Amateur desk surgery and other tales from the department

So I sit here in my office, thinking 'wasn't I going to write a blog post about my new office when it was actually new to me?' 

Well, anyway, here's a tour of my office, and recounting of related anecdotes.  In more detail than you want to sit through.  Why?  Because isn't that what blogs are for?

Cultivation 'neath the beating African sun

So, some weekends ago, we started a garden.  It was a pleasant affair, except that Alyson contracted a really terrible sunburn on her back, but don't worry, because it's been long enough that it's now healed.  This is a measure of how behind I am on our postings here.
So, Garden.  Here's what it looked like at the time: dirt.

But now!  Now...

Still dirt.  Just at a different time of day.  Except the parts where the grass & clover have started to creep back in.

The seeds we got swore (to the extent a seed can) that they would germinate in something like 7-10 days.  I have two hypotheses:
1) I watered them all when we planted them, and they promptly died 3 days later when I failed to do so again.
2) They didn't get watered enough, so they are still hanging out, waiting for it to rain.

...Which it hasn't.  This turns out to be a problem for more than just our hopes of eating home-grown beetroot.  I think Grahamstown's water supply comes from "dams" ('reservoirs'? in American?), which are open to the air.  Meaning that the rain fills them up.  Except when it doesn't.  Not that there's a terrible water shortage, at least not yet.  

...But there could be.  Why?  Because the water main broke.  Lucky for us, we live in the dead center of town.  A town which is sort of in a valley.  Meaning most people are at slightly higher elevation than us.  In a hurricane situation, they would be well off.  But there are no hurricanes here.  Instead, there are pipes that are, I assume, still the same ones laid by the 1820 settlers who built the place, and are breaking like crazy.  What this has to do with elevation is subtle.  See, when the water mains break, the water coming in stops.  But not for us!  a 5-10 foot difference in elevation would seem small, but I guess it's enough that everyone else's water flows to us instead of them.  So when the town loses water, we do not!
  ...for now. 

In other news, we're buying a car!  An Audi, A3.  The first car I've ever bought.  And, non-trivially, the nicest.  Mom & dad, prepare to be shown up when you visit.  Or at least shown around.  

Fricking Elephants. That is all.

We went yesterday to Addo Elephant national park.  It was fun!  Looking for cool animals is a game of patience, a lesson well-learned after 3 hours of seeing nothing but the same 3 haartebeest 5 times, and then a herd of Burchell's Far-off-in-the-distance Zebra (not to be confused with the Mountain Zebra).  But then at last we found them, two elephants right next to the road and willing to have their pictures taken.

Therefore:

And now, 58 more pictures of the same two elephants.  (Plus one of Alyson looking at them)
https://plus.google.com/photos/114507089018244213782/albums/5853642696478501105?authkey=CK_o8azbiL6VywE