My old man. He’s a lot less stern than he sometimes appears. I got to see the Prof of cardiology ask him some niche questions about ECGs today - still a valuable font of knowledge on his lifelong arcane speciality many years after retirement.
Sitting to ensure you don’t have a rare adverse reaction to the COVID vaccination at the Cape Town International Convention Centre - turned into a massive vaccination hall. Sadly, vaccination has slowed down a bit. At its peak this facility does thousands per day with friendly efficiency. It reminded me of a similar massive save by science. In the early 2000s, working for a tuberculosis organisation, I was fully expecting that great halls like this would be used as mass hospices for people dying from HIV/AIDS. At that point, millions of South Africans were being diagnosed, but there was no treatment available. The first antiretrovirals could only delay the disease - not stop it. But then a triple therapy was developed that thrashed the hell out of the lethal virus. Due to having a conspiracy theorist as president (sound familiar anyone) even that lifesaving treatment was denied to South Africans until 400,000 had died for no reason (at a conservative estimate). But once that maniac was deposed, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi rolled out the largest HIV treatment programme on Earth, saving literally millions and millions of South Africans. Like today, most of the work on developing those antiretrovirals was publicly funded research - paid for by taxpayers.
@withoutaleaf queueing for one of her many, many, COVID tests outside a studio in town. I’ve managed to avoid them altogether (by not having any need to interact in person and not having any major symptom scares) while she’s had dozens and dozens from having to work safely on set. There’s very little pandemic on my Instagram in general. I was mostly at home and then tended to point a lens at things that were a break from the pandemic. There’ll be no shortage of documentation of this strange, history-bending time. But it is good to have a few images that show the thing actually happening in your own life even if you don’t interact with it directly - as I’ve been very lucky not to have to do.
I found a few pics on cards from our 2019/2020 trip to Kruger. That was summer and the impalas were giving birth to huge numbers of lambs - most of which are destined to be dinner rather than grown up impalas. But they are delightful little creatures.
Skitten is gone. 14 years of living with one of the finest little beings ever - even though it never knew anything. The growth in its throat was obstructing its breathing and it was getting worse and worse. Ever since Aparna sent it home from Maatjiesfontein in a box in 2007, we’ve made sure it had only good times. Simply the best little cat.
A first for me: the eerie Bathawk (if I’m not mistaken). I WAS MISTAKEN. It’s apparently a brown morph Honey Buzzard. Well there you go… Who knows what circumstances in its youth led to an ordinary hawk leading a double life fighting crime in this frightening guise? We’re home after the usual exhausting trip across the country - notwithstanding a wonderful time in Jozi with @sophdex, @ezlemoen, some lovely parents, and many cats and dogs. It took all of one minute in Observatory during which we were both inside for some rando to try steal the lens which this picture was taken with out of the car. He was most offended that I was suggesting that his reaching into the car, opening a bag, and trying to secret the lens under his arm implied that he might have been attempting to steal it. The nerve of me to suggest such a thing! I think he actually believed himself too. ...
Impala Lilies are blooming in The Kruger National Park in spring.
I decided I preferred this Blue Eared Starling pic.
Another very common bird in The Kruger National Park: The Yellow-Billed Hornbill. And again, although they’re everywhere, they’re always fun. So full of arch, suspicious character and long glides just at windscreen level.
Would you believe that this creature is one of the most common birds in the Kruger National Park? They’re even common in Johannesburg gardens. They’re still stunning birds, no matter how ubiquitous - and cheeky - they are.