The march

Did I mention I got stuck in the middle of the Cosatu march Friday before last? No?

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Pretty sure that's the Zambian Fighting Ninja's roof on the left at the back. Picture from Daily Maverick
I was merrily driving down the road on my way to a meeting, stopped at a red light and was suddenly surrounded.
Fortunately for me the metro police were on hand to blast their sirens and wave me on (they seemed quite irritated too) and I hot-footed it back to Sandton for the biggest capuccino I've ever seen to "calm" me down

And got yelled at by an old duck who said I was irresponsible and should listen to the news. "Everyone knew there was a march today"

Back to the Vaal

Last week I popped down to Bothaville (near Klerksdorp) in the Freestate to visit NAMPO, apparently the biggest agricultural show in the Southern Hemisphere (take THAT Australia) It's not just farming things, though - they have huge halls full of goodies for the farmer's wives to buy too. I however am now officially broke having got the iPhone, the netbook and a new car all within 5 months so all I bought there was a pair of toe-socks for Scientist No 1 that have Diva written on them.
I decided to be really adventurous and visit the boat people on my way home. My sister had surgery on Wednesday afternoon and I wanted to make sure she was OK.

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A hummingbird hawk moth, fascinating little critter and quite prolific at the boat people's house, seems they love the lavender.

The last trip to the Vaal was on Christmas day, when Bob misbehaved by dying at an inappropriate time and we got horribly lost. To make things worse I gave Bob to Walter when I got the iPhone. Whilst I love the iPhone I am not prepared to spend another zillion rand downloading a navigation app (all other technology has software, iPhones have apps) so there was no soothing voice telling me when to turn. This called for courage and innovation.
I prepared very carefully, downloading Google maps and printing out written directions and I was very proud of myself managing to get from Bothaville to Three Rivers in one go. The state of the R59 is shocking and I put the Zambian Fighting Ninja (aka the Jimny) through its paces, deftly side-stepping potholes that would be called tank traps in countries like Iraq, for example.Country music seemed appropriate accompaniment but I couldn't navigate and search radio stations so mostly I listened to OFM.

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Suzuki Jimny. This is not the Zambian fighting ninja, but it could be. It's also not the R59, but some parts look pretty much like this.
 
The timing was perfect - I arrived just after she came out of surgery, and I sat with her for an hour or so before they decided she could go home. This was the easy part, I had a real live navigator in the car with me saying turn here, so we got back to her house with no mishaps where we finished a good couple of bottles of red wine. On the way home we spotted an owl sitting on a fence post, I'm not sure what kind it was - I guess most of them start waking up around dusk anyway. There were also lots of ostriches and blesbok, so I get the attraction, it's just that there aren't any Woolies food stores or signs pointing to civilization anywhere.

In the morning we had breakfast at the local hotel on the hill with great views of the dam

So then I had to head home, allowing at least 7 hours before dark in case I got lost again. I hadn't thought as far as the getting home part so hadn't downloaded those instructions. My sister drew me a map, I think she's quite exasperated that we always get lost. Twitter friends suggested I navigate by the sun and stop every so often to check which side of the tree the moss is growing on to make sure I'm going in the right direction. Further enquiries revealed they also didn't know the answer to that, however, so that wasn't going to work. Plus this is the Freestate, so trees are scarce.
I set off with purpose, 10kg of walnuts and 7 avocado pears my sister pressed on me (I think she thinks we are all starving) and told myself to think of it as an adventure.
Things went well, initially. It's just that after I made the 2nd turn, as shown on the map, which I still have as evidence there was no river to cross, no sign pointing to Henley-on-Klip. I ended up back in Vereeniging and stopped at the first garage I found to ask directions. Fortunately they looked kindly upon me, and I made it back to the highway without any further mishaps.
I do think that the roads department should consider marking the options on the Johannesburg end a little more clearly, however. I ended up driving the wrong way around the city because I was sure as hell not going back to Klerksdorp.

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Note to visitors: This is Shanghai, not Johannesburg - but it illustrates the point. Picture from infrastructurist.com

Dragonflies

I finally got around to taking my car to be cleaned yesterday. Sidwell the car cleaner stayed behind at the old offices so now I have to either use a commercial car wash or do it myself.
While I was cleaning out all my stuff I spotted my window dragonfly (stuck onto the small window on the driver's side) and carefully removed him so that he would be safe.

The story of the dragonfly is one of those amazingly inexplicable things, and happened a few years ago when I went to visit friends in Australia.
Before the trip I was at a local craft market looking for gifts for my friends. It's not easy - Australia had fairly advanced regulations for the time around importing wooden artifacts, for example, and African crafts are most often made from wood. I wandered around the market, picking things up, putting them down again, until I came to an oil lamp with sandblasted dragonflies. Not the most practical gift to travel with, the glass would need very careful packing. But something about it touched me and I believed my friend Renee would love it. On a previous visit she had brought me a beautiful oil lamp - it has a blue cover with gold elephants painted on. It was to remind me of our road trip through Botswana and Zimbabwe and it's one of the few material possessions I value.
As I picked up the dragonfly lamp my cellphone rang. Before I even answered it I knew it was Renee, 7,000 miles away in Sydney.
I answered the phone and she said to me "The strangest thing just happened, I went onto the balcony and I was thinking about you when a cloud of dragonflies flew around me. I had to call to find out what it meant"
I looked at the lamp in my hand and smiled.
Walter (who knows about these things) tells me it's called synchronicity. All I know is that this little plastic dragonfly Renee brought for me on her last visit stays stuck on my window in my car to remind me of my friend and to let me know we're not that far apart at all.

Technology...

It's been quite a year for technology; starting with the netbook, then the iPod, then the new work laptop and email programme, then last week I finally got myself an iPhone.

I am now becoming ridiculously comfortable with technology for someone my age, according to the experts out there. Then I found this picture, sent out by RAFairman (who I follow on Twitter) and I felt much better

Picture courtesy RAF Museum, via RAFairman on Twitter
So if they could figure out all that technology way back when while they were being shot at then I figure I am probably still fine.
I'm loving the iPhone, but there's one puzzle I've downloaded that is getting the better of me. If you have an iPhone and have the "Can you solve it" puzzle let me know if you've managed to solve it. It's driving me nuts.