I Blinked.....

....and suddenly five years have passed since my last post. Suddenly my grandson is eight years old. Cell phones do have marginally better battery life and oodles more memory, not to mention magical integration almost negating the need for a PC. Zuma bowed out somewhat less than gracefully and Robert Mugabe is keeping more than a stiff upper lip somewhere below the Zimbabwe ruins, to which he contributed so generously.

We have the advent of Senor Trump, a property development genius, I'm told,  planning a monumental Wall between the United States and Mexico, I imagine, to boost air traffic and reduce road congestion. It would also contribute a little something to boost tourism. much like the Great Wall of China does for China. After all, who wouldn't take serious note,  these days, of things made in China? China probably used fairly cheap labour at the time for that great enterprise, so perhaps the intrepid Mr Trump will use an American construction company in Mexico to build the Wall from the Mexican side....and just to demonstrate a spirit of co-operation, he might use illegal immigrants to build from the American. side.


A great deal has happened across the globe in those five years, but it seems that I'll have to do a lot more blinking before any real change happens here in South Africa. Or perhaps I just can't see it with all the power outages...

A couple of months ago.  I retired to a lovely little town called Margate, on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast. The lifestyle and the people are truly wonderful - and this is where my blog tapped me on the shoulder to get back to it.

Life is a lot different here from the hustle and bustle, gangsters and crime of the Gauteng province (Johannesburg and the East Rand), where I formerly resided. Here, people are friendly and neighbourly. Even the teenagers  and drunks are polite and agreeable. Somehow there's no guilt or resentment at being overcharged for goods and services, it's all just conducted in a mellow spirit of  brotherly acceptance, lol! Until recently power outages occurred  three times a day for two-hour stretches each - and even though it was extremely disruptive, it was accepted with a shrug. For us it was just a case of when we should plan to go to the shop, when we should cook  - and go to the beach during the outages; or be in bed. Oh....and, of course, to see that the cell phones and laptops were charged in time! Very important, that. We can skip a meal, but perish the thought of missing a WhatsApp message or neglecting Instagram!

Time  to shake the sand from my shorts and take a careful peek back into the global community of Tweets, rumours and exciting technology!