Posts Tagged ‘rats

24
Jan
11

SlickTiger:2 Moving:0

Compared to the shenanigans of Part 1, Part 2 of our epic move from Stellenbosch to Cape Town was executed with military precision.

In one day we managed to move every remaining stick of furniture loaded in a solid brick of stuff on the back of the bakkie I was borrowing from a buddy of mine.

It was every Tetris player’s dream – a double bed, a fridge, a two seater couch, a TV cabinet and a table all stacked and packed so perfectly together you couldn’t even squeeze a hand between any of the gaps and that was before Captain Albatross got to work tying it all down.

 

 

I now know that J-Rab and my life can be packed up, uprooted and moved anywhere in 3 car loads and 2 bakkie loads as long as one of those bakkie loads looks like this:

 

 

And so, by 3 o’clock on Saturday afternoon there wasn’t so much as one toothpick of our stuff left in the shed which over the past year we’ve come to call home.

Funny how you can still feel nostalgic about leaving a place that drove you completely insane every second that you lived there. Our little wooden house had a certain charm to it and when all the animals living around us finally shut the hell up it was peaceful out there.

I got some great writing done there. Sundays would roll around and J-Rab would go off to work and I’d get up early, make myself some fresh coffee and wander out onto our balcony into the blue morning and soak up the vineyard and mountains surrounding us.

We walked out to the secret dam near our house for the last time before we left. Captain Albatross, J-Rab and I stood looking over the giant Lillie pads that dotted the surface of the dam and watched some ducks float on by while a Cormorant swooped silently overhead and way off in the distance a car glided past on the R44.

I asked the Captain to get a picture of J-Rab and I before we left.

 

 

And so we left Stellies and finally moved to the Mother City to start a new chapter in our lives. My morning commute has now gone from roughly an hour to 6 minutes and the flat we’ve moved into has actual cupboards! And a kitchen! And a spare bedroom! And no rats!

Life couldn’t be better Winking smile

-ST

14
Oct
10

Help The TIger Find A Flat And Win!

Guys, some crazy news.

J-Rab and me are moving out of the wooden shit-shack we’re been living in for the last 8 months in Stellenbosch and are heading into the beautiful sea-side city of Cape Town itself, PRAISE JESUS HALLELULYA!

 

 

It hasn’t been easy living out here on this wine farm in Stellies. I mean, people come around to visit the place and they’re all like “Aww, it’s so cosy!” Which pisses us off no end because it’s not fucking cosy, ok?

It’s a fucking hell-hole of sleeplessness, anguish and rats. That’s right, rats. Our shed-of-a-house is infested with large, nasty, fucking smart rats who break in at night and stomp around eating our food like they own the fucking place!

Or at least they used to. Eventually the lack of sleep drove me insane(r) and I bought enough Racumin to poison an army of the fuckers. I then waited for nightfall and crept around in the dark, mumbling incoherent nonsense and giggling under my breath as I lobbed little sachets of the poison under the house and imagined the evil fuckers twitching and writhing uncontrollably while the poison ripped through their central nervous-systems like loose shrapnel.

And don’t even fucking get me started on the owls, Egyptian geese, Anatolian Shepherds, roosters, tractors and other random shit that robs us of our sleep nightly. I mean fuck’s sake, what the fuck did we do to deserve this hellish existence? What?!?!

 

 

Sure, it’s rent free. Sure living here is part of J-Rab’s job, but y’know what? They can shove this shack-of-shit, we’re done here. The commute in and out of the city centre where I work is killing me, as is the insomnia and the smell of dead, rotten rats under our floorboards.

Anyway. Enough about that.

So here’s the deal. We need a new place, a nice 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom flat somewhere central in Cape Town with a great garden (communal is fine), a killer view, parking for two cars, a nice kitchen and a robot like they have in The Jetsons to clean the dishes and wash our clothes and stuff.

 

 

If you know any friends moving out of a place that fits the bill, fire a mail off to tellthetiger@gmail.com and you could stand the chance to win an official SlickTiger Them’s Fightin’ Words T-shirt that is guaranteed to get you laid.

So don’t delay! Write in now and this amazing T-shirt could be yours! Oh, and I’ll also put up a post about how you are an exceptional human being, cooler than Jesus even.

Fair deal right? 😉

Have a killer weekend.

-ST

03
May
10

Top Secret Weekend

Fuck, did we get up to some crazy shit this weekend, man-o-man. I fucking wish I could tell you guys about it, but I can’t, aaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

How lame is that? It’s like starting a joke and then right at the end of it saying, ‘Umm, actually wait… that’s not how it goes… umm…’

[SFX: Crickets]

But yeah, I guess there’s no harm in sharing a few details.

Here is the weekend summed up in completely nonsensical bullet points:

  • I drove up and down the same kilometer of dirt road for nearly two hours
  • J-Rab mastered the art of being dead
  • We walked into a restaurant, ordered a plate of dry Nachos with melted cheese and a plate of bread, with me dressed like Euro-trash kiddie fiddler
  • A dream about a threesome with two other girls was dreamed
  • A fake drive-in was built in our garage
  • My dreams of winning the Xbox dwindled
  • I did grocery shopping
  • Yatse!

 

 

It bugged me at first living out here in the total solitude of weekend days when J-Rab had to work, but over time I’ve actually come to really enjoy it.

Cape Town is easing its way into winter. It’s the beginning of May and people are still walking around more often than not in shorts and T-shirts and generally the days still feel long and sunny.

Up here in the loft of ‘The Shed’ (as we now affectionately call our house) I can look out over a wine vineyard as I bash away at this keyboard, acres of neat rows of vines that are slowly turning a brownish red as winter approaches.

The lawn we planted a few weekends back is growing like crazy, it’s small but I still get a real kick out of taking my shoes off and walking around in circles over its surface. It’s especially fun at night, when you can look up at all the stars.

Life is getting better and better down here. Things might have been a bit rough in the beginning, and there were a lot of highs and lows in rapid succession, but overall, the highs are winning and I’m glad we live here in the sticks.

 

 

Even if all manner of animals (Anatolian shepherds, owls, geese and rats to name a few) keep us awake at night and The Shed is so badly constructed you can see outside through some of the gaps in the wood, it’s our little corner of the world, and nothing can touch us out here.

That and the fact that there’s just a good feeling I have going about this year right now, are pushing me to finally get off my ass and do what I’ve wanted to do my whole life.

Aaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh! Wish I could tell you, fuck!

What I can say though is that it’s all building up to the 200th Post Celebration that’s going to be happening here on TFW, which lands on the 17th May.

So not long now Party People.

Not long at all 😉

-ST