Wednesday 3 June.
Moira gave me a shake as she wanted to get to the toilets. I had had quite a good sleep for a couple of hours and now the cabin lights were on full again. It wasn't long until they were serving breakfast. Moira had an omelette but I went for the full English which was very good. A nice cup of coffee also helped to revive us. It was only another hour and we were flying in over Boksburg to land at O. Tambo airport in Jo'burg. As it taxied up the runway the bright red ball of the rising sun was sitting just above the horizon. Unusual for the high veldt in the winter it was raining as we disembarked, we must have brought it with us all the way from Scotland.
It didn't take long to get through passport control, we went through the SA passport holders as we had permanent residence. We had to wait until the second batch of bags came through the carousel before we got our cases. Unfortunately there appeared to be a fault with the battery on Moira's phone, it isn't holding its charge and it was dead when she tried to phone her brother Alex. We went to the MTN mobile phone counter to see if we could make a call from there and a black guy who was standing outside asked what we were looking for and said we could use his phone. She got through all right to Alex and gave the guy R10 for his help, he seem happy with that. This is about 50p and later Moira found out that using her phone on roaming would have cost £4/ minute, so the tip was quite reasonable under the circumstances. We had about 15 minutes to wait outside at the pick-up point for Alex, the rain had gone off but there was a cold wind blowing and it was still overcast. We weren't sure which of his many cars Alex would arrive in so Moira stood out in the drive to catch his attention when he came through. He was in his BMW and once we got our bags in the boot we were on our way along the motorway to his house in Boksburg.
We got the usual welcome from Alex's dogs as soon as we entered the front door. He has two golden retrievers now, Kyle and Connor, and they were lively and jumping up and licking us. Alex is still working, three days a week - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday- so as soon as we were settled he was off for his final workday for this week. Alex has WiFi so we were able to get hooked to the internet and download the 'Telegraph'. The big news of the day was the resignation of Blatter as president of FIFA after the recent corruption scandals and arrests for bribery. I suppose one of the other crooks will take over and it will be business as usual.
We had a cup of tea then about 10 am we decided to go out. Alex had left the BMW for us to use, he went to work in his MG, but the rain had cleared so we decided to walk. We were heading for the Farrarmere Centre to get some Rands from the ATM and to see if there was a place there to get a local SIM card for Moira's phone which we had managed to charge at Alex's before we came out. We walked down to the road beside the stream that runs into Homestead Dam. There had been a lot of flooding there last time we were here and they have clear most of the reeds and growth that was blocking the flow. They were still working on part of it and it appears that it is being widened and converted into a wetlands area. There were lots of birdlife but the most prominent was the Ibis and we saw black and white varieties.
When we reached Wilge Rd at the dam we cut up to the shopping centre. There was a Nedbank machine there and Moira got enough money to keep is going for a while but not that long as prices have risen considerably since we were here last. There wasn't a phone shop there so we decided to head along Bailey St to try the shopping centre where it joins Mercury St. On the way we passed the doctor's medical centre and Moira went on the off-chance of getting to see Dr. Frankel. He is still consulting but has reduced his time to just a few hours each day and was just in the process of knocking off for today.
At the Bailey St centre there was an Indian shop that sold SIM cards for phones. Moira had to go through a registration process first with her ID book before it could be issued. Once she got it the shop didn't sell airtime for some reason and directed us to the garage just round the corner. She got R55 worth of airtime and when we got back to the house she installed the new SIM. It was lunchtime but there wasn't any tea, milk or bread left so Moira went out again to the supermarket and got what we needed. It was again a shock at the total price of R65, that's about £4, not much different from what we pay in the UK but way more than it was just two years ago when we were last here.
After lunch we relaxed in the lounge and I investigated the functions on my new camera. We managed to link it with the iPad through the internet, I was able to transfer the photos I had taken directly to the camera roll on the iPad and I can also take a picture remotely from the iPad with the camera set up, say, on a tripod to view wildlife. I tried out the zoom and found that not only do I get 30x optical but it can increase to 120x by incorporating digital zoom, though at that magnification the camera needs to by kept very steady.
Alex got home at 5:30 pm and when he let the dogs in they ran wild for about half an hour before settling down. Alex made the dinner and he is quite an accomplished cook. The chicken curry he made was delicious. We started off with a small helping from the pot but kept going back for more and more it was so tasty. To go with it he opened a bottle of very nice dry red wine which was definitely superior to the plonk we usually drink. When we were finished Moira and I washed up then sat in the lounge with our iPads reading the newspaper. Alex had the TV on with a motoring programme, I don't think the TV has improved at all in the last couple of years even with the satellite supplier.
We were very tired after our travelling and not much sleep on the plane last night so got to bed early at 8:30 pm. We were soon fast asleep. The only problem is that during the night if you get up to the loo the dogs waken and bark for about 5 minutes, wakening everyone else in the process.
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