I love a good storm. And there's a really good storm over the British Isles at the moment. I've had the Isle of Man webcams open on my second monitor, and while it's amazing to watch the Irish Sea doing its thing as we approach high tide: I'm missing the noise and the smell and the stinging cold on my cheeks.

I was trying to top up with electricity this afternoon. Most of South Africa operates on pre-paid meters, and so it's very easy to buy units from shops, but it's even easier to buy it online from your banking app. Except when it's not. Because, shockingly (no pun intended): electricity is unavailable. At least, it's "currently unavailable", lol (no pun intended).

Come for the unusual medical case study, stay for the line about the skunk. Yeah - this is an unfortunate case of human to human transmission of rabies via a kidney transplant, resulting in the death of the recipient. (The donor was obviously already dead, but more on that later...) When I used to work in a lab that tested stuff for transplants, we never tested for rabies virus.

Five games unbeaten, 13 goals in the last four. It does feel a bit better. This was a very pleasant 90 minutes. Almost unexpectedly so. But I'll take it. Right... back to Stranger Things - still catching up. No spoilers, please.

This is about Nelson Mandela Bay (Gqeberha), but there's no shortage pf poachers around Cape Agulhas and Cape Town. They are very well funded, and treat the coastline and the law with complete impunity. And, because of SA's issues with poverty, even when a poacher pops his clogs and joins the choir invisible - which they do on a fairly regular basis: this isn't a low risk occupation - there are many, many others ready to step in and take their place. No quick fix? More like no fix at all for this right now.

I'm not sponsored by this guy. Hey, I'm not sponsored by anyone, but if you want to give me some money, please just let me know. But... I did get this advent calendar, and I have now opened 4 (four) boxes. So how's it gone so far? Pretty well. Day 1: Chimichurri - I'm new to the smokiness of these products, but this was exactly what it said on the tin: a smoky Argentinian-style chimichurri.

Managing expectations is an important skill in any business. Always aim to under promise and over deliver. Get that the wrong way around (and I'm constantly fighting with companies that do), and no-one is going to be very impressed. Me. I'm one of those people. So this was ostensibly just a comeback run after some niggly injuries. "Don't expect too much.

There were plans for a nice big blog post today. But then suddenly, there was some impromptu horseriding (not me), and then I accidently lit a braai and opened a bottle of red wine. And suddenly it's 9 o'clock. And now I want to settle down and watch some Premier League footy. So, let's try again tomorrow, shall we? Sorry about that.

I think we did ok on Black Friday. It was fortunate timing for replacing items after this. But we don't splurge. We select the deals which work for us, and we use the opportunity of a discount to purchase things we were going to get anyway. Except, well... There was this on Simonsig's Instagram: We’re pricing like it’s 1969.

I'm usually the one that organises the advent calendars for the rest of the family. And I did that again this year. What a great excuse to enjoy some chocolate. This year, one got organised for me, too: It's from smokedoke.co.za, and it's a mixture of chili sauces and condiments: one each day, as is the tradition. I'll give you an update sometime in December as to how things are going and which items you need to order to spice up your festive season up a bit.

Long day. Good day. Lots of fun around the braai and watching a bit of sport. No win for a racehorse, nice win for United, big win for South Africa in the rugby. Eben Etzebeth remains a complete twat. (Was there ever any doubt?) But despite those positives, it does seem like the universe was trying to send me a message with the stuff that was appearing on my phone this morning.

Indeed: The mantra "If you never try, you will never know" captures the spirit of exploration, growth, and fulfilment. It encourages us to "break free from the shackles of fear", step into the unknown, and embrace the opportunities that await. Wow. They make it sound so adventurous, don't they? And yes, all of what you read there is absolutely correct, of course.

This is equal parts dull and mesmerising. It's a guy rolling a tyre down a hill, which is ostensibly very boring, but weirdly, you get drawn into the video and you want to travel with the tyre, down the mountain. Where will it go? Who will it meet? Will it survive? Amazing scenery, great drone work, appropriate music, and a story that ends all too abruptly.

So thank goodness I'm writing this down. Regular readers - yeah, plural because I'm an optimist - might recall that on Monday, I was wondering whether to stay up late for the football. I decided to be sensible and not to. But then circumstances took over anyway. Because sadly, our son's car was broken into while he was dodgeballing, and stuff - a lot of stuff - was stolen.

Oh wow. Remember when the internet used to be like this? Pure HTML. No fancy languages, scripts or tricks. Better still is that this site is still regularly updated, and it's all about lighthouses. I haven't had time to exhaustively search it just yet, but it does seem to bear a reference to literally every lighthouse in the world. Add in the latest lighthouse news and pretty much anything else lighthouse-related, and not only is this lovely nostalgia, it's also a really nice resource.

See, the issue is that aside from the December holiday/festive season marking the end of the year like up North, here in SA, it's also the summer holiday. So all of those fun times that you would normally have in summer in the UK (both days if you're lucky), and all of those fun times that you would have over the festive period, are distilled down into one big party month.

This was nice to watch. I usually enjoy a bit of a contest when it comes to football, but the odd one-sided affair is always welcome: A messy, scrappy game, but sometimes it's more about the result than the performance, and a local derby is always one of those occasions. Happy days.

I downloaded a few videos to watch while I was away, and this one entertained me during some restful moments on the beach. I really enjoy Rory Sutherland stuff. I'm not a marketing person, so I don't know how relevant this sort of thing is in the day to day lives of actual marketing people, but I just love the different way that Sutherland looks at things that we just take for granted.

Spotted while we were away: plenty (or more) Phelsuma ornata. And while some other creatures' common names don't quite follow through on the description - a Koala Bear isn't bear, a King Cobra isn't a cobra, a Jellyfish isn't a fish etc etc - there can be no complaints here. Je vous présente le Mauritius Ornate Day Gecko. …

Wow. It's like the 1990s and the early 2000s never went away, because: I dunno. But lying on a tropical beach overlooking the Indian Ocean took me back - way back - to our honeymoon several (or more) years ago. And I'd just got my first ever iPod, brought over from the UK by one of the wedding party. Sadly though, there wasn't the time, the knowledge or the bandwidth to get much on there before we headed off to Mozambique, and so I ended up listening to Keane's…

Wow. That was a great few days away. Lovely company, great place, amazing weather, superb service, friendly people. It had it all. But can I admit that I was rather disappointed with the flight back? Heading out to Mauritius, I went via Joburg and landed (pun intended) with my bum totally in the butter on one of Air Mauritius' (almost) brand new A350-900s.

I don't know why the weapons were taken away from rabbits at the end of the Middle Ages. I don't even know why they were given weapons to begin with. But that is a great image of a flying kick. For reference: The British Library describes manuscripts from the 14th century showing rabbits hunting and fighting hounds, a reversal of their typical predator-prey relationship.

I have absolutely no desire to visit America. The United States thereof, that is. I didn't have much desire to visit there before Captain Cheeto came along - maybe Monument Valley, and Washington State, but the rest of it: nah - and I have a good deal less now. Yeah, I'm sure that I'm missing out with my simplistic anti-American views, but I'm not ruling out travel altogether.

Warning: Juvenile post ahead!(As if you hadn't guessed from the title.) But seriously, Little Miss 6000 recently did her Grade 7 vocal exam. And the natural progression is now to Grade 8, although there's a consensus that there's not going to be too much hard work towards that in the remainder of this year. Just a look. And so the books were brought home last week.

I might be on a nice little island with some lovely beaches, but are any of them Blue Flag Beaches? Well, actually, no. While Mauritius is making efforts to achieve Blue Flag status for its beaches, and some beaches have the potential for it, there are no universally recognized Blue Flag beaches listed in the search results for 2025.