NIEU-BETHESDA NEWS - According to handyman resident, Willie Olivier, the orangey red pipes used for plumbing have a guarantee against bursting at -5°C.
It was no wonder, this particular week, that water could be seen flowing out of homes in the village, as pipes started bursting left, right and centre.
Those with thermometers in the village recorded daily minimum temperatures as low as -7°C. The mercury has dropped far lower before, but what was unusual about this week, was that it was consistent and unrelenting, and the low angling, insipid sun didn’t warm the village up much in the day.
One has to adapt to Winter living in Nieu-Bethesda in a number of ways:
- Ensure your kettle is full the night before, as pipes freeze and many homes have no water until noon.
- Fill your basin too unless you wish to walk around all day with sleep in your eyes.
- Stock up with firewood – either buy bags from town or forage for sticks up in the hills.
- Don’t expect to be able to use a hosepipe until midday when lollipops of ice will come shooting out of their slender casings.
- Stay outside during the day. Old Karoo dwellings were made for sleeping only and can be frigidly cold in the daytime.
- Prepare for your engine freezing overnight and having to take a taxi to town.
- Never put on your windscreen wipers with water – your windscreen will become a sheet of ice that is impossible to see through.
- Let your car idle for a while with the ‘defrost’ setting on inside. Never put water (cold or hot) onto your frozen windscreen as it can cause the windscreen to crack.
- Washing left on the line overnight becomes a frozen sculpture.
- Take a walk to the river where it flows from the spring – in the shadowy parts where the sun never reaches, the ice can get to 10cm thick in parts and makes for wonderful ice walking recreation! The ice and frost action is extremely beautiful.
- Obtain gloves for reading at night – hands can freeze if they stick out from the blankets.
- If pets have to sleep outside, ensure they have a kennel and blankets.
- Don’t forget your sprinklers on…unless you want to witness an icy wonderland in the morning.
School holiday chores on the pass out towards Ganora.
Treading on (not so thin) ice on the Gats River tributary.
While the wintery months in Nieu-Bethesda are sometimes uncomfortable, there is a certain invigorating deliciousness to be had in the bone chilling, cheek pinking frostiness that makes our seasons so different from one another.
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