Pesky Paperwork and a New Home

Today it is 35 degrees, and officially too damn hot for ginger babies (and their mothers). Those who can have headed for the beach but we are again in car limbo, waiting on the car we have just bought, a very sensible Automatic Toyota, bought in pounds from a fellow Brit moving home.

     Stripping our direct debits back to the very, very bare minimum before we left was liberating but we are now in the process of slowly building them back up again over here. £175 a month insurance for hospital visits only will certainly make you appreciate the NHS. If we need to see a specialist or a GP outside of hospital we will still have to pay for it. Nor is banking free here. Our basic account is £10 per month, with a limit on transactions, so instead of paying for most things on card we get large sums of cash out of the bank. Council tax and utilities, however, are so little you don’t even notice them so I suppose it will all even out. 
We are also waiting to move into the rental house we have chosen. The house may not be as sensible as the car, but it has a whole lot more character. It is five minutes from the beach in the leafy and colonial heritage quarter of Muizenberg; a handful of hidden back streets full of second hand book shops and galleries and artist studios. The owners are a retired Dutch couple who live in Holland and winter here so the place is only available until December. 

There is a large veranda (or Stoep) to the front and a sunny little yard to the back with a covered Braai area. It is into this covered area that I will be popping the broken sofa that has been shipped all the way from Edinburgh, for the Ginger Prince to play on by day and a gift to neighbourhood stray cats by night. The place is entirely furnished and where our other 35 crates of nonsense are going to go is a different matter. Strange to think that when we packed up months ago in snowy Scotland we thought we couldn’t live without this stuff and actually haven’t missed it in the months we have been living with only what we had in our suitcases. With the exception of some things, particularly TGP’s toys.

Although not entirely child friendly and lacking a washing machine (!) the area has a great hippy, Boho feel. I have been exploring the hippy side of Cape Town more and more recently. Every week there is an outdoor market of some kind, selling farm produce and home made gifts. And Oude Molen is a great little Eco Village and stable that TGP loves because of its interactive farm. http://www.mothercityliving.co.za/oude-molen-eco-village-pinelands/

Our new neighbour-to-be is a local artist who makes sculptures out of things he has found on the beach. His house is bedecked with all manner of everything. See picture below.

I am hoping this will cheer me up when I’m dragging TGP to the launderette twice a week.