A few thoughts

It definitely felt like the worst case of deja vu when we were driving around Edenvale this week.   The more you hang around in Gauteng, the more it hits you how little there is to do, other than go to the mall and spend money.   If you are lucky enough to have a pool, then that is great, at least you get away from the spend, spend, spend.   I can't believe how expensive things are, it's definitely not cheap, even converting things back to pounds.   I can get much better groceries and clothing in Norwich (I wouldn't have believed it previously) and for less than here in Gauteng.  The real scary thing was when we took a drive to the 'fat shop' near the East Rand Mall on Tuesday afternoon, so that I could look for some blouses (ridiculous prices - R189.50 for one flimsy chiffon shirt-style blouse, that would have been about R79.95 a year ago).  The toll road gantries are up and all over the place, it costs R6.67 to go through one gantry that is situated basically at the end of the highway at the ER Mall, so you pay that amount of money for a couple of metres and the same on the way back.  So over R13 just to go to Boksburg, plus your petrol - completely ridiculous.  Most people aren't paying the toll fees though.

Vinesh brought Tamika round after school yesterday afternoon and he was saying that he refuses to pay the fees, he's stacked up about a thousand rands worth of costs but says they can get stuffed.  We've heard other people are doing the same thing and that they will go to court rather than cough up the money.  What a mess.

Medical aid - well Andrew said that his was about ten thousand rand last month.  How on earth are people managing to survive with all these costs?  I have bought some clothes but begrudgingly because the price of things is just stupid.   Average price of a top R245.00 (and nothing special), skirts R280 to R600.  The price of kiddies clothing is insane.  And we went to Toys R Us yesterday so Ewan and Faye could buy some things with the money they got from their Granny for their holiday - you can't find anything under R50. Star Wars characters are phenomenally expensive - Ewan bought a Naboo Royal Righter with Obi-Wan-Kaboni figurine and that was almost R400.   The majority of Star Wars sets are over R600.

How's this?   You could buy a cheap good running full-size car in Norwich for the price of this toy child's
car:

Apologies if I seem a bit negative about the cost of living but it's really in your face when you're up here.
Kevin, Hayzel and the kids have gone through to Pretoria this morning to see Ouma, have lunch and then they will be coming back later on today.

The weather is lovely, sunny - a few large clouds about today. I went for a swim and am going back in the pool just now again.  Tamika and Faye swam in the pool most of yesterday afternoon and I understand Tamika is coming around again this afternoon and then on Sunday - when we will have a big gathering.  Vinesh has offered to make mutton curry for us all .. we'll see how that pans out. Andrew, Leigh and Daniel flew down to Durban yesterday evening and will be back on Sunday afternoon - they have gone to scope out the place and hopefully find a house to rent.