Soccer fever is upon us!

So from counting down from 600 days, the madness is now fully in the swing of things! Our own team hasn't fared well, and it will take a 3-0 victory against France to stay in the game (which, judging by last night's game isn't entirely impossible).

More importantly though, we have had an influx of tourists the likes of which we haven't ever seen before, and they have brought with them a plethora of currencies to spend. Yes, prices have inflated somewhat (especially domestic flights between venues and boutique hotels), but I guess that is just the nature of a demand economy.

The hosting has been good in other ways though. Even though our roads upgrade programwas already on track, the Cup has pushed to complete many projects ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, where I live is not on a 'world cup route', so roadworks are still a major issue, whereas along major routes, all works have been suspended until everyone has left us and we can once again breathe a sigh of relief. We are really not accustomed to working this hard lol.

Another project which was pushed forward (thankfully) was the high speed rail from the Airport to Sandton (the main groove where tourists stay and wags shop). In context, it should be noted that our public transport system has been informal to say the least, let alone down right dangerous.

But, as part of a much wider project involving replacing informal 'taxis' (death traps for the poor that use them), with a really modern and reliable bus system; the highspeed rail system (dubbed The Gautrain) has been slowly taking shape.

The girls and I took the train from the Airport (close to where I live) and painlessly covered the normally one hour in traffic trip into Sandton in 14 minutes.... It seems that everyone in the the country want to taste 'normal' public transport, so while it is still in novelty stage, travelling on the weekend is a pain with queues of excited first time users.

Add to that, once we arrived in Sandton, the vibe was unbeleiavably festive, punctuated by many hot soccer boys from all over the world trying their hands (mouths) at Vuvuzela-ing...

I have been on a bit of a break in terms of my normal work for a couple of months. During this time, I have set up a studio of sorts. More of an image idea centre. There are so many creative things that can be done with ordinary photo's... so yeah, once I have kitted the place out, photo's will follow. It's a smallish space, but part of the reason for taking the space, was to set up a place to work away from home, where I seldom can be very productive..

And OMG it is fucking freezing here at the moment! We haven't seen such low temps in June for at least twenty years. Last night it dropped to -10c! That's unheard of in these parts...