This has nothing to do with travel | Travels through a geek's mind

Jul 29 2014

Beautiful country of mine, Experiences, I <3 Pretoria, Joburg, Photos, South Africa, This has nothing to do with travel

Receiving 15 aircraft in your back-yard

I’ve always said that I am a little left of normal and this is true of my entire family. Case in point: my sister Christelle is a student pilot, and her love of aviation combined with my mother’s love for cooking lead to this amazing breakfast fly-in.

We proved a while back that the farm where I grew up is the perfect wedding venue, but Christelle took it one step further this past Saturday by receiving 15 aircraft for breakfast.

The morning started with a true Zandfontein wind, blowing everyone setting up to receive guests hither and thither. The weather app on my phone claimed that it was only gusting at 16kmph (just over 8 knots for those aviatory-folk), but it sure felt and sounded like far more.

By 11:00 the wind had calmed down significantly, and the 900m runway had received a number of slings. The helicopters were lined up nicely and Mike Rumble literally dropped in on the festivities.

If you love great food and want to experience something slightly different in the Joburg and Pretoria vicinity, keep an eye on 29 Zandfontein’s Facebook page for the next event. It should be a lovely lunch in October.

All images by the author: © catterflyworx 2014. Please contact me if you would like to use any images from this site.

Tagged Air shows, Aviation, Fly-in, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Site-seeing in Johannesburg, Site-seeing in Pretoria, Things to do, Weekend

Oct 22 2013

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Experiences, I <3 Pretoria, Life in the Capital City, South Africa, This has nothing to do with travel Image

The final count-down

A little less than two weeks to go.

Meet Ceara 🙂

Ceara (Photo by Yolandi van der Linde)

Tagged For the love of cute, Pets, Pretoria, South Africa

Oct 03 2013

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Doctor Who, Experiences, Fandoms, Poetry, This has nothing to do with travel, Uncategorized Quote

We watched “A good man goes to war” last night, and this poem has been stuck in my head. It’s amazingly sad and incredibly awesome.

“Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war

Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war

Demons run, but count the cost
The battle’s won, but the child is lost”

– Steven Moffat

Moffat gives me chills

Tagged Doctor Who, Steven Moffat, Whovian

Sep 30 2013

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Experiences, Life, Life in the Capital City, Photos, South Africa, This has nothing to do with travel Image

Dîner en Blanc Johannesburg 2013

We spent Friday night at the very first Dîner en Blanc Johannesburg, which was also the first DeB in South Africa. It was fantastic! There are more photos on the Facebook page as well.

Francois and I at Monte Casino before the event.

Waiting for the bus at Monte Casino. Yes, my husband is really tall 🙂

My sister putting the final touches on their table.

Other guests setting their table decorations and enjoying some good company

Christelle at Diner en Blanc Johannesburg

Andrea Vermaak at Diner en Blanc Johannesburg

A guest table set with candles

The moment everyone’s been waiting for, sparklers!

Sparkly dresses and skies at Diner en Blanc Johannesburg

All images by the author: © catterflyworx 2013. Please contact me if you would like to use any images from this site.

Tagged Diner en Blanc, Diner en Blanc Johannesburg, Diner en Blanc South Africa, Johannesburg

Sep 23 2013

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Gaming, ReBlogged, This has nothing to do with travel

So this is what the end of the world looks like

I discovered this site last week and am loving every bit of it. This game in particular has caught my fancy and it’s a Kickstarter I’d love to see succeed.

1001-Up.com

Hinterland Studio Inc’s project for their first-person post-disaster survival simulation The Long Dark has a funding deadline of 16 October 2013 on the Kickstarter website. At the time of writing it has already received $54,692 CAD of its $200,000 CAD target and, with over three weeks still left to go, we’re getting behind this curious title.

I initially came across The Long Dark on Emily Clare Afan’s blog earlier this week and then headed over to Kickstarter to take a closer look. To be honest, I can’t say I’ve played many survival games and I’ve found the recent influx of post-apocalypse titles uninspiring (take a look at our Zombies have feelings too video if you haven’t seen it yet). But to come across something in the genre that doesn’t feature the undead – and looks absolutely stunning to boot – then count me in.

Players take on the role of…

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Tagged gamer, gaming, Kickstarter campaigns

Sep 23 2013

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I <3 Pretoria, Life in the Capital City, South Africa, This has nothing to do with travel

Sunday quick-fixes

After an amazing Saturday night at the zoo, we spent most of Sunday lazing about. We did however manage to tick one of the ‘to do’ items off the list, by finally upgrading a sad patch of lawn into a garden path.

We seem incapable of nurturing grass to grow here, and this section is mainly used as a walkway in any case. We used found materials from other patches in the garden, and I think this is a vast improvement. This week we start on the mammoth plan for our veggie garden.

Sunday home-DIY (that cost zero monies) FTW.

The before and after of a sad stretch of lawn in our garden.

Tagged Before & After, garden, garden paths, home DIY

Sep 12 2013

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Experiences, This has nothing to do with travel Aside

I’m bad at updating this blog and I suspect it’s because I
a) over-think things, and
b) feel that I need to post new items that are relevant to what’s on here already.

Clearly, this approach is not getting us anywhere. Inspired by Jen Christie‘s (slightly mad) #30dayblogs challenge, things are changing around here.

Change is good (get it?)

I’m not quite up for the epicness of Jen’s approach, but I do need to get things going again. I have a vast and very diverse interest (and slight obsession, at times) in many things, which has not been reflected up to now.

So prepare yourselves, minions. From here on forth, there will be a great deal of #randomness going on here, which I believe will be awesome.

For the travel junkies who originally started following my Eurotrip2012 reminiscence… We are planning a trip to Iceland and Russia in December 2014, so I promise you’ll still get something out of me!

A change in Pace

Tagged South Africa

Apr 10 2013

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Experiences, I <3 Pretoria, South Africa, This has nothing to do with travel Gallery

Turning our house into a home: the before & after

In December 2012, we moved into our very own house. As first time home owners, the first week was filled with excitement. The four months following that first week, has been filled with a lot of hard work.

The reward has been worth it though, as this past weekend was the first one since the beginning of December last year that there was no ‘To Do’ list. No more walls to paint. No builders tramping through the house and no more small little things niggling at my conscious to get done.

Well, I’m lying. There was one more thing. It read: “Take and post some before and after photos.”

Done.

Master bedroom

Second bedroom. (Seriously guys, I was not making an extra bed in the house purely for the pics. Sorry!)

Study. The walls were a slighter lighter green that that cabinet.

Study

Lounge. The parquet flooring was in immaculate condition. This is the first time in 47 years that the wood has been exposed, it was covered in carpets as soon as the previous owners moved in.

Kitchen, with lots of space for wine. One can never have enough wine (or books).

Kitchen

Scullery

Pantry

Dining room (we still need a table, so in the meantime you get to look at my amazing Belweb wardrobe)

Bathroom

For those of you who want more info, our work regime was roughly as follows:

Remove all carpets, replace with laminate wood flooring in all bedrooms and study. Sand and varnish parquet floor in lounge, dining area and hallway.
Resurface the bath, basin and toilet (changing the colour of the enamel from blue to white).
Move into the house.
Unpack most of the boxes. Don’t unpack everything, as we’ll have contractors in the house for the next two months.
Remove all curtain pelmets.
[DIY] Paint the bathroom, WC, hallway, master bedroom, lounge, and dining room.
[DIY] Mount curtain rails and hang newly made curtains in lounge (YAY!!).
Pack the kitchen back up and use the study as a temporary kitchen.
Demolish kitchen.
Start replacing the kitchen.
Remove tiles from wall in study.
[DIY] Put cornices up in kitchen.
[DIY] Paint cornices, kitchen walls, study.
Unpack the rest of the boxes, including the kitchen (again).
Build and [DIY] cover frame for TV mount to hide cables.
[DIY] Mount TV-cable-hider-frame and TV (at 2am the night before your housewarming).
Enjoy fabulous new kitchen while preparing food for said housewarming 🙂