Healthy oldies
A beaded seascape… while underground cables snake their way home
THE BEST news I’ve had in recent days is the story on the front page of our village newspaper reporting that underground cables are “snaking their way” towards me. I have lived in my seaside home for about 40 years and have always considered it the best place in the world.
The view from my front window changes every day, offering me wild seas, calm days, whales, dolphins and seabirds, not to mention sailing boats and kayaks adding colour.
There has been only one blot on my lovely seascape.
Right in front of my house is an electricity supply pole topped by a cluster of ceramic insulators, tangled wires and very rusted connections.
From time to time the salty sea wind corrodes the wires and I experience my own private load shedding.
I call for help and the electricity department chaps are always very efficient.
They arrive within an hour of my call and reconnect the rusty wires, leaving yet another little connector bolted on to the overhead cable.
It looks like a tatty string of beads by now, each bead telling of one more power outage.
It features in every photograph I take from my front stoep.
“Look, here’s one of a whale breaching behind my electricity pole, and this one is of a fishing boat behind my pole.
“Here’s a shot of two dolphins leaping out of the water behind my pole…”
It must be the most photographed pole in South Africa.
I have pleaded time and again to have the eyesore removed and now, at last, it seems my pleas will be answered.
Apparently work is to start soon laying underground cables between Clovelly and Simon’s Town, and that means my pole will finally go.
I can hardly wait. An interesting, but by no means surprising, statistic released in the British Sunday Times recently showed that the richest 5 percent of people in England live to an average age of 96.2 years. The poorest 10 percent of the population live to an average age of only 62.
This seems to indicate that if you’re rich enough you can buy yourself an extra 30 years of life.
Of course the obvious reason for the difference is that rich people can afford private health care and expensive treatments for their ailments, not to mention being able to eat well and spend leisure time in healthy pursuits and on sunshine holidays.
The secret of life, however, is not the number of years you live, but the amount of joy you share in those years.
There’s not much fun in living to 96 if all your friends are long dead and the people around you are just waiting for you to fall off your perch so they can inherit your money.
Last Laugh
Two fathers were discussing their children.
“My son decided to go into business for himself,” said the one, “and he started on a shoestring. Within a year he had tripled his investment, but he’s still not satisfied.” “Why not?” asked his friend. “He can’t decide what to do with three shoestrings.”
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