Some background: Oliver (flashed? – correct me if I’m wrong guys?) 3 grades harder than his previous best redpoint.  Respect…

For the connoisseur: spot the reference to the grade 33/34 route…..again, well  done Denny!! Sneaky!!

“Charged particles from the sun will strike the Earth on Tuesday after a huge solar flare erupted on Monday.

The M9-class solar flare was observed by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and erupted from a sunspot on Monday at 03:59 GMT, SpaceWeather.com reported.

The coronal mass ejection or CME is travelling to Earth at 2 200km/s which means that it could potentially cause communications disruptions to networks on the planet that could include disabling satellites in its path.

In the polar regions people could observe spectacular auroras, that may even be visible at lower latitudes.

The CME may have a particular impact in South Africa because of the South Atlantic Anomaly where the Earth’s magnetic field is weakest.

The CME is scheduled to hit at about 14:18 GMT on Tuesday and South Africans should take care to avoid being exposed directly to the sun.”

A brief explanation from this site: “I went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland last Friday. Overall, I thought it was pretty great, but one part in particular really stuck out to me. In one scene, the Mad Hatter is talking to Alice and telling her that the last time she visited Wonderland (this film is based on her second trip down the rabbit hole), she was “much muchier” and this time around she seemed to have lost her “muchness.” According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, muchness means “the quality or state of being in great quantity, extent, or degree.”

I’ve had such a full December holiday I honestly don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with Muchness…..

Much more Muchier
Nico: We got the gnome and named it Mr Muchness after the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland scene. Ja ja, a bit silly I know. The idea is really just to have some fun, use it as an excuse to do silly things and go out to unusual places a bit more. We will return it, promise….

I just got back from a “Muchness does Blackwoods” outing

So the short (unplanned) version is we’re going to be taking Mr Muchness out & about. He’ll be climbing, visiting museums and having an ungodly new years party. He may or may not have a Naboomspruit trip coming up this week – still to be decided.

I am NAFI. With all the love in my heart: I want to be alone for a little while – I don’t mind the odd friend, but no more family, please, not mine or yours. It’s heart warming to see how friend’s families and my own are taking me in, taking care of me, but I want to visit the dark side for a bit. It’s really just that time, and it’s really not all bad.

Just to keep me honest, upcoming updates:
I caught up with the oke who stole my wallet.
Carnival of the last drumming circle.
Pool party at Nea’s
Christmas with the Potties

…..and maybe, if I’m really tipsy, the thing I share with Nelson Mandela

Anne posted a request for help getting a cat down which was at the time of her posting stuck on outside of a building on the 13th floor for a couple of days already. It appeared that no-one else was paying any attention and I had some time on my hands.

Embrace your inner fireman
I must start off with saying that I’m scared of heights, not full blown acrophobia, but a good case of getting jelly legs & feeling very shaky when I get close to the edge of a high place. I had to give myself a proper pep talk before going over that edge and definitely thought “What was I thinking to volunteer for this?!”

Enjoying the view from 16 floors up

The request was to just locate the cat as they had lost sight of it. From there they would place a baited cage and hope for the best. In the end my whole effort was a bit of a waste of time: we had some miscommunication regarding where I should look and I left my phone on the roof – by the time I got back up to phone Anne they had spotted the cat again. From there I helped  little with setting up the cage and left.

Two days and a second cage later the cat was safely inside. Anne took it to the vet for a checkup and reports that it was all skin & bone but otherwise healthy.

In the process of doing my first kefir trade, got offered a full manicure – unexpected, but then again that’s exactly what I had in mind I’m pretty happy to have made the first trade, delivery this week, manicure in a bit. Just plain fun doing something different.

Did all my preparations for the wine tasting - got the guest list & had a second dry run on the snacks at Elmari’s cozy dinner party - the test subjects were duly impressed. Now for the main event…

I’m having a ton of fun with my new climbing partner, climbing harder than I probably ever have. I’ve been getting in good practice on my bouldering wall (up @ Elna’s place, no space here and there I at least have a training partner too) and with another reliable and trustworthy partner it’s easy to push myself harder.

I did my first trad lead this weekend and I do believe I’m hooked. Such an adventure, even if the climbing is easy.

I do think I’m going to go on many more big adventures with Johan in all sorts of places, from the crags of Gauteng to some remote walls in the countryside - looking forward to it!!!

Congrats to Nico on his internship!! It was really good to hear that, knowing you’ve been working hard towards it. Hope you have a lot of fun doing what you love.

That’s me, I have a date with the couch…

 Buildering 2011-11-01

Lets start with last Sunday:
The boulder hunting expedition (“aka Things to do while you’re trying not to worry about whether she likes you or not”)
I had Monday off, thus making myself a nice long weekend (Tuesday was Woman’s day). I heard of some boulders in Pretoria so I decided to go look for it, pretty good fun and I managed to find 1 of the 3 reported sites, see some wild life and just plain have a good walk.

PS: I was invited for videos later

Gautrain. It works!! (Monday)
What fun! The whole Gautrain card system was a bit confusing at the start, but all the staff is super helpful and once you’ve figured it out, it’s quite simple (probably like most thing s in life?) We took a trip to Hatfield, had a very trendy meal at a deli and returned to Centurion. The one thing that stood out for me is that the total waiting time there and back was probably less than 5 minutes.

Josie Field Woman’s day show @ Cafe Culture. (Tuesday)
I can’t really say much more than this is a must-see artist. She has such a strong voice and the setup of her singing, playing and Kevin Vincent Leicher completing the sound with a second guitar and some backing vocals is pretty much perfect.

Planet Joy, Shadow Club & Arno Carstens (Saturday):
Awesome!! It’s been a while since I enjoyed all the bands in one night so much. Perfect venue (except perhaps that they might want consider dampening the stage area a bit to help the sound), good service, fun crowd.

Karen Zoid (Sunday):
The whole Park Acoustics vibe and more. She went to some effort to make it fun for the kids which was nice to watch. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around stopping a party at 5pm, but I guess Sunday will always mean Monday, which means work. eeeeeuuuww!

Other random news:
I’ve sold my curtains – don’t need them now and I was made an offer by someone I loaned them to for a while.

No, it’s not to fund some nasty habit.

I’m having mixed success with “Be kind to Emile’s liver month”. A couple of the mornings in the past week was not so much a success as a reminder of why we’re having the BKTELM, but hey, practice makes perfect.

It’s probably not the best thing to be counting down the hours until the weekend like this, but I’ve had suck a lekker weekend and the next one looks to be even better.

This past weekend I went climbing with Tam & Clifford, a really pleasant morning out. There’s this climb called “R.I.P.” named so after the small commemorative plaque at the start of the climb for a guy who fell to his death there many years ago – this obviously freaks the beginners out a when they notice this. It is a beautiful route: really easy with big moves on big holds, the sort of stuff that’s very satisfying to do and gets one hooked on climbing.

A fireplace, five friends, fine food & wine
Saturday night Annie treated us to her fine curry once again. I probably should not say this out loud but last night I realised that I actually have a couple big pots, they are just not in the kitchen where one would normally look for them. One is packed away with my camping gear and the other in a box that I have yet to unpack. So thanks El & Takkies, but I probably owe you a beer for turning around and bringing yours.

I’m in serious danger of becoming a domesticated man animal despite my concerted efforts to the contrary. Last night as I (enjoyed) washing the dishes I could not help but smile thinking back to the good time we had.

30 seconds – Ms Galaxy – good one! I thought someone was going to get hurt there