Oh joy, Radio 3!
My faithful reader Anni reminded me that Radio 3 exists on the internet; just tried it, and it comes across on my laptop (but the Berlin Phil transmissions, involving also pictures, don't... thankfully, it seems, my subscription had expired anyway at the end of the season). This is brilliant!!! So I suppose it'll be Proms from wall to wall for the next couple of months.
So it's a long three-day weekend; I had taken the office car as I am still entitled to. Went shopping last night, and got enough for a while. Just as well - even last night there seemed to be a problem getting it started (it turns over but does not fire), and this morning it did not fire at all. I have a distant memory of having to jiggle something in the carburettor (was looking for a choke but did not find one), but it's a long time since I tried to get a car to start. There are no hills for bump starting, and the thing weighs a ton. So much for my planned trip to a game park, or anything else exciting.
Walked to the Broadhurst mall (about 4 km), described as 'atmospheric' in some information for American medical students. Hmm, not sure. Wish I had looked at their blurb again before I left, and looked for the second-hand bookshop. Otherwise it was the usual shops in Gaborone, slightly less organised than in the fancy Game City Mall (Broadhurst was probably built in bits), a post office which took 15 minutes to post registered letters, a very nice shop with a huge range Indian spices in bulk (200g makes an awful lot of spice), and chapatti flour in 5kg bags (how much flour does one chappati take? 10 g?). The 'stalls where you can bargain for all sorts of things' were largely of clothes, either fake designer goods or secondhand clothes, including huge piles of black shoes. Nothing African. As one who once bought a second-hand Tshirt of a street child vendor in Rwanda I should not quibble, and for non-posing running t-shirts it should be ok. Beyond that it does not have that much to offer to the average ex-pat.
Had meant to go to another place, with a garden centre, to try and liven up my dark patio (and it's supposed to have a nice restaurant, too). But one thing that drives me crazy in Gaborone is that no-one ever gives their frigging address on their websites or their adverts. I assume they don't use postmen/women here; it's all 'Post Bag XXXXX'. How do ambulances and the fire services manage? So lots of businesses do have websites, but don't tell you where they are. The garden centre in 'Block 7' is as near as I got; but Block 7 is rather huge, especially without a car; Botswanacrafts, another highly rated provider of Botswanan arts and crafts (can't say I am that much into that sort of thing, but it would be nice for a look), also appears to have its shop inside a post bag.
So it's a long three-day weekend; I had taken the office car as I am still entitled to. Went shopping last night, and got enough for a while. Just as well - even last night there seemed to be a problem getting it started (it turns over but does not fire), and this morning it did not fire at all. I have a distant memory of having to jiggle something in the carburettor (was looking for a choke but did not find one), but it's a long time since I tried to get a car to start. There are no hills for bump starting, and the thing weighs a ton. So much for my planned trip to a game park, or anything else exciting.
Walked to the Broadhurst mall (about 4 km), described as 'atmospheric' in some information for American medical students. Hmm, not sure. Wish I had looked at their blurb again before I left, and looked for the second-hand bookshop. Otherwise it was the usual shops in Gaborone, slightly less organised than in the fancy Game City Mall (Broadhurst was probably built in bits), a post office which took 15 minutes to post registered letters, a very nice shop with a huge range Indian spices in bulk (200g makes an awful lot of spice), and chapatti flour in 5kg bags (how much flour does one chappati take? 10 g?). The 'stalls where you can bargain for all sorts of things' were largely of clothes, either fake designer goods or secondhand clothes, including huge piles of black shoes. Nothing African. As one who once bought a second-hand Tshirt of a street child vendor in Rwanda I should not quibble, and for non-posing running t-shirts it should be ok. Beyond that it does not have that much to offer to the average ex-pat.
Had meant to go to another place, with a garden centre, to try and liven up my dark patio (and it's supposed to have a nice restaurant, too). But one thing that drives me crazy in Gaborone is that no-one ever gives their frigging address on their websites or their adverts. I assume they don't use postmen/women here; it's all 'Post Bag XXXXX'. How do ambulances and the fire services manage? So lots of businesses do have websites, but don't tell you where they are. The garden centre in 'Block 7' is as near as I got; but Block 7 is rather huge, especially without a car; Botswanacrafts, another highly rated provider of Botswanan arts and crafts (can't say I am that much into that sort of thing, but it would be nice for a look), also appears to have its shop inside a post bag.
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