Hilton...is it really a good investment?

As you drive up Sweetwaters road and hit the boundary of Hilton leaving Pietermaritzburg, there is a board that states Hilton is a good place to invest. Well I sincerely beg to differ and I think that it is time the residents of Hilton and Winterskloof took a stand against the municipality.

When we left KZN, now almost 12 years ago, I remember the area to be very different to what it is today. Winterskloof was a quiet little country valley where everyone was friendly and everything ran smoothly.

We moved to a plot north of Pretoria at the end of February 2005, and that really was the back of beyond. It was for me a different lifestyle completely, but for Johan it was living in a way that took him back in time... a time when as a little boy he lived on a sheep farm in the Karoo where there was no electricity, no municipal water and no such thing as refuse removal.

On our plot we had 2 boreholes which were our water source and no refuse removal but we did have electricity. Boy oh boy did I tear my hair out in the first few years with the electricity as it went off at the drop of a hat... very frequently.  I remember one such time when it was off for almost 3 whole days. By this time the fridge and freezer had completely defrosted, our cell phones - which were our only communication with the outside world - were dead and our water tank had run dry. I was in tears as I told Johan that it was ridiculous we had to live like this when the country is supposed to be progressing.

Well we survived and just before the next elections our area was given a complete upgrade with our electricity. It worked  and it worked well as for the rest of the time we lived there, we had fewer power failures. This was of course all before the time of NiQi using oxygen so it did not cause me half as many headaches as I have these days.

Having moved back to our valley at the end of August 2015, we have been frustrated on so many levels by the way the infrastructure no longer seems to cope with the usage.  What bugs me more than anything though is the fact that now NiQi is on oxygen it is imperative we have a sustainable system that can cope. Over the years we have invested in a generator and an inverter which helps with the running of the fridge and the freezer etc but neither can cope with the running of her oxygen machine which pulls too much power to run it efficiently and effectively.  This means that she has to use her portable machine, which only lasts for 3 - 4 hours until it requires charging again.  So this means she goes to sleep later in the hope that the power will come back on and she doesn't have to use her portable.  If she is reduced to using her portable though then Johan and spend the night getting up to check that she is still alive and hasn't suddenly died as the alarm on her machine goes off with her falling into a deeper sleep.  Johan isn't as patient as I am when checking as he beats on her door and shines our 20W LED torch in her face making her wake looking like a deer caught in the path of an oncoming car with its headlights on bright.  I on the other hand enter her room on tiptoe by the light of my cell phone torch facing the floor, make my way to the side of her bed and gently move my head closer to hear if she is breathing. Never mind though that if the alarm on her machine goes off long enough, it wakes her too.

What really gets me though is that living in the valley we pay almost 900% more in rates every month than we did on the plot. Our electricity per kw is also more expensive here AND we have all sorts of extra charges that we are paying for that we never paid for there...

My argument to the municipality then is... where is all the extra money that is coming in every month going to if it cannot keep our infrastructure to a good workable level and really, if Hilton is such an upmarket neighbourhood as it is believed to be, maybe we should all be moving north to the plots where our money goes further... it may just be a better investment!!!

When 'old' friends meet

I believe it is friends and family that help us get through day to day life. They are our mainstay and without them we would be really sad lonely people. There is a saying, 'You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family' which in my case I have found to be very true. Families grow and extend and as different personalities and cultures become linked we learn to love because we are family but it does not mean we may like each other. I learned with time that as much as I tried I could not get everyone to love me let alone like me.  I am absolutely gullible when it comes to relationships and my nature and upbringing taught me to welcome anyone and everyone with open arms, however, little did I know that behind my back not everyone felt the same way about me.

With friends it is different. We make friends with people who we are attracted to or have something in common with and as our lives progress, we mature, circumstances change, we move on, and while some of those friendships may eventually die, there are only the best and strongest that survive.

Through my life I have gathered a handful, well maybe both handsful, of really good friends who have seen me through the highs and lows of my life and continued to stick around. One thing I have learned about friendships is we are able to be ourselves with little or no judgement. We can be brutally honest with each other and tell our best friends things that we may not open ourselves up to telling anyone else.

So on the eve of New Years Eve I met up with 3 friends from high school. We were trying to work out how long it had been since the four of us were together and we couldn't remember exactly but reckoned it must be about 12 years ago.  We have emailed and messaged and facebook commented and met up with one or two together  over the years but it took me moving back to KZN to get us all together again.  And guess what.... we picked up and chatted as if we had never been apart.  Our children are all adults now, scattered across the country and even the world but having followed each other all these years we knew exactly where they are and what they are doing. There was no pretence and that is what I enjoy about really good friends. 

2017

A new year, yes a new year and I wonder what lays before us in the coming months . We have made plans for 2017, not all set in stone, but we are working on the shell and filling in the gaps. Foremost in my mind is that our plans may not be God's plans and so we will pray that He will go before us and pave the way so if we have to make adjustments we will be geared towards doing this. I certainly hope for a better year for us this year, one where at the end of it we can look back in relief and say 'that was a good year'.... like they might say about a good wine.  I think friends and family must be getting tired of our gripes, tears and our fears from one year to the next and looking back recently I think the last time we had a year of any substance was in 2010. Of course there have been moments of happiness and joy and many of them have been shared with close family and friends. Our lives would be empty and dismal without people to share moments with and I am truly grateful we have those special people to do this with.

So bring on 2017, we are hopefully ready for you....