Over the past two months I've been quite a busy bee. We were off site for five weeks on holiday. It was the first time in years that Pierre has taken more than his usual three week break - he needed it! We decided to visit the East and invited Henk and Rachelle to join us. Pierre had loads of SAA Voyager Miles so he exchanged his miles for four return flight tickets from Johannesburg to Hong Kong. We spent a couple of days in Hong Kong and then boarded a cruise which took us to Keelung (Taiwan), Okinawa (Japan) and Shanghai (China). From Shanghai we took a flight back to Hong Kong before returning to Johannesburg. The trip was fabulous – great shopping, food and sightseeing. We all particularly loved Okinawa. We generally found people everywhere to be very friendly. It was a bit of a pain to go through swine flu check points every time we boarded a flight, embarked/disembarked the ship, took a ferry, etc but it was interesting to see how well they’re set up to this extent.
We have also recently purchased a 1 hectare plot in a small game farm development just outside Barberton on the road to Nelspruit. After our return from Hong Kong we spent a few days in Barberton to meet with the architect and builder. We have now received our final set of plans and are hoping to start building by end October. We’re very excited about it all and looking forward to the project. As Sharon Woods would say, “we live in hope” that it will be an enjoyable experience.
I was just getting settled back on site again when I was asked to go to Lusaka to assist with the décor and move of the mine’s Lusaka office. A larger office space has become available in the same building and they’re relocating in September. I spent a few days in Lusaka’s shops but have to say that I found it extremely difficult to source decent interior decorating items there – especially something that would suit an office. Most of the items available are either really expensive or not the look we want. I’ll be going back there in a couple of weeks’ time and have been recommended a few other shops to try so hopefully I’ll be more successful this time around. Luckily I love doing interior decorating projects so I’ll make do with what I can find.
I’m also doing a few other small projects so I’m really keeping busy. Days just fly past and before I know it, another week is gone. It is amazing how you can live in a place like this and still sometimes be too busy to see your friends or go bird watching.
Well that’s me for now. It is now 06h15 so I’m off to have some coffee.
