After reading the reports of snow and general disruption in Europe, and on the East Coast and in the Midwest of the USA, I felt I had to provide our readers with warmer felicitations for the New Year.
Basically I am just too hot to write anything much, let alone a profound and insightful treatise on the three scourges of Africa. I will do that later this month.
I am sitting in a small bungalow on a private game farm called Ingwelala - sleeping leopard - (http://www.ingwelala.co.za). I share the bungalow with two partners, one from South Africa and one from England. Seventy-five percent of the bungalow walls are made from mosquito-proof gauze (obviously to keep mozzies, as we affectionately call them, from attacking us while we sleep), and chicken wire, to keep baboons from eating our food and hyenas from eating us – if the mozzies have left anything.
The farm – nothing is actually cultivated here – is 3000 hectares in extent (nearly 7000 acres) and borders the huge Kruger National Park. Animals have approximately 30,000 unfenced square kilometres in which to roam, while we are confined to our own 3000 hectares. The farm has a small village with approximately 200 bungalows, whose owners have rights to roam with the animals over the 3000 hectares.
I have been here for nearly two weeks with relatives and friends, including a Dutch couple, who were delayed 5 days in arriving because of the snow at Heathrow. They are in mild shock at the temperature differential.
Anyway, after reading Yrsa’s post yesterday and remembering the many times I wandered down the Mississippi from my house in Minneapolis to watch the New Year fireworks in sub-zero weather in degrees F (approximately -20 in those pesky C degrees), I decided to wish our readers best wishes from +40 degree weather (over 100 degrees F). And high humidity.
I would write more, but the heat is doing me in!
So, to all of you, whether hot or cold, I give you my hottest good wishes for a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2011.
Stan - Thursday
Stan - Thursday
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Thank you, Stan. The same to you and your's and Michael.
ReplyDeleteI would not trade my 20 inches of snow for your temperatures. When it is cold, I can move and get things done. When it hits 80F, I slow to a stop and when it gets over 90F my brain stops working.
The blizzard did complicate things south of New England for Christmas. New England got the snow beginning Christmas Day. All of my children were home, so that was all that mattered.
The Boston area has recovered nicely. New York City has not. As of late last night, there were still three city buses stuck in snow drifts, blocking the streets. Some poor souls sat and stood on a New York City train for 13 hours without heat or lights. Mayor Bloomberg is in something of a state because they have to have Times Square ready for the two million or so people who will arrive to stand in sub-freezing temperatures to watch a Waterford crystal orb glide very carefully on a precise route.
I will be home after having a New Year's celebration at my sister's home. We toast in the New Year at 6:00 pm; it is a celebration geared for 8, 6, and 3 year old girls who have to be in bed by 8:00. The parents get the night off while us old folk have party hats, horns, streamers, and ginger ale in fancy glasses. The set-up for the celebration is every bit as exciting as if it was at a gala.
Do you have zebras? The three year-old is crazy about zebras. Her birthday party included a backyard safari to find various stuffed zebras her mother had hidden in plain site.
Best wishes, Stan.
Beth
Ahhh I'm awful jealous of your temperatures! We have snow here in Eastern Canada. I do hope I get back to South Africa again this year!
ReplyDeleteI checked out the website! Wow, what an incredible place. I hope you share some photos with us.
ReplyDeleteJacquie
We've got your weather too Stan
ReplyDeleteAll the best to all for 2011