New Year’s greetings, dear reader

Happy New Year to you! May it bring peace, prosperity and plenty of rain to fill our empty dams.

With an election around the corner, campaigning will flood South Africa with yet more promises of positive change in our beleaguered country. New political parties, such as Patricia de Lille’s ‘Good’ party (all others are, by implication, assumed to be bad), will emerge, but are unlikely to diminish voter opposition support.

Will President Cyril Ramaphosa assert his authority to curb corruption and fraud and attract investment to revive our depressed economy as he has promised to do?

December saw the lights go out as Eskom inflicted power outages on us, blaming a shortage of coal and the need for maintenance. This is despite a new management board and political promises that it would not happen. The resultant surges have wreaked havoc on farms and in cities as electrical appliances have malfunctioned.

Fuel prices diminished slightly as a sop to lighten the blow for holiday travellers. The UK’s Brexit debacle is still big news. Prime Minister Theresa May has survived a vote of no confidence, so let’s see what happens next!

Locally, the State Capture Commission is yet to issue its report on who is guilty of fraud and malfeasance. In sombre mood, neighbour Jan and I discussed all this over morning coffee on my stoep.

“There’s nothing we can do to change things, Townie, other than run our farms efficiently and pray for rain!”

Jan’s New Year’s message is sage advice: worry about the things you can change and have another Klippies for those you can’t! Remove your money from under your mattress and invest it in Kruger Rands, the new world currency. Forget cryptocurrency!

Daughter Dear is visiting us from Ireland next month. She asked what we’d like for a Christmas present. A powerful, battery-operated lamp for when Eskom turns off the power, I suggested. Not much fun trying to catch up on family news at night in the dark! – Derek Christopher • Email Derek Christopher at farmersweekly@caxton.co.za. Subject line: Townie.