New New Hampshire website

It has been a while since I last posted here, mostly because I have been kept busy writing for clients here in South Africa and in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Most of my regular readers will know of my plans to relocate to North Carolina, and of how my wife Liz flew back to the States more than a year ago while I stayed behind in the Eastern Cape to finalize the sale of our smallholding. After spending a year staying with her daughter, circumstances forced Liz to move on from Louisiana, supposedly to NC. However, things have changed. I was not happy about Liz arriving in NC under the conditions that were forced upon her, and so I asked my daughter Julie in New England if she wouldn't mind Liz staying with her for a while, and this is why Liz is now firmly ensconced in the Granite State with Julie and my three grandchildren.

To cut a long story short, Liz is so happy in her new home that we have decided that it is to be our final relocation destination, and I can't wait to get there. These new circumstances have led me to creating a new website, which, at the time of writing is just partly finished, although coming along in leaps and bounds. The design is all there, and it is now just a matter of populating it with good content and then marketing it. We have based the design on our info-nc and info-sc websites, which have proved so popular in the past, and the pic for the header was taken by Liz a week or so ago.

There seems to be no shortage of writing work on the other side of The Pond, unlike here in darkest Africa. Many of the domains ending with .co.za have been populated with content that leaves much to be desired, clearly having been written by someone not fluent in the English language, and of its subtle nuances and many idioms. This is just another sign of the times in South Africa, and is something that goes hand in hand with the neo-apartheid policies of the present government. The new upper class in South Africa is the reason for many of the setbacks experienced in the country. Much of the government and industry is corrupt, and the new leaders are filling their pockets at the expense of the poor. Why, only last week a local government official here in the Eastern Cape, after resigning from her position after only 5 months, was given a handshake of R2.5 million!  Only in Africa!

I will not miss this country one iota. I'm ready to leave - just need to sell the farm. Which brings me to one final point. A couple of days ago I received an email from some asinine idiot offering me R200,000 cash for the farm (I have just dropped the asking price to below R1 million). With the Rand crashing the way it is, I will consider any sensible offer, but I have only one reply to sheer stupidity - kma.

More ramblings of the mind

This past weekend I entertained three Italian friends who are currently touring South Africa - it was such a breath of fresh air to have the house come alive again. Liz has been back in WA  for coming up to 10 months and I have been in danger of  becoming a recluse, so to have the house suddenly bursting full of European energy has meant a lot to me. Thank you my friends.

Several years ago my daughter Julie went to a clairvoyant for a reading. It must have been during the last few years of the 1900s, for I had been separated from my then wife for several years. Julie told me that the medium had told her that her father would meet someone from overseas and spend many happy years together. I took the news with a pinch of salt, having resigned myself to spending my autumn years in South Africa. Since then a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge.

Julie moved to the USA, met and married Jake and is now the proud mother of three beautiful children in New Hampshire. Then on Christmas Day in 2001 I received an email from Liz in reply to an ad I has placed in one of those dating services. We chatted for several months, and to cut a long story short, she flew to South Africa, I was divorced from my first wife, and on May 2nd 2005 married Liz.  We are completely compatible soul mates, and in the 10 years we have been together have not had bad words once.

By the time I rejoin Liz on the other side of the Pond I will have spent 40 years, give or take a couple of months, in Southern Africa. The first nine were spent in what was then Rhodesia, where the people, white and black, look the same and even sound the same as down here, but are so completely different. Everyone was friendly and no-one was afraid of a little hard work. I had dozens of friends in Rhodesia, but can count on one hand the number of true friends I have made in South Africa. My Italian friend has persuaded me to watch the movie The Truman Show, in which he likens the role played by Jim Carrey to that of the typical South African, oblivious of everything outside his immediate environment.  I will watch it with great interest.

I have recently been commissioned to write numerous articles on Positive Thinking and related subjects. For several years I have taken a close interest in Quantum physics, the science of physics at a sub-atomic level. Billions of dollars are spent each year in  Quantum physics research, and scientists have shown that many of the phenomena that are known as paranormal can, in fact, be explained quite logically at quantum levels. These include such phenomena as telekinesis, near death experience, telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, ghosts and UFOs. There is also wide belief, though not yet proof, that our consciousness is a quantum event. This would explain why, when I am chatting with Liz more than 10,000 miles away, we frequently think and say identical things at the same moment. in time.

What is Time, anyway? Well it is the one commodity that is given to each of us for free. We each have a limited amount of it, and so it is in everyone's best interest to make the best of it. Think of all that wasted time when you are stuck in a traffic jam - that used to be the best part of 2 hours a day when I lived in Midrand. Moving to the Eastern Cape did away with all of that. Unless I drive into Grahamstown or Port Alfred I am lucky to see a dozen vehicles a day. But think of all that extra time I have. I cannot believe how much time is wasted - if only people thought about it a little more, they could completely change their lives for the better, like I did.

South Carolina Information

I am more than pleased to be able to announce that, after a lapse of a little over three years, I have once more got the Info-SC website up and running again. The website is a sister site to our Info-NC website, which has proved to be so successful. Info-SC is geared towards people living in, visiting or relocating to the beautiful Palmetto State, and provides a free listing of information relevant to South Carolina. Anyone may have a page dedicated to their business with a link to their website listed on Info-SC, the only proviso being that it must be based in South Carolina. You may also have articles written about South Carolina included in the website. Please see the website for details or contact me directly with your company details. The same applies to our North Carolina website and to NC businesses.

Late Posting

For some obscure reason this post was never published, so here it is a little late!

Faster than the blink of an eye, 2011 has come and gone – well, almost. In a little over 12 hours (at the time of writing) we will be in a whole new year. It is unfortunate that Time has the habit of running out on us – sometimes quicker than we would like it to. Indeed, always quicker than we would like it to. Time is something that each of us is given at birth. It is a commodity that, if wisely used can appear to stretch out. Time appears to pass more slowly the younger we are. When we are in the autumn of our years it passes all too quickly. I recall reading somewhere, sometime, that some part of the brain compares the passage of Time with the total length of Time we have experienced since birth. I guess that makes sense. I am now at the age where I have stopped counting my birthdays – I merely try to guess how many I have remaining. I recall that in my youth I often wondered whether I would be alive to experience life in the 21st century – well, I have now lived through eleven years of it.

2011 has seen time run out for a number of individuals whom I personally considered evil – Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-Il are the three that come to mind. There are plenty more evil leaders still hanging on to Time – Mugabe immediately comes to mind - he can’t have much Time remaining in his coffers. And there’s that chap in Syria, what’s his name? It would be nice to be a god and to be able to pick out Earth’s most evil characters and just snuff out their candle. It doesn’t work that way though, does it?

What about the celebrities who passed to the other side during the passage of 2011? There were actresses Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Wynter and Jane Russell, Apple founder Steve Jobs, actors Peter Falk and Pete Postlethwaite, boxer Joe Frazier, IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon and Betty Ford, widow of former president Gerald Ford. The list goes on of course, and I have named only a fraction of many celebrities who are no longer with us.

The year has not passed without its disappointments of course, the greatest of them being that of failing to find a new owner for the farm. We thought we’d sold it just a few weeks ago (see “Sold the farm – whoopeeeee!” blog) and at a good price – even shook hands, but then their bank refused or at any rate failed to come up with the money. We had hoped to have been celebrating tomorrow in North Carolina but – well, it just wasn’t our Time. So what now? First and foremost I want to get Liz to Louisiana to her daughter’s. I may have to beg, borrow or steal the money for her ticket (any takers?). She actually has a job offer in NC right now, but will have to turn it down. Meanwhile I am building up a valuable potential client base on the East Coast. Liz will be able to spend the time, until my eventual arrival, changing her name and applying for a spousal visa for myself. And me? Well I’ll let you know tomorrow – if I have the Time.