After months of dwindling time and dwindling internet (not all the fault of 3rd world infrastructure - partially also because I just did not get round to jumping on my soapbox because my laptop was not talking nicely to my internet provider...)...
I NOW HAVE BROADBAND!!!
We need it for the new business, so I took the plunge and had wireless internet installed at considerable expense. The national telephone line provider has officially admitted that they can no longer provide a service in our area due to cable theft... how third world is that! ;(
Anyway, all the Holloways have been phoneless for 3 years, and I, after waiting 5 years for a line, cancelled mine within 18 months some 5 years ago, because it simply was too creaky to get internet to me. However the only tower for my mobile network - to which I have perfect line of site down the valley; I see the red lights on it when I go out at night to join my dogs for a pee - is set up to provide 100 000 people with voice and sms, and not 500 people with data; so the data, even on 5-bar reception, trickles in ever slower as more and more South Africans become the proud owners of mobile phones... That, ladies and gentlemen, is how telecoms work in South Africa... I still wouldn't exchange my lifestyle for anything!
On Friday my teaching career ended yet again. We are a week behind deadline in delivering our first magazine (which is about what I expected) and we have two or three days of intensive work left... and then away we go! Thereafter, I hope, i will be less incommunicado!