Employed but homeless!

The good news is that I'm employed, but I am homeless and have been too depressed by the state of houses to bring myself to write about this horrendous ordeal. Oh, hyperbole for effect! I am not homeless as I am still staying with Tal in her fabulous house, but seriously, I have been into some revolting houses.

The first was dark, so dirty that I didn't want to touch anything and had unidentified organisms growing in the kitchen sink. The frightening thing was that it was owned by a teacher, someone who is meant to be educating young minds about the world (including hygiene) and it was next to a cemetary. The next was a house filled with chain smoking women, and the amount of nicotene which they had exhailed had turned the entire house yellow and the fumes and level of estrogen was so strong, that it was stripping the paint off the walls. The third and most delightful of the lot, was discribed as short to medium term accomodation, all rooms en-suite for interational travellers and it was just down the road. Fantastic! I headed off filled with naive enthusiasm only to be confronted with a hole in a wall filled with retarded, stonned out of the minds (no wonder everyone stays there for a few months, because they have no motivation to crawl out of the sess pit!) with dazed children, half naked, passed out on the chairs. All the rooms are "en-suite" because they share one bathroom in a courtyard and the rooms are dorm rooms, that is if you are able to wade through the crap strewn across the floors to find anything resembling a flea infested matress... I left rather suddenly only to be told that I better book soon as they were filling up fast. Filling up with what, left me shivering in horror and runnning for my life. At one point last we I seriously considered moving in to the Nunnery, wich was clean etc but the nuns wouldn't have me!

Salvation arrived this weekend when I met some fairly normal people and had a drink at the pub on top of the venue where I am going to see Hot Chip (a good sign). I went to see the house today - a beautiful rennovated Victorian terrace house, freshly painted, large rooms, polished floors, a garden minus stinky hippies and only ten minutes walk from work! So, I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I was able to charm Lee and Emma into living with me.

And I started work today. Yes, I have been employed by the Peter Mac Cancer Foundation and am helping them with admin, event organising, raising cash for cancer etc and I will be there for the next three months. Perfect. A small office, lots of happy people all working for a good cause at the hospital. They are a research and specialist cancer treatment hospital and some of their research is very simular to that of some of the companies which Cape Biotech funded, so great to be in a simular environment. The head of the foundation is a South African so he is pleased to have an allie against the Ozzies, and they are all fairly young, except for the ladies who work in the gift and charity shop - I have about three new adopted grannies and Claudi they are already probably knitting something for your baby! - but are very sweet and we administer the funds which they raise.

Tal, Ram and I went to an amazing Mexican restuarant last night, clearly not as good as Greg's Iraqi cuisine, as I do not have pictures, but the freshly made frozen magaritas were delicious. On saturday we went to an evening concert in the park, where we listened to a raggea/latin/allsorts band which were rather good and it reminded me a lot of Kirstnebosch but with bats flying about and possums in the trees around us. Now that my prospects are looking up I promise to post more often! Dratt - Spell check not working again.... Apologies