Desiree-Rose

JANUARY our first mail from George.


Well we arrived in George 2 weeks ago, and while we spent the first 3 or 4 days just unpacking and settling in we already started to enjoy ourselves. Calan drove down with us, actually doing all the driving, so the trip was very easy. On arrival at Carmel, we were given a staff house for the night, expecting our furniture to arrive at 9.00am next morning. There was however a really bad flood that day, and the streets of George looked like rivers, with water well above the pavement gutters. Carmel being high up was not that badly affected, although very slushy and muddy. The furniture was delivered at 8.30pm due to all the rain.

Calan stayed a few days and took himself off on an Awesome Foursome Adventure, canoeing across the Knysna lagoon, climbing to the top of the Head, quad biking, absailing and rap diving (going down head first). He also swam up one of the gorges and came down through the rapids. A real adrenalin-boosting day. He was tired and somewhat sore but seemed to have enjoyed himself.

Government and official departments seem to work a little faster here, Rose got her new drivers license sorted out in a matter of minutes, and the telephone installation only took 10 days. A visit to the traffic dept to get a new car registration certificate took all of about 15 minutes.

We have done a bit of exploring shopping wise and found some reasonably priced markets for fresh fruit and veg etc. On a visit to Mosselbay we found a lovely fish market and bought Red Stump and Kabeljou from the sea. With M.bay 50km away it is not economical shopping but really good. On Saturday mornings there is a really wonderful Farmers Market in Sedgefield – about 20 minutes from George – that is without road works. One side of the market is an abundance of fresh produce, breads, cakes, meat, milk, eggs, fruit, veg, fish, “breakfast” and lots more. And then a really good home made products section too. The draw back, to catch the worm one needs to be there by 7.30am on a Saturday.

Our rented house at Carmel is really quite lovely, a very old wooden cottage and a little too large for us – that is from a cleaning point of view. As for having visitors to stay it is perfect.
The view is amazing; placed right on the top of Victoria Bay, the sea view spans from the bay right down the Wilderness on our right hand side, with the Outeniqua mountains for as far as you can see on the left. Absolutely wonderful sun rises and sets, eerie and quite spooky atmospheres when the mists come creeping in from the sea. But really lovely.

Down-side of living so close to nature of course - the spiders, we have rain spiders that are as big as a hand and stand up on their long legs ready to jump at any moment, quite difficult to get them outside and most people say to kill them, however, they don’t die that easily and it doesn’t feel good doing it. We have a very naughty monkey that comes to the dustbin, I have managed to find a rock big enough that he can’t move off the lid and in temper he now does his “business” right on our front door step. We have to keep the windows closed when we are out because we have been told he will come in given the opportunity, I found him almost in the front door one afternoon, and he stood his ground for quite a few minutes after I had shouted at him.

On our front deck we have a large Swifts nest, and they have just raised a cute fat little baby bird who took its first flight from Rose’s hand as it got itself caught in the glass enclosure. Their nest is made of mud and they have a very neat little hole that they stick their bottoms out, hence our deck is also always soiled. So bucket in hand we clean both entrances every day. There are some really lovely birds in our garden, including a pair of rare Cape Louries, and a number of robins and other we cannot identify yet. We have a lovely book on birds that Tamlyn gave us at Christmas