Goodbye...

Goodbye to my friend Kleinman. I miss you already...

So much news...

Well the past few weeks have been both uneventful and hot. Right now, its 31 degrees celsius and the time 19h24. Cape Town has been sweltering in a heat wave this week that has fueled that largest and longest lasting fires in 9 years. As we speak, one has been raging for a week and is still out of control. Todays heat was just too much. I popped out of the air-conditioned office to get some cash for lunch and walked into an oven. I haven't experienced such heat in a very long time. Its the kind where it feels like you are breathing through a hairdryer. The actual air is hot. There were some community service delinquents sweeping the streets as punishment and for the first time, I actually felt sorry for them.
To make matters worse, no wind. That means smog, visible smog which hangs like a blanket over the city.

The good thing is that it makes for great sunsets. We set out to Blouberg beach and I took LOADS of pictures. Some of them included these...








My absolute favourite one is of the kids playing...it looks so carefree and fun!

ps...I may just go for a swim right now...its just too hot in here!

OK I'm back!

Knitting news - I've finished yet another string bag for a colleague and the idiot that I am, forgot to take proper pics. So my mobile camera will have to do. I could kick myself.

I am so in love with bag but had to give it away. ::jellis::
I still have bit left from the balls of cotton so may eek one out for myself.

My vintage knit has progressed a lot. I have just about finished the back and it looks fab. The pattern is so easy to remember and I will definitely progress a lot faster on the front. I can't wait to finish it.
I'm still having problems adjusting to not knitting so much anymore and do miss it. I feel like I'm having withdrawal symptoms or something.

have......to.....knit....please..............!!!!!!

We will also be moving house temporarily due to family coming to visit. And have in the progress, managed to UPGRADE!!! We will be living in a house of some friends of ours who live in the UK. The house is situated in Paarl which is a lovely town within the wine district of Cape Town. We have been to the house and am quite excited to get away from the parents in law and have some time to ourselves. Additionally, my friend, Amy, from our UK knitting group is coming to visit!!! So I have taken time off work and will be doing the touristy things with her. Cue loads of pictures. She arrives in 3 weeks time. She has made a wishlist of places to see which include the penguins at Boulders beach, Kirstenbosch gardens, the Cheetah outreach at Spier, the V&A Waterfront, Table Mountain, Robben Island ( where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated) and so on. So if you have ever wanted to see any of these, hold on to your horses.

Tonight we're off to act like youngsters and are hitting the town to see a local band. Hope we don't stand out too much! Haha!!

Sadly, I have to visit the vets tomorrow for the last time with my cat Kleinman. Unfortunately, his sight has deteriorated so much that he is becoming a hazard to himself. Constantly falling off counters, beds and walking into walls and doors. I'm horrified to have to take him but have no other choice. He is on his own most of the day and what if something happens? I'm really not looking forward to it! Sad day indeed.

Kleinman has been my best friend for 18 years and a trouper! I will miss you.

Create your own rock band record cover as follows:

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7daysThird picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop, picassa, or similar to put it all together.

Here is mine:



Fun hey?! I think it makes a great band album cover! Now i just need to work on the 'music'. Haha!

Ps...

...If anyone can help me sort out my pics on my blog, I'd love you forever!! I can do many things but haven't forayed into code yet. My pics keep jumping off the page and I have no idea how to fix them. Annoys the living daylights out of me...HELP!!

A bit of this and a bit of that!

This week was just another week of knitting, work and driving, more on the driving later. I'd finished my shopping bag last week and have been using it to take my lunch to work. And word definitely went around that I made it. Random people have been coming up to me saying 'are you the one that knits?'. The office manager was so interested and asked me to make one. This one took a bit longer this week-for some reason it took ages to crochet even though it's a straight forward pattern. Anyway, so I finished it last night while watching Wall-E( very cute movie). I still have to take pics of the finished project. But here it is in progress.





I really like the finished product and am actually a bit jealous. I'd like to keep it! I have a tiny bit of the yarn left so maybe I can eek one out. The bag is great as it will stretch and I've already had so much shopping in it!
I've also always wanted to make the BYOB from Knitty. But that requires a lot of yarn-maybe another day.

I also finished another bag - IT'S BAG MANIA!! This one is the Mineco 1. For this one I picked sunset colours.


In this picture it is also unfinished. I added two short handles. This pattern was a bit disappointing to me. Well, not the pattern really but the nature of the pattern. The actual knit was easy to do, yarn was fine. But the bag unfortunately doesn't stretch sideways but lengthways. So what you are left with, when full, is a long orange sausage! Weird! I'm not sure if I like it? Or maybe next time I'll add a few more pattern repeats to make it wider. I still like the look of the bag though. mmmm.......

Work is still going fine, though a bit quiet. I'm not saying anything in the hopes of keeping the job for as long as possible. It's money right?!
Driving to work has been interesting to say the least. Having lived in the UK for 6 years, you tend to forget certain things and also don't really drive in the UK. So when I got this job, I had to drive from the suburbs into the CBD of Cape Town along the highway. It crawls at a snails pace every morning, slow enough for me to drink my mug of coffee in the car! WHOO!
BUT...I totally forgot about another factor of South Africa. Taxis! Now these aren't your usual black/ yellow cabs that spring to mind. No, these are minibuses, operated by any Tom, Dick or Harry ( and lately Sue). They don't belong to any kind of Taxi organisation which regulates them in any way. In fact, if you have a minibus, you could operate one. So Tom decides to drive a taxi. Basically, he decides on the route that he wants to drive and off he goes. Taxis do not, i repeat, DO NOT follow road rules. If someone inside wants out, they stop, anywhere. Middle of an intersection, middle of the highway, ANYWHERE! They love their horns and will use them to annoyance. Every taxi has a spotter. Basically a bloke hanging out of the open door, spotting for passengers to pick up. He also acts as the horn, indicator, traffic coordinator. So if Tom wants to turn right in peak traffic and there is no space, the spotter will start shouting at cars, directing them aside to make space for the taxi to pass. The taxis are generally packed beyond any legal limit. A taxi accident usually involved quite a few dead and injured-partly due to the number of passengers and partly due to the fact that they aren't serviced at all-so have faulty brakes, no indicators, etc. So, you get the picture! These taxis exists in their millions like swarms of bees. This week the cops had a crackdown/ road block. They generally try to have these stealth road blocks to eliminate unroadworthy taxis and drivers with no licences. Also, many of the minibuses were stolen from families to use as taxis. At this road block, you always see loads of confiscated taxis, passengers walking to work and shouting drivers...oh, and about 500m before, taxis desperately trying to make u-turns to avoid the roadblocks.
Well, in order to keep the public informed, I documented some footage i.e. pics and video of these hooligans on the road. The pics were taken on my mobile while driving so excuse the quality. I forgot to up the image sizes.

Exhibit 1

What you're looking at is an intersection on a busy road in the middle of Cape Town. The road that I am on, is a two lane road. Can YOU see the two lanes on the opposite side? Cause I can't? Judging by all the taxis, they are making 5 lines!!! Crazy!



Exhibit 2

I have now crossed the intersection into the two lanes..can you spot the two lanes...apparently there are 3? I must have missed that 3rd one!



Exhibit 3

Maybe I should change lanes like this?!



And finally, exhibit 4...

I'm trying to cross the intersection but there are cars everywhere?!?!?! WTF?!?!?! It's green for me but I can't cross!




So you see, it's a miracle I haven't had road rage yet!
Life in Africa sure is interesting....

We went for some sundowners and took these of Table Mountain. Beautiful, isn't it!



The lights are the bottom is Cape Town.



Have a great weekend.