A bitty tired, but safely home! Had to drive to cape Town, which is six hundred kl away, as Trienkie my youngest sprout, with a hubby and two boys, had nobody to look after the kids during the school holidays. She does have a fantastic black woman named Angelina who usually looks after them, but as it was Easter, she wanted to go to a big church gathering for the week. And seeing that she never asks for time off, or come late for no reason, Trienkie asked if I would come.
Cape Town, like the rest of the country have a hard time marrying the western and black cultures, and it is very hard for me with a Europian upbringing to understand the way Africa thinks. Like on the day that Jan brought me back to Trienkie's house after I have spent a few days with him and Erna and the kids. We saw the smoke billowing into the sky, but had no idea what it could be, until we got closer. The street leading out of the suburbs and into the city was blocked with tyres heaped upon each other, and then put on fire! It was a horrible scene of smoke and flames and angry people, with the policemen standing on watch. What was very noticable was all the taxis standing parked around the scene, so we assumed that it was another taxi war, which indeed it was.
As all the taxis wanted this part of the suburbs as their chief pick up place, there was such a congestion that the city had decided to zone the areas, and of course the ones taken out of the biggest hub was not at all happy with this state of affairs, so they decided to block off the roads so that the ones doing bussiness there could not get out! To me it seems so stupid, but a lot of blood had been shed in the past because of this taxi wars going on and on. One year a lot of taxi drivers, and a lot more innocent passengers were killed, and it took a long time to stabilize the industry again.
We then had to turn around and take another route that was twice as long, and made Jan hours late for his conference!
Trienkie and Stephan are both in full time jobs, and that was why I decided to treat them to a garden make over! Trienkie was delighted, and we drove to the nursery for plants, but Stephan, who hates working with his hands, just snorted and left the scene mumbling to himself. I think he thought that he would have to do all the work, but I soon put his soul at rest, and told him that he was really not expected to do anything. I think if you don't like gardening, you can't be made to like it, so I started digging!
I told them that I would murder them if I came back from Jan, and everything was dead from lack of water, and appointed my six year old grandson to see to it that my newly planted stuff were watered regularly. He did, and Trienkie laughingly told me that every evening he told them to go and water his Ouma's plants! In the bottom picture, I think they were contemplating sending the interfering old Mama back home!!!!
But my own garden looked wonderful after all the rain we had while I was away! Just a wee bitty overgrown with weeds!