Grains of Sand

“To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."

Menu

Skip to content
  • Welcome
    • My Blog Posts
    • My Book
    • Writing
    • Blogging
    • Creativity
  • Exploring the Cape
    • Around the Neighbourhood
    • Oude Molen Eco Village
    • Eseltjiesrus Donkey Sanctuary
    • Cart Horse Protection Association
    • Green Point Stadium and Urban Park
    • Karoo Array Telescope and MeerKAT
    • Mini-Excursions
    • Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital
  • Getaways
    • Knysna and the Garden Route (May 2008)
    • Cederberg Mountains (Oct 2009)
    • Olifants River Mountains (Feb 2010)
    • Swellendam (May 2010)
    • Riviersonderend Mountains (July 2010)
    • Stanford (July 2011)
    • Riversdale (Aug 2011)
    • Bodhi Khaya Retreat Centre
  • Hikes and Rambles
    • Atlantic Coast
    • Cape Point
    • Constantia Nek
    • Devil’s Peak
    • False Bay Coast
    • Fun Walks
    • Green Point
    • Helderberg
    • Jonkershoek
    • Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
    • Newlands Forest
    • Silvermine
    • Table Mountain
    • West Coast
  • Travel
    • Namibia
    • Ireland (Sep-Oct 2008)
    • USA (Feb-Mar 2012)
  • Home and Garden
    • Birds
    • Flowers
    • Insects
    • Spiders
    • Tuffy, our Cat
    • In the kitchen
  • Entertainment
    • Live Music
    • Music
    • Movie Reviews
    • Sports
    • Theatre
  • Defence Reserves
    • Castle of Good Hope
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2008
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2009
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2010
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2012
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2013
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2014
    • Cape Town Military Tattoo 2015

Electricity crisis

Power failure in Pinelands

The UPS connected to my PC flickered on and off a couple of times earlier today, signalling instability on the electrical grid. I just ignored it, because we often have little flickers like that. At 14h40, though, the power did go off entirely. Thank heavens for the UPS. It kept the computer going, or I’d…

Monday, 17 August 2009 in Around the Neighbourhood, Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

The candles are lit, the thermos flask is full….

We are waiting for our first slot of scheduled load-shedding to begin at 20h00. I just have to heat up our already prepared supper of stirfry and basmati rice, and to fire up the laptop so we can watch another episode of “Sex and the City”. A chocolate pudding is firming up in the fridge, and…

Thursday, 3 April 2008 in Electricity crisis, Life in South Africa.

Are we a nation of whingers?

We whinged, complained, griped and whined, when we were told that there would be nationwide power outages for the next three months (at least). And today we whinged, complained, griped and whined, because the load shedding did not start on time! How bizarre is that? For the last couple of weeks, our much-maligned electricity supply commission Eskom has been…

Monday, 31 March 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa, News.

Pancakes by candlelight

In the middle of the power outage, our sensible Germanic visitors arrived bearing nibblies that required no heating up. They had noticed on their way over that our suburb was plunged in darkness and that the traffic lights weren’t working. Coming from the first world city of Munich and thus not being used to repeated…

Tuesday, 18 March 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

And now it is dark in Pinelands too…

Thanks to our revolutionary power-outage-combating combination of battery-charger, deep-cycle battery, inverter and extension leads, I am still able to blog. And to locate Eskom’s latest load-shedding schedules. Go to: Eskom’s own website, where you can type in your suburb and search for the times when you are likely to be shut down an independent website,…

Tuesday, 18 March 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

And darkness descends once more

I was so looking forward to attending a “Teaching with Technology” seminar offered to students and staff by the Centre for Education Technology) at UCT. With a title like “Web Searches: Life Beyond Google“, it promised to be both fascinating and instructive. I clearly wasn’t the only one who felt like that, as the teaching…

Tuesday, 18 March 2008 in Electricity crisis, Life in South Africa, News, Work.

We should not go early to bed after all…

It seems that our poor beleaguered and derided Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs, Ms Bujelwa Sonjica, was misunderstood. As we Seffricans say: “Agh shame…” She now denies that she sent all of us to bed early (and presumably without milk and cookies, because there was no electricity to do any baking and the milk…

Tuesday, 5 February 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa, News, Politics.

Fiddling with figures…

To quote from a rather sheepish Richard: “OK. 15 minutes is not enough. Neither is 16. The specific heat capacity of water is about 4200 J/(kg K), which means a 3kW thermostat will take about 1 hour and 45 minutes to heat up 150 litres from 25 degrees to 55 degrees. I’ve now set the…

Monday, 4 February 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

Of isolator switches and geyser timers…

This morning – after the (half-)city-wide power failure last night – Richard decided to finish the job of wiring the isolator switch and the geyser timer. (For the Yanks out there – I think you call geysers “hot water cylinders” – geysers seem to be those things that spit fire and brimstone, and I don’t…

Saturday, 2 February 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

The aftermath…

Well, it seems that it wasn’t Richard’s fault after all, why the power went out across half of Cape Town! What a relief! I should explain that he was up in the roof last night, trying to install an isolator switch between the geyser (hot water cylinder) and our newly acquired timer unit. (More about…

Saturday, 2 February 2008 in Around the Neighbourhood, Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa, News.

Flicker, flicker … clunk

Newsflash: 21h00 – Our neighbourhood has just been plunged into darkness. At first I thought it was just our house – as Richard had been up in the roof for the last two hours, hooking up a geyser-timer and an isolator switch in the roof. But it seems to be the whole neighbourhood. Mom in…

Friday, 1 February 2008 in Around the Neighbourhood, Electricity crisis, Life in South Africa, News.

“Go to sleep earlier…”

I was listening to a local talk-radio programme on CapeTalk this morning on my way to work. Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica gave an enlightening speech in Parliament yesterday, during a special joint parliamentary sitting, in which she urged all people in South Africa: “Go to sleep earlier so that you can grow and…

Thursday, 31 January 2008 in Electricity crisis, Life in South Africa, News, Politics.

Load Shedding Schedules

South Africa has a very serious shortage of electricity. In fact, it is so serious at the moment that we have dramatically reduced (halted?) our electricity exports to our neighbouring countries, with whom we have long-term contracts. Family in Namibia, for instance, tell us that they now have fairly regular ‘load shedding’ every day –…

Thursday, 31 January 2008 in Electricity crisis, Life in South Africa, News, Politics.

Wind turbines?

What with all the ‘load shedding’ going on and the ‘lack of capacity’, Eskom is now demanding of all South Africans that we should reduce electricity consumption and investigate alternative sources of energy. Why they don’t seem to be researching these, is a mystery. (I suppose it’s the age-old response of incompetent people – passing…

Wednesday, 16 January 2008 in Electricity crisis, Home and Garden, Life in South Africa.

Looking for something?

Around the Neighbourhood Birds Blogging Cape Field Artillery Cape Town Military Tattoo 2010 Cape Town Military Tattoo 2015 Castle of Good Hope Creativity Defence Reserves Entertainment Events Exploring the Cape Flowers Getaways Hikes and Rambles Home and Garden Humour Internet Ireland and the Irish Karoo Array Telescope and MeerKAT Life in South Africa Mini-Excursions Movies News Oude Molen Eco Village SA Army Band Cape Town Thoughts Travel Tuffy, our Cat Writing

Archives

Blog Stats

  • 550,221 hits
Follow Grains of Sand on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 312 other followers
Reggie

Reggie

Writer, blogger, copy-editor, photographer

Personal Links

  • Grains of Sand
  • Finding Frohsinn
  • Memories of the Cape Town Military Tattoo
  • The Fantastical Voyages of Flat Kathy

View Full Profile →

Adverts? Not mine!

Dear Readers:

If any adverts appear on my blog, please know that they were not put there by me, but by Wordpress.com. Their presence certainly does not mean that I support or endorse the products or services advertised - or that I even know what is being advertised!

If you do see something really offensive, please let me know the details, send me a screenshot, and I Shall Go On the Warpath and complain to Wordpress Support.
Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Follow Following
    • Grains of Sand
    • Join 312 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Grains of Sand
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar