Risque moments at the B and B

I had a couple of naive and risque moments at the B and B.

The first was when a guy pitched up late afternoon looking for a room for a few hours while waiting for his friends. There was a young lady in the car with her nose buried in a magazine. He wasn't too keen to pay the full price for a room and I directed him to some other places down the road. I muttered to my friend Barbara that I thought his request was a bit odd and only brothels hired out rooms by the hour......Yip - I missed this completely!

The second moment happened the next day. There is an Italian gentleman staying at the B and B - he has been there for a month or so doing business around Harties. He trotted into breakfast and asked me to "do a full monty" for him. It took about 30 seconds for me to understand what he meant. He must have seen the look on my face - and then asked for white toast!

Open letter to Carl

Dear Carl

Well, I must say looking after your B and B for the past 10 days has been an amazing experience. I am publishing this letter on my blog so that the many people I know who have found my stay here hilarious and are just waiting to rat on me, know that I am keeping my promise to come clean.

If all I have achieved is to keep the local populous amused and entertained then I feel really good.

So here goes:

• I couldn't find a corkscrew on my first day and in desperation I tried to dig a cork out of a bottle of red wine. Anyway, whilst digging away at the cork it went rocketing into the bottle and a fountain of red wine came out. It was quite amazing - but you now have very clean walls in this part of the kitchen, a very clean fridge and I repainted this bit of the ceiling yesterday - the red seems to be covered and it took 4 coats of paint.
• I told you about the fire in the kitchen because at the time I was not sure if anything would work again and it was one the go when you phoned. I am pleased to say that the griller still works despite all the water that was thrown on and in it. There was a lot of smoke and ash - but the walls cleaned up pretty well and you wouldn't know that there were some really large flames.
• I thought I would dust the really splendid Ikea moulded wall hangings. When I touched one they all fell off the wall. Nothing was broken but it was damn hard to get them back up. It took about 5 days of them tumbling off at odd hours during the night and day (the dogs and I were a bit alarmed especially at night). But they are now up and haven't fallen down for 4 days.
• One morning we completely forgot to make the coffee so I quickly made some Woollies instant and dished that out till the coffee machine did its thing.
• For whatever reason, I must have turned the generator key one notch and when I leapt out to fire it up for the normal daily load shedding (damn nuisance this), the battery for the generator was flat. Well, everyone at the computer shop who shares the generator went home and I frantically found out that Ian had a charger and he said he would come later that day - which was quite all right because we had no power to charge the battery anyway. The generator is fine now.
• When I went to the petrol station to get more diesel for the generator, I filled up the jerry can only to discover that I couldn't pick it up and certainly not high enough to fill the generator. So we filled up another guys can I then I refilled my one to 2/3s. I could manage this. I was looked at strangely at the petrol station.
• The other morning, one of the new people who came here for "breakfast only" couldn't open the garden door - even though there is quite a big sign at eye level that says SLIDE. Instead of sliding the door he pulled it off the rollers and it took 3 of us to prop it up against the wall. The man who came to fix it said it weighed 366kg, which figures for a door made of railway sleeps. I had to block the doorway with chairs so the dogs wouldn't escape and we then had guests clambering over these to get in and out until I got it fixed.
• The Kreepy Krawly in the pool packed up and CJ from the computer shop fixed it for me. The pool now looks great.
• I slipped in the kitchen and somehow managed to drop a little foil wrapped butter down the toaster - which was madly toasting away. The foil caused a few sparks and the butter melted somewhat and made a very small fire. I couldn't have done this in a million years had I tried!
• I unblocked a drain and fixed the electricity every time it tripped. One of the guys from KPMG said he thought we had a special switchbox because power was restored so fast. I had this little operation down pat and moved like lightening.
• I am pleased to say that the dogs and garden are fine - nothing has died.
• I have processed invoices and credit card payments and no-one left without paying. Although, Number 4 did run off with the key this morning but I will email her tonight - hopefully she will post it to you.

There have been other little incidences, but I cant remember now - I am sure your staff, family and friends will tell you about them. And on this subject, you have super family and friends - I am not sure what I would have done without them. Ian was such a star and today Janet brought over Sushi and a bottle of wine for lunch – I could have cried. What stars - I do so appreciate them.

It has been a great deal of fun and I have enjoyed this little sojourn immensely. I did bring paints and canvases here, thinking that I would have time to knock up a couple of paintings - no such luck. I have been busy and a bit sleep deprived but I have had time to picture in my mind what these canvases will look like. I will get stuck into them when I return to Johannesburg tomorrow. I will miss walking the dogs every day and I will miss them. They have been super companions, kept me amused and I just might get myself a dog some day.

Thanks for this wonderful opportunity.

Liz

Lessons for learning

1. A short while ago I read an interesting snippet on how the people at the Bolshoi Ballet go about selecting young students for their school - and who will hopefully turn into the future stars. The main selectors said that they don’t necessarily always choose the best dancers; they will sometimes choose the ones who are willing to learn and be trained.

2. In addition to my regular Tai Chi class, I attend the beginners class as well. And I am not the only one – I think more than half the beginners class is made up of oldies. We have been taught to enter the class with an empty cup and fill it during the lesson. I am constantly amazed at how much I learn in the beginners class, things I thought I knew that I so obviously didn’t!

Perfect Poached Egg

I am about to head off to Haartbeespoort Dam to look after Carl Weldhagen's Bed and Breakfast - Khayamanzi [bookings@khayamanzi.co.za] - whilst he is taking a break from the hustle and bustle of this busy establishment. It is a beautiful BandB, each room delightfully decorated, super gardens and pool, fab outdoor area, big screens tvs, wireless connections and best of all, Carl serves up a breakfast feast to write home about - and he has 2 very charming huskies.

I also know that it is usually the simple things that trip you up - so I thought I would hone my egg cooking skills and look what I found on my google search: (dont get nervous now Carl)

Search Best Fried Eggs: 344,000 Sites - lots hey?


Search Best Scrambled Eggs: 3,250,000 Sites - can you believe it!!!

Search Best Poached Eggs: 1,600,000 Sites (haven't we got enough to do...)


At least I am not the only one who battles with Poached eggs (The scrambled egg results suprised me though).

With poached eggs I usually end up with eggy soup and it seems that so does everyone else despite claiming to have the perfect method for cooking them. But I did find a method on one of the sites that really, really works. I tested it yesterday afternoon and had my first perfect poached egg (some might argue it was actually coddled - but what the heck). With this method you also dont have to scrub a pan for half an hour getting rid of all the sticky gunky egg stuff - so this is what you do:

Line a tea cup with a largish piece of cling wrap. Break an egg into the cup and twist the cling wrap closed. Drop egg parcel into boiling water - time: depends on how you like your egg. Remove parcel with slotted spoon, open it up and hey presto - one cooked egg and clean pan. You can also use this method to precook eggs - put the parcel in the fridge and then just throw it back into boiling water for a minute or 2 the next day (eggs keep for 2 days like this in the fridge).

Enjoy

Well worth the 10 minutes

I came across this posting the other day on a blog from Presentation Zen. This is a lecture given by Dr Randy Pausch - actually a short version that he did on Oprah's show - entitled "Last Lecture". The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgyuYHXqlO4 and is just over 10 minutes long. It is truly an amazing lecture and very humbling. In August 2007 Dr Pausch was told that he had 3 - 6 months of healthy living left. This lecture was presented in September 2007.
Do yourself a favour and listen to this.

I was so right

Prior to the Zimbabwe elections, when asked who I thought would win, I said Mugabe of course! But this last week I really thought democracy was at last working and the situation was changing. I would have to eat humble pie and swallow my cynicism about the whole process. But I was right.....why on earth did anyone think that Mugabe would hand over the reins?

Zimbabwe Elections

Today is the 7th day after elections. The presidential election results have not been released and last night a couple of MDC supporters and international journalists were arrested. Had Mugabe played the election game this time a little bit better and used this as a PR exercise he could have salvaged a bit of his reputation - both at home and abroad.