What a day it’s been! It started off with the ADSL going on
the blink yesterday afternoon, so this morning my priority was to go to the
coffee shop to use their wi-fi, as I needed to check my emails, etc. You can’t
run a business or two from home without internet access, not to mention my
daily weather report on Facebook and my blog! Last night I phoned Telkom from
my cellphone (land line another story altogether) and waited for 40 minutes
before I finally got through to an operator, then 10 minutes trying to fix it
with no luck. That cost me R200 in airtime. I remembered I could use one of my
cellphones as a modem, so plugged that into my laptop and managed to download
an email or two then saw to my dismay that the third one had an attachment of
13MB and quickly pulled that plug. That cost me R100 in airtime. What a
disaster, considering I usually only use R150 in a month with normal usage.
So with the help of the free wi-fi, I downloaded the
document, saved it on a flashdrive and went to the post shop to print it out.
When I got home, I found that everything except my photographs had been deleted
from the flashdrive – movies, music, downloads, bah! Who knows what happened
there.
Made for the mall where I used Telkom’s free line (they
answer immediately, no waiting for 40 minutes – I recommend it to everyone) and
they said a technician would call me. As a backup, I bought R100 data bundle
for my phone as it is much cheaper than airtime – talk about closing the stable
door after the horse has bolted! I get home, plug the phone in and the computer
won’t recognise the device. After much whinging and whining, the obvious
occurred to me and I switched everything off and started again. Success!
Downloaded some more emails, checked blog stats and Facebook.
I then turned my attention to a little housework and took a
load of washing down the garden, where the wonderful sight of a hole in the
fence, multiple attempts to dig its way out and all my beautiful spinach in
tatters revealed that the dratted porcupine has once again decided to raid. The
vegetable patch is in ruins (I almost took a picture yesterday, it was looking
so good – and even considered picking the largest spinach leaves for dinner),
and the compost heap has had a good going over. So it seems my dreams of an
organic supply of home grown vegetables are never going to happen. It also bit
open two packets of eco-friendly snail bait and scattered it everywhere,
obviously not finding it to its taste. I tried to plug the hole in the fence
but don’t hold out much hope there. My big concern is the dogs. They won’t be
allowed out at night alone.
An owl ate something on the bamboo roof of the deck last
night. I only realised this when I saw the mess on the table – it must have
been a mouse as there were no feathers anywhere. Well crunched up – I hope it
doesn’t make a habit of it, or if it does, it must at least roost there in the
daytime so I can enjoy looking at it. Alternatively, it could have been the red
chested sparrowhawk that has been hunting here every day, which is just as
exciting but not while Mango Kitty is still so small.
Mango Kitty slipped off the edge of the deck and managed to
grab the beam underneath where she was trapped. Fortunately we saw her slip and
rushed to her rescue, but as I bent to lean over the edge, I cracked my head a
terrible shot on the railing and saw stars for a long time.
It’s been an eventful day. But there is hot water in the
shower, petrol in the car and food in the fridge, so I wouldn’t want you to
think I have anything really important to complain about!!
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