For those of you, treasured readers, who have always looked to EcoStreet for green titbits (I love that word) of the British variety, but have noticed that the flavour has been distinctly African of late, here’s a belated explanation for you.
Although I spent 13 years in England (which is where I was living when Nikki* and I started EcoStreet back in 2002), I am South African, Capetonian to be precise. It took me a while (and several holidays that included long-haul flights and associated guilt and carbon credit purchases), but I finally persuaded my dear English husband that moving our brood to sunny South Africa was the right thing for us to do. And so that’s what we did, just a little over a year ago.
We now live in Cape Town and since our arrival a year ago, we have:
- acquired a house built sometime in the first 1/3 of last century in desperate need of some TLC and retrofitting for sustainability (it also has a great view of Table Mountain, see above)
- adopted two rescue dogs of the Africanis variety
- got our kids into lovely schools (almost as difficult to do as it is in England)
- started an organic food garden (we moved in to our new house 6 weeks ago and it’s winter, so we’re not in full swing yet)
- got our bearings (thanks to the super friendly green folks we’ve met in Cape Town) and discovered organic food markets, organic veg box and CSA schemes, community gardens, restaurants, cafes and farmstalls where we can get our hands on seasonal, local and in many cases organic or biodynamic produce while we wait for our own garden to start producing as much as we can eat, and
- met a whole bunch of really fantastic green-minded folks (referred to above) who have enriched our lives more than they could probably ever know.
So here we are. EcoStreet is going strong, I’m in Cape Town and Nikki (*my sister, EcoStreet partner & the hip-geek who makes EcoStreet look beautiful and work properly) is still back in Old Blighty doing what she does best (and that includes working on a new look for EcoStreet that I’m super excited about, watch this space).
I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve been getting from me lately. There’ll be more of the same coming your way, it won’t be exclusively African, I will be keeping it green, and expect to see more about how we’re adapting to living green on this side of the equator. It promises to be an exciting journey.
Last word: thanks so much for reading what I really enjoy writing! 🙂
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