Gremlins Pay it Forward

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(Edited)

The day started out as normal; although others may not see my days as normal. Running a BnB can be full of surprises, some good and some really weird ones, especially some requests.

Year-end Party-time

It's as if everyone is trying to make up for lost time this year as last year's festive season was brought to a rude halt by Omicron.
I've been having this kind of request time and time again for this period -

I'd like to book for 4 guests, but do you mind if we have friends over for a braai (BBQ)?

'How many friends?' I ask

Only about 20...

Well, I think you can guess what my response to that was!

My patience wore out after one too many of these requests, and I bluntly had to tell them this is not a party venue!

The Baptism

We've already had a baptism in our pool, but this time I had to turn down a request for yet another baptism, as we're fully booked and I don't think the guests would be too excited having to vacate the swimming pool on a hot summer's day to watch people being dunked in the pool!

Big Daddy Papaya collapsed...

....following a couple of hectic thunderstorms. He was a giant old man and had lost his two female partners a couple of years ago. We'd been watching him reach for the skies and wanted to cut him down, but as always is the case, we kept on putting that off until it was too late.

Fortunately, he collapsed onto a concrete fence post and not on the house, as one of his female partners did a couple of years ago!

I was shell-shocked when this happened after two separate incidents with electricity that were affecting our guests, as it's peak season so totally forgot to take photos of his demise.
The poor old giant was cut into smaller branches and taken to the garden refuse site.
This is what is left of him - note the trunks have a hollow centre. This is one of the reasons one should preferably not trim a papaya tree, but if you do, the cut stem needs to be covered so that water cannot get in, or else the tree will start rotting.

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I'm going to miss seeing his silhouette when the sun rises in the morning!

The photo was taken last year in October when he still looked healthy.

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A couple of years ago, this was one of his female partners, beautiful and full of fruit, thanks to big daddy!

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Then she also became tired and nearly damaged our cottage roof.
We're now left with nurturing their babies and hope they will flourish and bear fruit just like their forebears.

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Electrical Gremlins!

As I said earlier about electrical faults, the circuit in our studio apartment kept on tripping, not nice when you have guests in there!
The first fault discovered by hubby and our gardener/diy guy, was a loose wire on the aircon plug, so we thought all was well. Not so, as a couple of hours later, the circuit tripped again and this time the culprit was a faulty power-surge protector adapter, courtesy of load-shedding!
I know it's better that the adapter is killed by a power surge rather than electronic appliances, but still...an inconvenience for our guests, who were such a charming couple, and not perturbed at all!

Then another electrical gremlin popped up - an outside electric connector box was flooded after a couple of thunderstorms, so our automatic gate refused to open in the morning as it had not been charging, without us knowing. Another big concern for our guests as we don't have a gateman :)
A call to our insurance company's helpline and a promise that they'll send someone out pronto, took longer as it was the day before a long weekend, but they eventually came just before nightfall and fixed the problem. The electrician informed us that an incorrect cable was used previously, and said this one can even be covered in water and not cause any issues.

The power surges following the frequent load-shedding we're experiencing are killing off the appliances of many. We run around turning everything off, and turning it on one by one after the power has been restored, but cannot do that in the dead of night!

Calm returned

Our beautiful loyal housekeeper Cynthia posing in the garden.
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Are there any cloud watchers out there who can tell me what type of cloud this could be?

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Sugar & Spice & all Things Nice

I finally got around to making my spicey brandied fruit filling for the Christmas mince pies - Cake fruit, Cinnamon, Mixed spices, Cinnamon stick, Brown Sugar, Orange Rind & juice, Grated Apple & Butter slowly boiled, and Brandy added afterward. Bottled and supposed to stand for 3 weeks to soak up all the juices, but one week will have to do, and it already tastes delicious!

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World Cup Football

We've really enjoyed the football with all the excitement and many underdogs sending top teams home.
Who do you predict will win this year's World Cup - France or Argentina?

Pay it Forward

Remember when I spoke of @ericvancewalton's Pay it Forward for the Holidays?
Hubby and I bumped into a couple who were the recipients of tickets to an Andre Rieu show a couple of years ago, courtesy of hubby. A really nice work colleague whose wife was undergoing treatment for cancer. She used to be an opera singer so this was her kind of 'dream come true' during a very difficult period in their lives; they spoke of how uplifting it was.
We try to pay it forward regularly in many small ways.
Something that costs nothing is decluttering, so that's exactly what we did when our neighbours held a jumble sale today for the church that he started in a very poor area that is in desperate need of guidance. The youth especially, with many addicts who live on the street.

It costs nothing to declutter and pass on idle possessions to charities that can make use of them, plus you will find it really liberating once you've cleared out that clutter.

Please think of just one thing you can do to pay it forward, and share it here with us; who knows, it could just start a wave of goodwill to all.

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12 comments
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Life has a way of throwing us curve balls sometimes, doesn't it? I imagine the number of them increase significantly when you're an Airbnb host!

Thanks so much for keeping the Pay It Forward initiative going. I think one reason it hasn't caught on as it did in past years is the horrible economy everywhere. Also, when crypto is down engagement suffers here on Hive. Hopefully we'll all be in a better place next year.

I wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas, Lizelle!

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Shew, and how they've been thrown our way the past couple of years, along with many other bnb's in and around Durban - Covid, riots, flooding & landslides, causing many beach closures as they're finding e-coli in the water due to infrastructure damage... I can go on and on, but we are just thankful to have survived! Many have closed their doors.
When there's power and water outages it's a big concern when one has paying guests, but sad to say our authorities have let the people down.
I agree totally that the economic ramifications of Covid and Crypto is putting a damper on initiatives like this, yet this is exactly when we should pull together and help one another.
I do hope that engagement picks up again, it's really disappointing when hardly anyone actually reads one's posts.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas as well Eric💖

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You all have been through a whole lot! We have lost many local shops and restaurants as well due to the riots and Covid.

I've been in the crypto space for six years now and it's never been this concerning. This entire year was fraught with hacks and scams and then the FTX collapse and subsequent fallout was the linch pin that may push the the bull market years into the future.

It's quite interesting when you start to really drill down to how many people and entities played a role in FTX (SEC being one of them). I may be totally off base but, to me, it seems like it was a set-up from the very beginning to ruin the reputation of cryptocurrency. But like so many other events like this we'll probably never learn the entire truth.

It saddens me the damage all of this did to the reputations of legitimate people and teams in this space, there are so many of them. It would be a tragedy if this is how it ends. I still have faith that Bitcoin will survive no matter what and I hope alt coins have at least one more good rally before the regulations are enacted in the US that prevent Americans from trading them. I fear this is coming sooner or later.

If we see the Hive token value rise I think we'll see engagement pick up again. In the past higher earning potential has always attracted more users and engagement. I can't imagine what I'd do without this outlet.

Thank you and a very Merry Christmas to you my friend!

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Who knows Eric, your theory sounds very plausible as there are many bigwigs who would like to tarnish Crypto but, we are often fed half-truths of events that's shaken the world, so will never know the full truth!
Hive seems to be going up ever so slowly but with all the busyness of this season, publishing and engagement is very low indeed!
Wishing you special times this Christmas with your loved ones, and let's hope for a much better new year!

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Thank you Lizelle! That is so true, so many rumors and conspiracies are swirling that it's very difficult to discern the truth. I wish you and yours an amazing Holiday! You certainly should be warmer than us. The windchill is -30 today and tomorrow is more of the same. : (

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Wow, what a day! Some people love to take liberties at times and it's OK to say no or set boundaries.

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It really was hectic! I've gotten used to saying no to those and other kind of requests, it's quite an eye-opener running a bnb 🙈

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