I'm officially a city girl for now - living in a secure townhouse complex in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. A far cry from the freedom & wide open, wild space of a 3500 acre farm in Kilimanjaro's foothills, and quite an adjustment, too. But fun, an adventure - and thank goodness, not for the rest of my life ! Above is a private swimming pool/party venue in the complex.
This is what our new home looks like, above - we have a downstairs unit with a teeny tiny garden, but a garden nevertheless. The complex has many cats so my daughter is in her element !
The complex has a Club House & various swimming pools. The photo above shows the entrance to the Club House (which has a restaurant/bar, swimming pool & tennis courts).
Here above, is a view of the Club House tennis courts. The windows on the bottom floor of the Club House are where the restaurant/bar is.
Here, above, is the main swimming pool at the Club House. There are over 130 houses within the complex. It has taken some adjustment living so close to other people. I am not used to being able to hear other people so close by, as aside from our staff and the birdlife, and the farm equipment working in the fields, there are no other sounds on the farm ! I can hear people talking, arguing, playing music and taps/plumbing in next door units. I can smell when the neighbours are smoking out on their veranda, I can tell when the people opposite us are making toast for breakfast ! Early in the morning I hear people leaving for work to avoid rush hour traffic. Late at night I hear them return.
My daughter is thrilled at the novelty of being able to drink water 'right out of the tap' and keeps checking with me that it is okay to do so, as at home we can only drink bottled or boiled water ! She even drinks her bath water in glee ..... ewwwwwww !
I was out in our garden the other morning when a neighbour in an upstairs unit called out to greet me as she saw me stroking one of her cats ... "Vodka !" she shouted "and the other one is Tequila !" I was taken aback ..... ummmmm ...... was she talking to me ? Inviting me over for a drink ?! She quickly explained that those were the 2 cats names. Oh, phew - relief - I had wondered why this lady was shouting out the names of alcoholic drinks to me so early in the morning ! Thank goodness it was only the cats !
At the time of writing this, my husband is on a 'plane from East Africa right now, flying somewhere across the African Continent to reach us. (This being unpredicatable Africa and all, I'll wait until he actually lands here before I celebrate his arrival, though !) I also won't be online for a while. My husband is bringing our laptop with him, & it will take a few days to get ourselves set up online on that - maybe even next week only ? So don't worry if I disappear for a while, I'll be back soon ........
