Winter of my discontent

Rob Dempster
'Allo 'Allo Gardens! (AAG)
Howick (uMngeni)

Now is the winter of my discontent
26 May 2026

I have always preferred the summer, and I do not mind the heat. I would also prefer it if the seasonal rain occurred during the summer and occurred as afternoon storms after cloudless mornings. I guess it follows that I would also prefer a dry cloudless winter. Well that is what I grew up experiencing in the then Orange Free State.

Now in my retirement I find myself living in Howick, and the weather is much the same. However I am now also 78 years old, and living in the last home Edith and I will build. Despite our efforts to get the plug-points in the right places, the rooms and passages the right shape, the kitchen and bathroom layouts as functional as possible, there is one thing I regret not doing.

We should have endeavoured to heat the hot water supplied to the kitchen sink and the two bathroom basins much closer to the taps. Whenever I need to rinse my hands in one of the bathrooms, or crockery and pots and pans in the kitchen, I turn on the HOT tap, and inevitably let it run until the water warms up. It would have been worse if the geyser then immediately started heating the cold water that then flows into it. That does not always happen as we have a timer switch on the geyser, and it is only on for two hour periods per day. Once in the AM, and once in the PM.

Now is the winter of our discontent - Shakespeare's Richard III

The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck

If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or plain criticism,
I would appreciate it if you would communicate the same to me.

[email protected]

Allo Allo (Protea) Gardens