Six weeks in our new holiday home at Pearl Valley seemed to pass by very quickly - It hardly seems a day or two since we were collecting the keys and dealing the bureaucracy which surround every SA transaction.
We had a great time, caught up with old friends, made a few new friends, did a bit of exercise, yoga, wine tasting and quite a lot of enjoying ourselves.
However, as we packed up yesterday and headed back to Cape Town airport, we were both looking forward to getting back to the new Edinburgh home which we had only lived in for 3 weeks before we left for SA.
The journey was fairly routine - no hiccups - we even negotiated the 55min connection at Doha with very little stress. However the journey seemed to go on longer than the last time. We were greeted by freezing temperatures as we landed in Edinburgh, and an Indian minicab driver who may have been finishing a 12 hour shift but still drove poorly and tried to access each of three different phones during the 20 minute trip. Despite all this - and the aftermath of 22 hrs travelling - we were both excited about being back in Gardner's Crescent.
Before we left we had decided to turn off everything while we were away and just in case of cold weather, we had even turned off the water at the stopcock. So as Linda commented on the great job Ali T had done looking after the plants, I turned the water back on and fired up the central heating boiler.
Before I had time to adjust the thermostat I could hear the sound of running water and then noticed the stream of water coming from the void above the boiler. Managed to shut off the supply again before the puddle became a lake and got on the phone to find an emergency plumber.
Call number three connected me to a real person rather than an answering machine and we were promised someone would be here within three hours. Unfortunately. this proved to be untrue and by the time I chased them again they had to admit that the man assigned the job had called in sick and nobody had thought to let me know.
Luckily we found another plumber who was with us an hour later, found the leak, replaced the pipe joint and took a bit of time to check that everything else was OK. As we waited for the boiler to start heating the flat, we heard the sound of water dripping again. This time the leak was coming from the boiler which had to be shut off and may require major surgery or perhaps replacement. Neither of which are possible at 4.00pm on a Friday afternoon.
So while we now have a fully functioning cold water system it is not much use when the outside temperature is heading back to freezing, and it looks like staying there for the weekend.
Despite all this it is good to be home
