Friday 9th December 2022
I woke up to lots of weather news from Johannesburg. Flooding, roads broken, bridges collapsing all as a result of the heavy overnight rain. Pretoria was dry so I dressed to run.
I decided to turn away from the church spire but stay in the vicinity to avoid getting lost. Agan the early morning workers were incredibly friendly and encouraging. I turned up the suburban streets and was enthralled with all the different styles of buildings. Plus there were pavements everywhere.
Pretoria has many consulates. I passed the Kuwait, Indonesian, Slovak, Algerian and wondered if the diplomats live on the property. As I ran past some of the High schools, I saw hundreds of cars and remembered that it was report card collection day. I'd forgotten that high school boys wear shorts in Pretoria but they did wear shoes, unlike primary school.
It was hot by the time I returned to my bnb so I sat with my door open while fiddling with my phone. I had a moment where the time slowed down and I looked up and gasped. The resident chunk of a dog, Tom had walked silently in to look for his owner. He then whined and seemed anxious. I gave him a dog biscuit provided and then I saw the reason for his whining. His owner had packed her suitcase snd he knew he wasn't going with her.
I took my time packing and showering and made my way to visit a new friend who has a long history of living in Pretoria. She's an experienced tour guide too so I spent some fascinating hours with her before making my way back to Johannesburg. Molly is very happy to see me and the cat is mildly curious.
The bumpy night from last night has left me feeling really tired so I'm hoping to have an early night.
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