I am feeling really peaved about something that happened to me on Monday. I thought i would wait a few day's to settle down, but i am just as p....off as i was then.

First a little background. I live in a little village called Villiersdorp situated in the Western Cape in South Africa. The town is nestled in a beautifull valley right in the middle of the Cape wine route.I am surounded by mountains, vineyards and fruit trees. I live 8 kilometers from the 7th largest man made dam in Southern Africa. The dam brings with it the usual water sporting activities and has a yacht club and golf course. However, more about that another time......

Residents of Villiersdorp receive 'leiwater' in the summer months. Liewater is a system where water is released from the dam and is channeled down into the village along a sluice system. The residents are given the oppertunity to purchase the water at a very nominal rate and can choose the time period they wish to receive it. This water is then directed from the sluice into their garden. Everybody has a set time and day to receive their water each week. My day's are on Monday's from 9.20 to 9.40. Well for the past couple of weeks, I have been short changed with my time and this week was the last straw.

To channel the water into your garden we use a series of 'gates' that block the flow from one direction and moves it to the next. At 9.30, (ten minutes before my time was up} the water had slowed down to a trickle. As this had been happening on previous Mondays, I decided to investigate who was stealing my water! The first thing I did was to check who was supposed to get the water after me. It seemed logical that they were the one's jumping the gun. After i had established the guilty party, I went up the road to have a word with them. I wasn't actually cross at this stage because I thought I would give the person the benefit of the doubt. I thought that maybe she was confused about the time and if we synchronize our watches we would alleviate the problem!

I arrived at her gate to witness my water being lavishly poured onto her Hydrangeas......! I pointed out that my time had not yet ended and she informed me that we are meant to take our water 5 minutes earlier in order to give it 'running' time to reach its destination. She told me that this is stated on the piece of paper that we got from the municipality with the leiwater schedule. The lady in question is 90 in the shade and as I had always been taught to repect my elders, i did not argue with her. I was going to point out that if this was the case, she was still wrong because she had allowed 10 minutes 'running' time.

I returned home to review the schedule again and found absolutely nothing regarding 'running' time. In fact the schedule is very specific about the 'start' and 'stop' time!
I also noted on the schedule that the offending lady only paid for 5 minutes water a week. No wonder she's stealing mine. She's got a bargain paying for 5 minutes and getting 15! She won't catch me next week......watch this space!