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26th Nov. - 25th Dec. 2004.
Well firstly – A BIG Happy Christmas & Mighty Splendid NYE to you all.
Hope it’s a right corker & all your dreams come true.
So after all the fun, games and many stupid kappers spent with Roger holidaying here for the last 3 weeks, I thought it was about time I finally pulled my finger out and started doing some sort of work.
(Of course if it’s sunny – then I have to keep the sun tan topped-up and I only do any real work when it rains – which on current counting is 5 days out of 91, so uumm!!) :-)))))
Abseiling.
And within 10 minutes of Rogers departure I am already abseiling down the cliffs of Hermanus Harbour. Abseiling could easily be my new sport, as it’s quite a thrill to be falling down the side of a cliff face to your sudden death, when the rode suddenly stops and you realise that death thankfully is not on the cards. There’s quite some skill and technique in being able to push off the cliff face with your legs, let go of the rode, free fall for awhile and bounce back onto the cliff face again without injury.
Film Editing.I have collected well over 5 hours of video film of all sorts of sports & adventures from the last
3 months, so I set about constructing & editing the footage so that it is all action and no boring bits, with added music and credits interlaced onto the film.
Each finished DVD of say 25 minutes of cut & edited film, can easily take 6 to 8 hours to compile, add music and edit; with the burning and arrangement of menus taking a further hour. This whole process takes a good days work to finally come up with a highly presentable, polished & professional looking movie.
More Housey bits.
Go over to my future house with my Architect in tow, so that we can do loads of measurements of the existing structure and the plot, so that we have a fair idea on what new buildings will fit onto the available space. Go and see my Geologist to discuss afew major foundation issues.
See my mortgage broker, my mortgage solicitor, my house solicitor (yes 2 solicitors, they do things abit weirdly over here – I’ll explain one day if you are interested) and a local surveyor to kick them all in the right direction.
Sandboarding.
And then zoom off to the smaller sand dunes at Vermont, as the Hostel has called me to say that there are afew people wanting DVD films of their action on the slopes. It’s a screaming hot day and one where a hat and sun block are most definitely required. Thankfully we go off to Onrus beach to be pounded by the cooling sea & massive waves. Excellent fun.
CivAir.
On the odd occasion that I do read a SA newspaper, I find out that the new cheap ticket airline run by CivAir in Cape Town, has sadly gone bust, stranding afew unhappy customers at the wrong end of the planet. This company’s demise is a right blow as they were looking like serious competition to the major carriers and had done their utmost to really hammer down flight prices by a third of what was already on offer.
Just goes to show that cheap is not always best and there’s a business moral for us all to ponder on there.
Business Visa.Well the big news this month is that after all the running around and mucking about –
I finally get my Business Visa thro’ which means that I can now stay here for 2 years – which is a huge relief and now means that all my future plans can now really start to get off the ground.
Including - finding & buying a vehicle so that I can finally get rid of this expensive £500 per month Hertz beauty I presently have. As well as obtaining the many mod-cons that will go into my new pad, like beds and sofas. Open a South Africa bank account and a PO Box for all that post.
After some waiting at my Printers, I finally obtain my first business cards, which even tho’ I say so myself, do look rather excellent – colourful, very informative and lamented.
The Vehicle Hunt is on.So off I go looking at motors that might fit my requirements. As we know, buying a vehicle is not an easy task. Many are too expensive, many are complete wrecks and some are just the wrong colour to match with what I am wearing today lovey !!!! hahhahhaaa !!!
I first start thinking that a cheap little zoom-around car is what I need, but finally go for the idea of a minibus so that I can have double usage from it - for the tourist tours that I will arrange with my new company Percy Tours - www.percytours.com and also use it to move about loads of bulky items that are bound to jump up in the next few months, like tv, fridges, cookers etc.
Minibuses however are very very expensive so it’s off to the bank to get a car loan (this is still to be agreed – so more info when I have it) And off I go to visit as many garages and vehicle dealers in Cape Town as possible. I see over 30 and test drive afew, b4 deciding on a tasty little VW Microbus. Which has only got 75,000 miles / 115,000 kms on the clock (these buses can easily go onto 250,000 miles / 380,000 kms, b4 things start to go wrong), plus central locking, alarm, immobiliser, cd player and the luxury of Air-Con, but it also has a very nifty anti-hijack immobiliser – which on the test drive certainly worked a treat – this works along the lines of – if you get hijacked or the vehicle gets nicked, then after about 200 metres the alarm starts making a right racket, the lights start flashing and the engine starts to stutter and cough and after about 1 km the engine completely dies. Which means all you have to do is walk up to your vehicle, bang the thieving "bar-steward" over the head with a rather large stick, while you calmly get back into the vehicle, press the magic hidden button and hay-presto you are off and motoring again – result!!
So hope to take control and ownership of this beauty in the next few days. Nice xmas pressie to myself – well if you don’t spoil yourself nowadays then who the hell will. Haven’t decided on a nick-name for it yet, so any suggestions from you guys will be most welcome.
Temporary House Move.As if all this wasn’t quite enough to be getting on with, I had to move house again – this time into a flat, as the house I was living in suddenly has its rent going up by 3 times as much - it’s the summer school holidays and rental prices go thro’ the roof in this holiday town by the sea.
My Architect has suggested that I obtain the official building plans and dimensions of the house from the council, so that we have accurate measurements of what’s already on the plot and also suggests that I start to draw up afew basic floor plans of how I would like to have my future house. This is great fun and after afew days and many pads of graph paper, I finally have what looks like a good shape and a functional house.
On one of my many zooms thro’ to Cape Town to look at vehicles on garage forecourts, I have the misfortune to see my 1st dead person. He was a right bloody mess as he’s been run over by 3 minibus taxis on a fast & busy 4 lane stretch of road. Yuck !!!!
Hostel Kappers.At the Hostel one evening, I bump into 3 very excellent humans – Nick & Jacqueline and Steve. All fellow Brits in their early 30s and we get on like a house on fire. Steve is going up the east coast and intents to drive up to Vic Falls, while Nick & Jacqueline are on a year out and off to Oz in afew days – (Nick amazingly has been travelling for the last 9 years and has many fine stories to tell)
They are all off on a Shark Dive and after much salesmanship skills from myself, I finally persuade them to buy 2 Shark DVDs from me of their dives and sharky action. This deal is only concluded after me losing many games of pool (on purpose of course) and some pretty major piss-taking and haggling.
Very entertaining.
Great White Shark Cage Diving, Gansbaai.The wind was full on and our boat has to jump thro’ some pretty big waves b4 we are out onto the open ocean and even then the boat is constantly rocking backwards and forwards. Thank goodness for travel sickness tablets. The visibility in the sea is therefore only a metre because of this continuous swell, so many divers decide to just view from the top deck of the boat.
We have 3 smaller great white sharks of about 2 metres each, visit us fairly swiftly, but they only stay around for half an hour b4 we are left with a very patient (and boring) waiting game and the arrival afew hours later of a monster 5 metre shark. This magnificent creature stays around for at least an hour and is the crowning glory for the day. The film footage is excellent, even if the waves make it alittle rocky. Later that evening I purchase the video footage from a fellow cameraman and now have 2 completely different view points of that todays action.
And while we are on the subject of great white sharks – the Press over here summed up the possibility of being eaten by a shark in South African waters as very very rare (1 death in every 1 ½ years).
Compared with 350 people drowning in South Africa last year & Worldwide over 150 people die from coconuts landing on their heads. Sobering thoughts.
Music Overload.
I find out that one of my local restaurants has a huge collection of music of some 10,000 tunes, so I do abit of bartering and obtain their entire collection for just afew 1000 of my tunes. That currently makes my music collection some 100GB and 25000 songs. Cool, lets party!!!
Info on South Africa.For those of you wanting to know tons more about this completely outrageous part of the world, should hop down to their local newsagent and purchase a copy of the new and fabulously informative - Time Out – Cape Town 2005, available at the very reasonably price of £4.99 – bucket loads of fab info and pictures…………Tho’ there’s not a Percy Tours advert in there just yet. I will be having afew angry words with my marketing team in a second :-)))
Looks like I will be putting on a few kilos this Christmas day as I have been invited to 3 xmas dinners. So guess I better start that abseiling hobby pretty soon, so that I start to burn off all those calories.
That’s about the lot for this month – apart from me wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a joy fine New Years Eve celebrations.
Loads of love to all, cheers
Percy “Abseiling down a cliff, with a Great White Shark biting at my butt”
www.percytours.com
Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.
26th Nov. - 25th Dec. 2004.
Well firstly – A BIG Happy Christmas & Mighty Splendid NYE to you all.
Hope it’s a right corker & all your dreams come true.
So after all the fun, games and many stupid kappers spent with Roger holidaying here for the last 3 weeks, I thought it was about time I finally pulled my finger out and started doing some sort of work.
(Of course if it’s sunny – then I have to keep the sun tan topped-up and I only do any real work when it rains – which on current counting is 5 days out of 91, so uumm!!) :-)))))
Abseiling.
And within 10 minutes of Rogers departure I am already abseiling down the cliffs of Hermanus Harbour. Abseiling could easily be my new sport, as it’s quite a thrill to be falling down the side of a cliff face to your sudden death, when the rode suddenly stops and you realise that death thankfully is not on the cards. There’s quite some skill and technique in being able to push off the cliff face with your legs, let go of the rode, free fall for awhile and bounce back onto the cliff face again without injury.
Film Editing.I have collected well over 5 hours of video film of all sorts of sports & adventures from the last
3 months, so I set about constructing & editing the footage so that it is all action and no boring bits, with added music and credits interlaced onto the film.
Each finished DVD of say 25 minutes of cut & edited film, can easily take 6 to 8 hours to compile, add music and edit; with the burning and arrangement of menus taking a further hour. This whole process takes a good days work to finally come up with a highly presentable, polished & professional looking movie.
More Housey bits.
Go over to my future house with my Architect in tow, so that we can do loads of measurements of the existing structure and the plot, so that we have a fair idea on what new buildings will fit onto the available space. Go and see my Geologist to discuss afew major foundation issues.
See my mortgage broker, my mortgage solicitor, my house solicitor (yes 2 solicitors, they do things abit weirdly over here – I’ll explain one day if you are interested) and a local surveyor to kick them all in the right direction.
Sandboarding.
And then zoom off to the smaller sand dunes at Vermont, as the Hostel has called me to say that there are afew people wanting DVD films of their action on the slopes. It’s a screaming hot day and one where a hat and sun block are most definitely required. Thankfully we go off to Onrus beach to be pounded by the cooling sea & massive waves. Excellent fun.
CivAir.
On the odd occasion that I do read a SA newspaper, I find out that the new cheap ticket airline run by CivAir in Cape Town, has sadly gone bust, stranding afew unhappy customers at the wrong end of the planet. This company’s demise is a right blow as they were looking like serious competition to the major carriers and had done their utmost to really hammer down flight prices by a third of what was already on offer.
Just goes to show that cheap is not always best and there’s a business moral for us all to ponder on there.
Business Visa.Well the big news this month is that after all the running around and mucking about –
I finally get my Business Visa thro’ which means that I can now stay here for 2 years – which is a huge relief and now means that all my future plans can now really start to get off the ground.
Including - finding & buying a vehicle so that I can finally get rid of this expensive £500 per month Hertz beauty I presently have. As well as obtaining the many mod-cons that will go into my new pad, like beds and sofas. Open a South Africa bank account and a PO Box for all that post.
After some waiting at my Printers, I finally obtain my first business cards, which even tho’ I say so myself, do look rather excellent – colourful, very informative and lamented.
The Vehicle Hunt is on.So off I go looking at motors that might fit my requirements. As we know, buying a vehicle is not an easy task. Many are too expensive, many are complete wrecks and some are just the wrong colour to match with what I am wearing today lovey !!!! hahhahhaaa !!!
I first start thinking that a cheap little zoom-around car is what I need, but finally go for the idea of a minibus so that I can have double usage from it - for the tourist tours that I will arrange with my new company Percy Tours - www.percytours.com and also use it to move about loads of bulky items that are bound to jump up in the next few months, like tv, fridges, cookers etc.
Minibuses however are very very expensive so it’s off to the bank to get a car loan (this is still to be agreed – so more info when I have it) And off I go to visit as many garages and vehicle dealers in Cape Town as possible. I see over 30 and test drive afew, b4 deciding on a tasty little VW Microbus. Which has only got 75,000 miles / 115,000 kms on the clock (these buses can easily go onto 250,000 miles / 380,000 kms, b4 things start to go wrong), plus central locking, alarm, immobiliser, cd player and the luxury of Air-Con, but it also has a very nifty anti-hijack immobiliser – which on the test drive certainly worked a treat – this works along the lines of – if you get hijacked or the vehicle gets nicked, then after about 200 metres the alarm starts making a right racket, the lights start flashing and the engine starts to stutter and cough and after about 1 km the engine completely dies. Which means all you have to do is walk up to your vehicle, bang the thieving "bar-steward" over the head with a rather large stick, while you calmly get back into the vehicle, press the magic hidden button and hay-presto you are off and motoring again – result!!
So hope to take control and ownership of this beauty in the next few days. Nice xmas pressie to myself – well if you don’t spoil yourself nowadays then who the hell will. Haven’t decided on a nick-name for it yet, so any suggestions from you guys will be most welcome.
Temporary House Move.As if all this wasn’t quite enough to be getting on with, I had to move house again – this time into a flat, as the house I was living in suddenly has its rent going up by 3 times as much - it’s the summer school holidays and rental prices go thro’ the roof in this holiday town by the sea.
My Architect has suggested that I obtain the official building plans and dimensions of the house from the council, so that we have accurate measurements of what’s already on the plot and also suggests that I start to draw up afew basic floor plans of how I would like to have my future house. This is great fun and after afew days and many pads of graph paper, I finally have what looks like a good shape and a functional house.
On one of my many zooms thro’ to Cape Town to look at vehicles on garage forecourts, I have the misfortune to see my 1st dead person. He was a right bloody mess as he’s been run over by 3 minibus taxis on a fast & busy 4 lane stretch of road. Yuck !!!!
Hostel Kappers.At the Hostel one evening, I bump into 3 very excellent humans – Nick & Jacqueline and Steve. All fellow Brits in their early 30s and we get on like a house on fire. Steve is going up the east coast and intents to drive up to Vic Falls, while Nick & Jacqueline are on a year out and off to Oz in afew days – (Nick amazingly has been travelling for the last 9 years and has many fine stories to tell)
They are all off on a Shark Dive and after much salesmanship skills from myself, I finally persuade them to buy 2 Shark DVDs from me of their dives and sharky action. This deal is only concluded after me losing many games of pool (on purpose of course) and some pretty major piss-taking and haggling.
Very entertaining.
Great White Shark Cage Diving, Gansbaai.The wind was full on and our boat has to jump thro’ some pretty big waves b4 we are out onto the open ocean and even then the boat is constantly rocking backwards and forwards. Thank goodness for travel sickness tablets. The visibility in the sea is therefore only a metre because of this continuous swell, so many divers decide to just view from the top deck of the boat.
We have 3 smaller great white sharks of about 2 metres each, visit us fairly swiftly, but they only stay around for half an hour b4 we are left with a very patient (and boring) waiting game and the arrival afew hours later of a monster 5 metre shark. This magnificent creature stays around for at least an hour and is the crowning glory for the day. The film footage is excellent, even if the waves make it alittle rocky. Later that evening I purchase the video footage from a fellow cameraman and now have 2 completely different view points of that todays action.
And while we are on the subject of great white sharks – the Press over here summed up the possibility of being eaten by a shark in South African waters as very very rare (1 death in every 1 ½ years).
Compared with 350 people drowning in South Africa last year & Worldwide over 150 people die from coconuts landing on their heads. Sobering thoughts.
Music Overload.
I find out that one of my local restaurants has a huge collection of music of some 10,000 tunes, so I do abit of bartering and obtain their entire collection for just afew 1000 of my tunes. That currently makes my music collection some 100GB and 25000 songs. Cool, lets party!!!
Info on South Africa.For those of you wanting to know tons more about this completely outrageous part of the world, should hop down to their local newsagent and purchase a copy of the new and fabulously informative - Time Out – Cape Town 2005, available at the very reasonably price of £4.99 – bucket loads of fab info and pictures…………Tho’ there’s not a Percy Tours advert in there just yet. I will be having afew angry words with my marketing team in a second :-)))
Looks like I will be putting on a few kilos this Christmas day as I have been invited to 3 xmas dinners. So guess I better start that abseiling hobby pretty soon, so that I start to burn off all those calories.
That’s about the lot for this month – apart from me wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a joy fine New Years Eve celebrations.
Loads of love to all, cheers
Percy “Abseiling down a cliff, with a Great White Shark biting at my butt”
www.percytours.com
Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.
