The Norwegian band, A-Ha, recorded a song called “The Sun always shines on TV” back in the fabulous ‘80s. The meaning behind it is more of a reference to how this world is not always perfect and that life does not always turn out the way expected.

Some of my friends have commented to me that clearly, we are living the good life, and that our new environment must suit us very well. The idea behind writing my weekly updates was to share with you, not only my best moments, but also my worst. I wanted them to be an authentic snapshot of our new life, and not a posed for and mandatory pouting selfie on Facebook. At the same time, I do not want to wallow in self-pity and bore you with all my issues. So let me tell you a few of my problems. Just so you know that the sun does not always shine on our streaming device. (We do not have TV, we have Netflix.)

We have problems. 281 of them, to be exact.

When we bought our piece of mountain in Betty’s Bay, we were made aware of certain restrictions on the land. Nothing too dramatic. Just a little clause that said that in order to do what we want to do, we need “consent use” from our neighbours. How difficult could that be, given that we only have one neighbour. We had in mind popping over to this neighbour, bottle of wine in hand and having a nice chat around consent use. By the end of the evening, and a few more bottles of wine later, we would leave the neighbour’s house. We would part ways as newly discovered lifelong friends, and not only have neighbourly consent, but also an undertaking from them to help us hang curtains the day we move in, and a box of cuttings from their garden.

With this rosy picture in mind, Colin and myself set off to a local Town Planner last week, to discuss the changes to the title deed, and the consent use clause, to get some advice on how to go about it the correct way. Although the wine seemed a clever idea, it may not stand up in a court of law at a later stage. Colin is British, they do things the right way. Had I known how this meeting was going to turn out, I would have done it the African way. It is so much easier. You see, this is the problem. When the Bible says: Love thy neighbour, it does not mean that you must love your own neighbour. It actually means that you must love all of humanity created in the image of God. There are 8 billion people in the world. I have news for you. That is a heck of a lot of loving to do.

Turns out, that in a title deed, your neighbour is not the person living next to you. It refers to every landowner in the municipal area of extension 1, Betty’s Bay. And there are 281 of them, give or take a few. The right way of doing this is that each of those 281 neighbours need to receive a registered letter from us, informing them of the rather minor changes we want to make. Whether the neighbour collects the letter, reads it, or comments on it, is immaterial. The fact remains that the correct way of doing it is to send the 281 letters. We must provide a list of letters sent out to the municipality, with corresponding tracking numbers, as obtained from the Post Office. So no cheating.

That means:

• 1 letter
• 280 photocopies of the one letter
• 281 envelopes (providing we make no mistakes)
• 281 addresses written onto the envelopes (providing we make no mistakes)
• 281 stamps
• And a box big enough to cart the 281 letters down to the local post office, and having each one of them registered

You could do it the African way, paved with tins of Coke and a few buckets of KFC. The issue will come back to bite you later, when one of the neighbours no longer likes your wine, or a natural disaster, such as the dreaded fires down here, strikes. In short, do it the right way.

The next time you think that we are living the good life: spare a thought for my tongue, licking 281 stamps. My luck, stamp glue is fattening and will result in me gaining 5kgs. I have it on good authority that glued on kilos stick to you for a long time.

We are not the only ones with problems. Domino also has a few.

Domino’s first problem is a cat called Tigger. Did you know that Tigger sneaked into HIS house the other day, and sniffed at HIS catnip sock? And what did his humans do about it? They rubbed Tigger’s ears! The sacrilege

Then there is Charlotte. Had Charlotte been a human, she would look like Montserrat Caballe in a kaftan, after a very big Christmas Lunch and 2 servings of trifle. Charlotte had the cheek of lying down on his patch of grass. And what did his humans do about it? They rubbed Charlotte’s ears and told Domino to stop being territorial.

Then there is the cat trap, set up to catch the feral cat that roams around. How was Domino to know that it was a trap?

And what about all the mice he so diligently catches for his family to share? Do you have any idea what his humans do about that? He even caught them a frog the other night, but was there even a hint of gratitude from his humans? (So, he ate the frog by himself, and spent the next day throwing up.)

Not to mention Chippie. (Chippie is a 13-year-old Jack Russel.) Every time he ventures outside to hunt for his family, he must first get past Chippie.

Bottom line. Domino has a lot of problems.

And his humans? Well, they have 281 problems.

And this is where you can help us. If you, or anyone you know, were planning to buy a property in Extension 1, Betty’s Bay, can we ask you to please hold back a month or two? It will really help us, as any new owner will increase our 281 problems to 282 problems.

Until next time, I have some licking to do.