a bit. I’m currently upgrading my resource manufactories but it’s slow going, as the upgrades take as much as sixteen to twenty hours – real time hours. It’s quite an intricate game and takes quite a bit of planning to progress. If it was less complex, it would be dull. It’s fun, though!