We all know those scenes in a series or movie: the impeccably groomed woman, coming home after a day’s work. She walks in, drops her handbag on the way to the kitchen. In the kitchen she reaches into the fridge and pulls out a bottle of ice cold white wine. She pours herself a glass and takes out the ingredients to prepare dinner. All this, while she is still in her high heels.

A few years back, I informed Colin one day that I want to be like that woman. I too want to come home to a long drink. Those of you who know me, know that I seldom do drink, and when I do, I need to take care as just one glass too many has me telling jokes to strangers. Anyway, back to me wanting to develop a drinking habit. I set off to the local bottle store looking for my new habit. We are in the age of Gin Distilleries, and local bottle store had isle upon isle of gin, and very little else. OK, gin it will be. I made my gin selection based on the shape of the bottle (once I have had drunk all the gin, I could keep bubble bath in this bottle with the curvy shape.) To go with my pink Fynbos infused gin, I then bough pink rose infused tonic. Was that tonic nice! I ended up getting hooked on the tonic, buying a huge bottle every week, while the gin remained unopened. So much for acquiring a drinking habit.

In the Cape, where wine is made all over the province, and where the economy is built on producing wine, wine flows freely. Any excuse for the wine to come out. Any time of the day. Someone will invite you for coffee, and as soon as you are done with the introductory small talk, hostess will say: We could offer you coffee, but we actually just opened this bottle of wine…. What a bad cough you have, here, have a glass of wine. Or: sorry to hear about your sinus infection, have a glass of wine, it will help clear it. Making your own wine is a team sport here. Three or four neighbours will decide to make wine, and somebody will pull their car out the garage to make space for wine making equipment. Now it takes a lot for a South African man to sacrifice his garage for any cause. Wine, however, is a worthy cause.

A local shop had a special on a quirky brand of wine recently. Colin enjoys his portion of fermented grapes a day, and so I bought the three bottles required to qualify for the special price. Turns out, the wine was good-according to Colin, so I went back for three more.

South Africans are accustomed to load shedding. It is an “us” thing. Load shedding is when our energy provider runs out of steam, or this case: load, and on a rotational basis, we do not have electric power for 2 hour stretches. Depending on the lack of load, this can happen once, twice, or even three times a day. Anywhere else in the world, there would be an outcry and prime ministers would resign over the debacle. In South Africa, we diarise it, and plan our daily activities around load shedding. That, of course is if you know to expect it. Often, electricity will disappear at 14H00, and Eskom (the provider) will release the schedule at 14H01.

And so, last week, I was caught off guard. The emergency LED light was not charged up. There was one candle left in the box, and I had no YouTube videos downloaded. To top it all, I was home alone. A sad situation to find yourself in. I looked around me in the light of my one candle, and my gaze fixed on that bottle of wine. That was it. With a glass in my left hand, and a Fat Barrel Red in my right hand, I got into bed. Soon I was telling jokes to my imaginary friend. The three of us (Imaginary friend, Fat Barrel and I) kept each other company, until the lights came back on two hours later. Just in time for me to screw the top back onto the bottle and switch the light off and go to sleep.

The next day, my neighbour popped in to apologise for making some noise the night before, during load shedding. She tripped in the dark and knocked some things over, and she is so sorry. Well. I would not have noticed her even if she had managed to fall through the wall and landed on top of me. I may have noticed had she knocked over my Fat Barrel. Eskom has warned us to expect a lot more load shedding this winter. I made another trip into town and bought a few more bottles at special price. In the end, it was not my career that had me sipping tall glasses of wine in the kitchen, but load shedding.

There is however something else that is driving me to drink. It is called a driveway. That innocent bit of track, that runs from the road to the entrance of a yard. That tiny bit of land that runs along the pavement, does not belong to you. It belongs to the Roads Department. Right up to the moment you want to put a driveway in, Roads Department could not be bothered with that itsy bitsy bit of weed covered land. But behold! The moment you need it, they need it more than you. It is their favourite bit of pavement, and you need permission from at least 3 other departments before you may touch it with a spade. Having sung praises of the service levels of the local municipality, I fear I can’t do the same for the provincial authorities. I think their service to the public is either load shedding or sipping wine in bed. Emails go unanswered, phone calls are ignored, and when you do get some kind of response, it is to refer you to the next person – the one who referred you to them in the first place. But touch that piece of land, and an inspector is ready to jump out from behind a bush.

There are so many well-meaning folks around that try to advise. Contact this person, he helped me 20 years ago. Another will say: I had the same issue, but then discovered a bit of old road, that I was able to utilise as an alternative entrance. Just build your entrance, another said, it is always easier to apologise. Fill the ditch with sandbags and take them out when it looks like rain. Can you imagine me dragging sandbags around during load shedding, wine glass in hand? They will call the men in white coats on the demented neighbour. Can you imagine me directing my future guests? At the stop sign, turn left, and just beyond the second sandbag, turn right. You will find me behind the tree, sipping wine with the inspector.

I try to stay positive. There has to be light at the end of the tunnel. Unless of course, lights at the end of the tunnel also succumb to load shedding. At times this week, I did think that it was Chris de Burgh’s Spanish Train, heading for me. So, I decided to change the sound track to my life:

Pour me another Tequila, Sheila.

There is a song like that….