Vacation House Anyone?

What a swell day we’ve had! This morning early, we had to take Allister and Lucinda (workers) to the flower farm we thought we’d drive to Oordshoorn for an adventure — not that we expected so much adventure in a town. But when we got to the flower farm, Laird asked Norman where Botlerskop, a game reserve we had been to 2 years ago. Turns out it was quite near the flower farm. Have I told you all abut the flower farm? Noekie bought it this year, after looking at it for several years, wanting, wanting, wanting. So Norman, her son, and Junita his wife, are living there now and loving farming. So much more fun for them than the hardware store or construction work. They grow roses, just planted something like 5000 bulbs, have other flowers, like bouquet fillers. House is an old school house.
Anyway, back to Botlierskop — we went there instead and had a wonderful game drive with Silas, our guide. Saw Gnus, rhinos, eland, springbok, bonterbok, lions, zebra, impala (two black ones, but Marita hates that they are being bred; she thinks they are freaks), nyala, water buck and I’m sure, more. Ahhh, the fenbos, with protea trees and lovely, lovely flowers everywher. We had a lovely lunch, with an even lovelier SA wine. Oh, the wine here!
When we got back, and found that it is only about 25 minutes from Dana Baai!, we went to see a couple of houses. I fell TOTALLY IN LOVE with one — the “mansion” the estate agent called it. 4 bedrooms, all en suite, 2 of which were ginormous and looked out on the ocean, with private balconies. Also a 3-sided sunroom on that floor. Off the living room, on 1st floor, there are 2 office rooms. Going upstairs, there is another sitting area on the first landing. Huge kitchen, with yet another sitting area and a little bar, with bar stools and mirrored back and shelves of liquor bottles — enough room for my liquor cabinet! Big skullery, too, because they don’t wash their dishes in the kitchen here. Plus a big enough pantry. Large laundry room. God, I love that house! I want it! R3,350,000. Short term rentals could be maybe R5,000 or so a day over holidays and in season — makes it sound doable, huh? And at a little over 15 cents to the dollar, actually almost affordable! And whoever wants can come for vacation, guys. Oh, and it has an unfinished little apartment — the maid could live there, for sure. Then we saw two pretty old houses that needed to be depersonalized BIG TIME. We couldn’t actually tell anything because there was so much furniture and stuff! I can hear y’all snickering and see you rolling your eyes at me saying that someplace has too much stuff, but these did! At least our house is big enough to kind of mitigate the amount of my stuff. Stop laughing, Chris! The yards were lovely though — Sandy, you would swoon at all the succulants! The aloes, blooming away, the protea, the hibiscus and all the things I haven’t a clue about.
HAPPY DAY, as our friend Marita always toasts — jm