Cabin Fever

I’ve had an entire Sunday without internet access, which is a real pain in the ass – I was looking forward to catching up with everyone on email, Facebook, even Skype if I was lucky. So much for that. Anyway, as much as I feel isolated, confined in solitary, I’m by no means stuck in a garret. So, in lieu of anything else to report, here’s a guided tour of my humble abode…

This first shot is the exterior from the road (once you’re past the huge metal gates, that is). The doors open into an enclosed porch/lobby that keeps the heat from coming in the front door (in the studio shot, that’s the door on the far left). The windows above the door serve a small boardroom on the second floor and, on the top floor, you can see the sliding doors and railing of the small balcony where I have a pre-bedtime smoke and nightcap most nights. There’s only standing room as it’s mainly taken up by two large air conditioning extractor units that blast out hot air; it gets very toasty.

Below is the second floor - my living area. There’s a dining room table, lounge suite to pass out on and a nice big screen TV with DSTv to pass out to. The square black box on the table to the right of my laptop is a compact speaker system I bought, wearying of listening to music through headphones. 

The recess on the left opens onto the small boardroom I mentioned above.

                                                                                                               

The reverse POV (right) is taken from the recess looking towards the back of the house. The staircase in the middle goes up to the third floor and two bedrooms (the main one being mine, directly above the lounge). On the other side of the staircase the passage leads to two smaller bedrooms. The stairs on the extreme right descend to the ground floor; the window looks into the pool area, accessed via an exterior door to the right.

At the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door is to the left and a door on the right opens to the pool area.

 

 

 

 

If you turn back towards the front door you’re in my alternative living area, a.k.a. the office/studio. I sit in the corner next to the window on the far right.

And that’s it; 
My home-sweet-grindstone!

I'm really looking forward to getting back online (in this lifetime) so I can post this! The wireless internet thingy was hit and fried by a power surge on Saturday and they’re still battling to fix/replace it. In anticipation, I’ll pre-date this post so it makes chronological sense.                                                

In the meantime, here are two more interesting items spotted around the house. 

 

The first is an attractive little fellow about 35cm long. He hangs out around the gatehouse and when you approach he bobs his head (much like our agamas). If you keep advancing, he bolts. They’re pretty common, like our skinks. Besides them I’ve only seen a few small, pale yellowish pink geckoes on the exterior walls. There’s practically no wildlife here – hardly any gardens – and the air con inside is too cold for most self-respecting creatures! 
That excludes the accursed stealth mozzies (no whine; no warning).  

This is plantain, which I thought was a giant banana (in the market yesterday there were bunches of them piled ceiling high under the zinc roof).  The pic below right shows how these monsters compare to real bananas. My sample was fried, apparently that makes them sweeter. They taste like a cross between a banana and a potato, the texture more closely resembling the latter.  Far tastier  was the croaker we braaied on Sunday afternoon. It’s a silver coarse-scaled fish, about the size of a large trout, with flesh a bit like hake, but bones more reminiscent of snoek (although not as numerous). Stuffed with chopped tomato, onion and spices and served with a tomato, chili and lime salsa (mild by local standards, but with a respectable bite) and fries - the best fish & chips in town!