yay Poachers captured!!

Hi guys, had a good chuckle at your comments about the new car. Isadora said it reminded her of Chicago ganster movies, hehe, never thought of it but you are so right! It does have a sort of retro look like the PT Cruiser (which I have been mad about since they first came out) but when it came down to it, I could have gone for the Cruiser now, but when we looked inside it was snug to put it mildly!



Tom, you are right about the ground clearance, it is going to be an issue because the front bumper is lower than most curbs, so I will have to to avoid misjudging, which is tricky because it is impossible to see the front of the bonnet. Will just have to experiment until I have a true sense of the space around me in the car.



We all went out for dinner last night to celebrate, and the kids couldn't get over how much room there was in the back, so that's cool. I bought 2 cane easy chairs for the new studio today and they fitted in the back with ease! (Bought from one of the Zimbabwean craftsmen on the side of the road, I have featured them before, and love to support them when possible.)



Since she is black, we thought a nice Xhosa name would be apt, so she is Thandi, (pronounced tun-dee.) Thandi is a Xhosa word that means "nurturing love", which might sound a bit corny for a car's name, but since she is not a sporty model like Bloublitz (blue lightening BTW) and is full of safety features, it is not too bad. I'm afraid any loving nurturing from my side will extend to regular services, but is unlikely to include much in the way of clening if my past track record with cars is anything to go by!



Speaking of cleaning, I took Bloublitz for a farewell car wash yesterday.... she looks great now that most of the paint and food are off the seats (bashful blush), but it was an amazing coincidence. She is not a common car, especially in that metallic blue, but as I pulled in, the car next to me was almost identical, except he didn't have a skyroof but he did have very fancy new mags. I saw the owner looking her over, and eventually he came up to me and asked if I wanted to sell her.



I told him that even a week ago, if he had asked me that, the answer would have been no. The Kadett 200IS is something of a cult car, especially amongst young guys, and over the years so many have asked me to sell her, I have even been stopped at a roadblock so the cop could ask me if I wanted to sell to him! So this guys timing was perfect!

He said he has an identical twin brother, and it would be cool if they had identical cars. We chatted for ages and I gave him a 24 hour first option, it might all have been bull, but who knows.... let's see if I hear from him!



Anyway my phobia about washing my cars (born out of growing up with a fanatical father who was so obsessed with his cars that family came a very poor second) was vindicated, because when I got in to leave after the car wash, she was as dead as a post. I thought it was the battery, but the central locking was also playing up. It came right later after standing in the sun for a while, so I think they must have got some water onto the electrics or something. Anyway it just goes to prove that a dirty car is a happy car! Hehe.



On a completely different note I am DELIGHTED TO REPORT that some of the Perlemoen poachers operating in St Francis that I told you about last week were captured and arrested yesterday! It was apparently quite a show, the headline in this morning's paper said "Dramatic sea raid forces poachers to throw illegal bounty overboard." Luckily, a SA Air Force helicopter was on the scene and divers jumped from it into the sea and managed to retrieve it before it hit the seabed. So now they have the rotten so and so's red handed. Both blue rubber ducks, with trailers and diving equipment were seized in the operation.



I have a meeting with a member of the special Marine Task Force tomorrow, to give them copies of all the photos we have taken on our last two visits to St Francis, showing faces, car registration etc. I hope the law makes it stick to these guys.



It is time to take a stand against greedy individuals who plunder the earth's resourses for their own gain, with no thought of future generations. Shame on those randy Asian men who pay a fortune for Perlemoen (and also Rhino horns) because they see it as an afrodisiac, and thus keep the illegal trade going. Imagine what a sad and pathetic speciman of humanity you must be to happily send another species into extinction, just so you can get a bit hornier?



Anyway well done on catching them guys, and I hope you continue to have success in stamping out this trade.