Property baroness

Guys, I’m glowing, and it aint even post-coital.

You see, me, I’m a leasing lass, I’m very hesitant to make even the teensy-weensiest investment (of course my beloved Mini, Ant, was a recent – and single – exception to this rule, even though the most prudent of you will argue that that’s not an investment per se), on account of the fact that this ties you down – you know, mortgage bonds and shit.

But, I recently threw caution to the wind, when my beady eye was attracted to the phrase “strategic investment” on a banner at a property sales stand in Sandton City the other day. I went to have a look-see, and decided that this kind of property investment wouldn’t really tie me down. So yesterday, me and 3 other people took the plunge and paid the deposit on this little piece of …. cabbage patch. I shit you not.

I am now the quarter-owner of a 250 sqm patch of agricultural land in South East England. Why? Because I can. Although the ownership aspect is academic at this point – the four of us have decided I’m the one who should face the brunt of the tax clearance investigation (i.e. everyone will deposit money into my account and I pay on everyone’s behalf, instead of everyone paying on their own behalf), which should pose some interesting technical debates, given my current SARS situation (they think I owe them big time, but my Dad’s tax dude says I’ve overpaid and they in fact owe me a reasonable amount). Pending the clearance of such issues, we should be all systems go, though, in which case some English farmer cedes his farm property to me and my mates.

And the really bizarre thing? I had a whole list of questions to ask (all technical kak like payment of stamp duties, property insurance, tax issues etc) but failed to ask one obvious thing: what is currently being farmed on the property? (The farming will cease once the land has been rezoned – that’s the whole point of the investment, to get the land rezoned as residential property and sell it at a fat profit to a property developer – but until such time, for legal/technical/cost issues, the land will continue to be farmed).

My guess is that it’s cabbages, which is quite useful if I fail to secure a new job in the next few years (remember, unemployment officially starts at the beginning of next month) and need to camp out for free on a piece of land, and live off its produce; although I’ve never been compelled to search for them, I’d imagine there’s an abundance of recipes involving cabbage (cabbage soup, cabbage soufflé, cabbage rosti, cabbage curry, cabbage gruel, and let’s not forget that picnic staple, the coleslaw).

I have a huge aversion to rabbits and goats and sheep, so as long as it’s not any of those, I’m quite happy that my “investment” (my boss thinks I’m ridiculous applying the term in this case. “It’s pure speculation, not investment!” he adamantly declares) is morally okay, and of course, living off the fat (profit) of the land in 5 years’ time will make the decision all the more comfortable.

If all else fails, I’ll be aiming to secure a client base for cabbage sales. I’m taking advance orders now, so be sure to let me know of your cabbage needs in the medium term. I’m running a “buy 5, get 1 free” promotion, if any of you are interested…

PS: I met someone last night who’s a blogger (a big fan of Peas) who wouldn’t tell me the name of his own blog, but nevertheless, hi dude! I couldn’t twist Peas’ rubber arm enough to reveal your site’s name just yet, but I’ll get there :)

Long weekend break

I spent a glorious 4-day weekend in the Cape, using the opportunity presented by a former colleague’s wedding to extend my stay into a proper mini-break.

At the outset however, it looked like the trip was going to deliver much uphill, as evidenced by the following:

1 – Friday evening: unexpected late afternoon/evening at work to meet a crunching deadline (yes, even though companies close, someone’s got to do the work till the very end, right?), plus three social obligations to meet, before packing for our 7am flight on Saturday. Of course, I also had to run an urgent (unforeseen) errand before social engagement #1, but just before dashing out of the office, I miraculously remembered to print out flight/car rental/accommodation details. I unfortunately forgot to find out the actual venue for the wedding (somewhere in Elgin), which Gilb so kindly reminded me about, say 5 times an hour on Saturday.

2 – still Friday evening: exasperated with life, I decide to skip engagements #1 & 2, and skip straight to 3, where out of sheer exhaustion, upon leaving the restaurant, I manage to bring a plate crashing down to the floor, and cause a waiter to run after me and present me with the car keys I’d left behind.

3 – yep, not yet past Friday evening – I get home, manage to pick out a dress to wear to the wedding with relative ease (delightfully, even if somewhat inappropriately summery and pink), and then spend 15 minutes alternating between the pink shoes (you may remember this famous pair; quite English rosey in combination with the dress) and the silver shoes (metallic glam, baby!) and eventually decide that glam is more important than class. What I do not realise at the time, however, is that I end up packing one pink shoe and one silver shoe in my luggage (both left feet, incidentally), and that the 15 long minutes spent deliberating over which pair worked best, was wasted as I’d end up having to wear my only other pair of heels, the green ones, with the outfit.

Thankfully bad things only happened in 3, and the rest of the weekend was spent decidedly blissfully. Auspiciously, it rained – no, poured – for the wedding, and Gilb and I, who were late in booking into the hotel that the bride had recommended weeks ago for everyone to stay in, ended up staying at the far nicer (and marginally cheaper) 4-star B&B all of 150m down the road. The groom, my former senior colleague, who had nothing but criticism to dish out to me and my peers when we worked with him, gave a surprisingly stirring and tear-jerking speech. It’s nice to see men crying out of loving emotion from time to time, and weddings are a good bet to see such small miracles. My current boss did a stellar performance as MC*, and I had to go to pains to make sure no-one thought we were together, as we were seated next to each other and a fair portion of the audience (the coloured contingent) might have been tempted to throw daggers at his back, due to his irreverent coloured jokes (granted, being coloured himself, he was more likely to get away with the dodgy humour than a whiter or blacker person might have).

Sunday was spent idling over breakfast in Elgin, lunch in Hermanus and dinner in Constantia – our trusty little rental did significant revving to bring us between towns A, B and C in the required times.

Monday was spent on the tennis court, where Gilb and I had our first-ever tennis encounter (after much nagging from me, and some inspiration from Wimbledon highlights). Turns out the little geek is a past tennis freak who showed no mercy in dismissing me 6-1, 6-0, 6-1. (“40-love!” he’d scream. “You don’t have to rub it in my face, do you?!” I’d retort). His serve scorches across the court – my greatest success was in dodging any ball-to-body contact that would’ve left me bruised an unpalatable pruney shade. This was followed by the de rigeur walk around Kirstenbosch (my favourite sanctuary, a bit of torture for the Gilb though), a visit (finally!) to the Mitchell’s microbrewery at the V&A for me to try their cider (praised a few months ago in Wine magazine), and apartment-cooked dinner (oh, and of course, tons of sex. On all days – goes without saying).

Anyhow, it’s Wednesday back at the old grind, but there are two pieces of good news: 1) tonight I go to a launch party for the new Lamborghini Super Allegra, and get a freebie hair styling and expert make-up application for the event – it sucks to be you, doesn’t it? And, 2) Sass-hole have decided that maybe I’m not completely worthless and will be interviewing me this coming Monday. Oops though – the HR chickie called at 8:30 in the morning, which is the time I’m unfailingly annoyed by calls from people trying to sell me insurance/credit cards. I was a tad rude, especially cos she got my name wrong, and it looks like she’ll be the one interviewing me – d’oh!

*My favourite of his quips for the evening, relating to the high number of employees from a major financial services institution present at the reception (because the bride used to work there, which was how the groom came to meet her, when we worked in Cape Town on a project for the company): “… So I met [groom] at a casino. Which is quite apt given the number of employees of [SA financial institution’s name] we have here tonight. Because placing your money with them is always a gamble!” Ok, this was hysterical at the time, maybe you had to be there (or have worked with this company) to understand its humour…