Week 2
Is this what Hibernation looks like?
Lots of fires, food and Binge-watching Netflix...
Oh, and we started back at work this week...slowly!
Boeke had a haircut!
Fireworks
When I first came here (26 years ago, but who's counting), I think I was surprised that people still did fireworks. I can't even remember when they were banned in Australia...but I did find this.... from
In 1839 the discharging of fireworks greeted the arrival of both Lady Franklin, wife of the Governor of Tasmania, and Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe, and fireworks have been a popular feature of celebrations and festivals from the first years of the settlement. Between 1853 and 1863, Cremorne Gardens featured fireworks on summer nights. Most commonly associated with Guy Fawkes Day and Empire Day, fireworks have, along with processions, arches, transparencies and street decorations, been an important part of the celebratory repertoire during royal visits, Moomba, New Year's Eve, major sporting events, Chinese New Year, and the Royal Melbourne Show.
In 1867 Walter Draper's Royal Victorian Fireworks Establishment at Richmond, sole importer of Baker's English and Chinese fireworks, offered a range of rockets for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh: asteroid rockets, bouquets, pyramids, pin wheels, roman candles, cracker mines, Chinese trees and water fountains. Pyrotechnist James Pain catalogued a similar array for the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition.
Firework shows, with actors and hundreds of extras, were produced from 1886 to 1904 by James Pain and Brock & Co. at the Friendly Societies' Gardens, the East Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Exhibition Sports Oval. Subjects included 'the last days of Pompeii', 'the Great Fire of London' and 'the siege of Port Arthur (China)' in 1904.
By the late 1950s, the popularity of bonfires and fireworks on Empire Day led to its general celebration as 'Cracker Night'. By the early 1960s there was increasing concern on the part of the National Safety Council, police and municipal authorities about the annual damage list, which included letterboxes blown apart, trees and hedges caught alight, motorists having bungers thrown into their cars, and dozens of fires attended by brigades across the metropolitan area. Animal welfare organisations urged pet-owners to lock up their animals. Of greater concern were burns and eye injuries to children.
By 1962 the Municipal Association of Victoria was calling for stricter enforcement of the Police Offences Act 1958 in relation to the use of fireworks in public places, and in 1963 new regulations were gazetted by the State Government, limiting the size and power of fireworks. A decade later the Public Health Commission recommended a total ban on small fireworks, and while exploding fireworks such as bungers and crackers were banned in 1974, it was not until 1982 that all shop-goods (as opposed to display or novelty) fireworks were banned, as a result of pressure from the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists and the Australian and New Zealand Burns Association.
Restrictions on the sale of fireworks led to a trend towards larger and more sophisticated displays, licensed under the Dangerous Goods (Explosives) Regulations. From 1986 the Fox FM Skyshow became an annual fireworks extravaganza at Albert Park Lake as part of Australia Day celebrations. In 1990 the Dangerous Goods Branch of the Department of Labour investigated incidents at Moomba after unexploded fireworks launched from city rooftops and barges on the Yarra River caused damage to nearby cars and buildings.
In more recent years I have often wondered at just how much money people "waste" on fireworks....maybe I'm just getting old.
From the local news after the latest New Year's Eve Fireworks
So, I suspect that it won't be long before there is a nationwide ban here. Some municipalities are further advanced than others.
Hopefully, it will end up with more organised, professional displays. The banks of our canal in Wijnjewoude could even rival the Banks of the Yarra Celebrations...
DANGER. This is an undercurrent zone. Don't swim if there is no lifeguard.
But the sentence structure is difficult (for me) - seems like a couple of double negatives and as with Dutch, the grammar is awkward when translated.
Afrikaans Fiction
(from Wikipedia)
The Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly in South Africa and Namibia is spoken. The language is a daughter language of Dutch , originating from seventeenth-century Dutch dialects , and was historically called Cape Holland . 90 to 95 percent of the vocabulary is probably of Dutch origin. Both grammatically and in vocabulary, the language is influenced by Portuguese , French , Malay , the Bantu languages , the Khoisan languages and nowadays also by theEnglish . The biggest differences between Afrikaans and Dutch are the spelling, morphology and grammar.
These two Lower Franconian languages are mutually intelligible, although it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than vice versa, although the opposite is sometimes claimed.
With nearly 7 million native speakers in South Africa , or 13.5% of the total population, it is the third largest language in the country, after Zulu and Xhosa . White Afrikaners make up around 40% (2.7 million) of the speakers, the rest being predominantly 'colored' (3.4 million). In addition, 600,000 Africans and 59,000 Indians have the language as their home language. The number of white speakers has been virtually constant since 1996, but the other groups are growing.
It is a majority language in the western part of the country, the provinces of Northern Cape and Western Cape and is the mother tongue of most colored people and whites.
In neighboring Namibia , 11% of the inhabitants have Afrikaans as their mother tongue. These are mainly found in the capital Windhoek and the southern provinces of Hardap and Karas . However, the language is also used as colloquial language ( lingua franca ) and as such is the largest language in the country, although English is the official language. There are also in Australia , Botswana , Canada , Georgia , New Zealand , the United Kingdom and the United Statesmigrants from South Africa and (to a lesser extent) Namibia who speak Afrikaans as their mother tongue
Odd Jobs...
It was pretty wintery outside...so Tjeerd, our untiring volunteer, worked on all the doors. He took out all the hinge pins and greased then, tightened all the locks and adjusted the self-closers - all probably 10 years since the last time it was done.
Together, we put all the old matresses up into the attic - which is now closed and insulated - just to make room for Ben's stuff.
On Saturday, I kept a couple of the boys busy in the (heated) workshop...making a bird nesting box - to take home.
Ben in South Africa
He has a shared room in a guest house that is run by the Modelling Agency. His room-mate is from London and there are others from America and Brazil at the moment. Again, just a great way to see the world, if nothing else.
We knew that one of the languages would be Afrikaans...
Ben has been sending photos of some signs - even I can recognise what they mean - but it seems almost child-like in comparison to modern Dutch.
DANGER. This is an undercurrent zone. Don't swim if there is no lifeguard.
But the sentence structure is difficult (for me) - seems like a couple of double negatives and as with Dutch, the grammar is awkward when translated.
Afrikaans Fiction
Afrikaans non-fiction
Pretty simple, but it does bring a smile...
Lion's Head Road
But Leeuw Koppie would be a childish way of speaking...again a smile....
The Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly in South Africa and Namibia is spoken. The language is a daughter language of Dutch , originating from seventeenth-century Dutch dialects , and was historically called Cape Holland . 90 to 95 percent of the vocabulary is probably of Dutch origin. Both grammatically and in vocabulary, the language is influenced by Portuguese , French , Malay , the Bantu languages , the Khoisan languages and nowadays also by theEnglish . The biggest differences between Afrikaans and Dutch are the spelling, morphology and grammar.
These two Lower Franconian languages are mutually intelligible, although it is easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than vice versa, although the opposite is sometimes claimed.
With nearly 7 million native speakers in South Africa , or 13.5% of the total population, it is the third largest language in the country, after Zulu and Xhosa . White Afrikaners make up around 40% (2.7 million) of the speakers, the rest being predominantly 'colored' (3.4 million). In addition, 600,000 Africans and 59,000 Indians have the language as their home language. The number of white speakers has been virtually constant since 1996, but the other groups are growing.
It is a majority language in the western part of the country, the provinces of Northern Cape and Western Cape and is the mother tongue of most colored people and whites.
In neighboring Namibia , 11% of the inhabitants have Afrikaans as their mother tongue. These are mainly found in the capital Windhoek and the southern provinces of Hardap and Karas . However, the language is also used as colloquial language ( lingua franca ) and as such is the largest language in the country, although English is the official language. There are also in Australia , Botswana , Canada , Georgia , New Zealand , the United Kingdom and the United Statesmigrants from South Africa and (to a lesser extent) Namibia who speak Afrikaans as their mother tongue
Ben's Photos from Cape Town...
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