We were at Silver Creek Gorge again for the first weekend in December, mainly to attend Lawrene’s 50th birthday party in the stately old farmstead. It rained almost non-stop but that did not deter the party goers one bit. The theme was ‘Beauty and the Beast, with women as beauties and men as they are!’ The women all looked stunning, with most of them donned out in long evening dresses, while the men were happy that they were spared; most wore jeans or shorts and t-shirts. It was a fun evening.
A strange sound, almost like the ‘chirp’ of an alarm being set, woke us on Sunday morning. When the sound was repeated again and again Roger thought that it was most likely a frog and went searching for it. He found a tiny, very cute little frog under the workbench, behind a bucket. It was a Bubbling Kassina, first described by Dr Andrew Smith in 1830.
Wendy invited us to join her and some friends at The Kingdom Resort near Sun City in the Pilanesberg from the 6th to the 10th of December. She always likes to make full use of her timeshare weeks. We happily took her up on her offer, but only for three days, from the 8th to the 10th. As it turned out it was not in Sun City as we had envisaged, and not nearly as ‘up-market’ as expected, but it was a good break. We spent one day in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve but did not have any sightings worth mentioning. We did however discover two new (to us) restaurants that were really nice – Bakubung and Kwa Maritane.
Thanks Wendy for a most enjoyable few days!
We headed back on Friday and slept over at Eugene and Marlene. On Saturday morning Roger asked Eugene to cut a grass strip in order to make a runway. He’d always wanted to fly in to visit. And Eugene gladly obliged. Their plot is long and narrow, so it worked perfectly. Once Roger and Eugene were happy with the strip we drove to Silver Creek.
On Sunday morning we flew to Eugene and Marlene for breakfast, landing on the new, very short, strip. The onlookers were rather nervous but for a pilot with Roger’s experience it was no problem; it was fun. And the breakfast was yummy, much nicer than at a restaurant.
Back at Silver Creek we left the Hilux at the hangar and came home in Ufudu. We needed him for our planned trip to Wakkerstroom.
Our previous visit to Wakkerstroom was in winter but following residents’ advice to experience all seasons before deciding on the position and orientation of our house, we went there again on the 15th of December.
We stopped for lunch at a quaint little restaurant in Volksrust named Coffee Art Café. The coffee was excellent, the food was delicious, and the owner was friendly and engaging. After lunch we stopped in at the municipality and settled our account, as well as updated our info to receive future accounts via email. I was worried about the fact that we’d received only one account to date, and that was via the Post Office. Who sends stuff by snail mail these days? Really!
In Wakkerstroom our first stop was at Rupert and Gwynne’s house to release some Tilapia fish from our pond into theirs, which Roger had promised to do during our previous visit.
As with our previous visit, we parked on our stand and walked everywhere we wanted to go. I always enjoy walking, so it was great except for the fact that it was cold and wet. And that in mid-summer!
There were sheets of Evening Primrose flowers on our stand. The flowers all opened just before dusk every day and by dawn they’d been pollinated, had turned pink and were dying. Quite spectacular!
On our second night in Ufudu, at about 8 pm, the generator ran out of fuel. What a calamity! The dishwasher was halfway through its cycle, the cell phones were on charge, and we needed our coffee machine first thing in the morning. To make things worse, we did not have a fuel container. So, we had to decant the water from our 5l mineral water container before Roger put his raincoat on, grabbed a torch and walked back to town to get fuel. It was a 2km round trip.
It rained throughout the night, and we woke up to a cold and windy morning. Our temperature gauge showed 11⁰C. After a slow start with coffee in bed and breakfast inside we eventually walked to town for lunch at Thyme Out. What a surprise when we found that on Fridays certain menu items are available on a ‘order two and pay for one’ special. It was delicious as always, and very worthwhile indeed.
The Goathouse Deli advertised an evening market, so we decided to to have dinner there but it was so crowded that we made an about turn and ended up at the Mucky Duck. Neither of us were very hungry so a pub meal was the answer. It was quiet and the ‘fish and chips’ was good.
The Wakkerstroom Annual Christmas Market was held on Saturday the 18th. The goods on offer were interesting and varied, and we bought the best Christmas Cake from one of the tables, to be shared at our Ford Family Christmas lunch.
Middle: Some of the market stalls that were set up in the street.
Bottom: Having craft beer at the Red Rooster
Neither of us could face another restaurant meal so we had market-bought food for supper and a quiet evening in Ufudu.
Ufudu’s toilet had to be emptied before we headed home. On our walks into town, we noticed that there were two damaged, uncovered sewerage inspection manholes. Bearing in mind that we pay for sewerage even though we haven’t even built our house yet, we decided that it would be quite within our rights to dump the toilet in there. It worked well. At least we got some return for our money.
A neighbour came to chat while Roger was busy. Apparently the cover(s) were dislodged as a result of an earlier car accident and had just never been replaced/fixed by the municipality.
Brunch was at Aangenaam. The food was good, the fire was nice, but the place did not have much atmosphere. Pity.
We arrived home in the late afternoon. It was good 5-day break.
On Monday evening, the 20th of December at around 6 pm I got a WhatsApp message from my friend Ansie. She had missed her flight to PE, was on the Gautrain, and wanted to sleep over at our house instead of going back to Pretoria. What a nice surprise. We put supper on hold and Roger fetched her from the Rosebank Station.
Besides all her other woes, she had injured her big toe when her huge trolley suitcase ran over her foot. The nail was ripped into the flesh and was bleeding constantly so when they arrived at our house I first had to treat the toe before we could relax, have supper, and share a bottle of wine. It was good to catch up.
Roger took her to the airport the next morning after breakfast. Then, another WhatsApp message from her the following day:
‘Very bad news, I’ve just tested positive’. Covid. Eish…
Three days later Roger started showing symptoms. I was fine and remained fine until five days after Roger got sick. I woke up with a fever, a huge headache, and a very sore throat. It was the 29th of December and we had plans for a New Year’s Eve party with the whole family, so I thought it best to get tested. Positive! Well, that effectively ended any party aspirations. We stayed home, in isolation.
The whole illness was rather a non-event; I was over it in three days. I experienced loss of taste for a few days and Roger had a niggling cough for a while but neither of us had anything more than what felt like a bit of flu.
The number of people that became infected as a result of Ansie’s train trip, her flight to Queberha, and her stay at the guest house is anyone’s guess…
The upside of our 5-day isolation? Roger got to tick off a whole lot of items on his to-do list. And I was certainly not complaining about that…