FROM YOUR CHAIRMAN
S
orry we are running late this month with our newsletter, apolo-
gies to all and sundry – my fault. No excuses, just horribly busy
for the past month or so and have been travelling excessively.
Well, excessively for me at any rate. Spent a week in Durban see-
ing clients, back for a week off and after that to Cape Town for business
for a week and stayed for the weekend to see my son as well as friends
and family. What a weekend that was. Then it was a rush back late Sun-
day, a couple of days in the office and then off on the Tuesday night to
Australia for my nephew’s wedding. Arrived Wednesday night in a place
called Byron Bay. Stunning wee beach town which just screamed party,
part,y party, so that is exactly what I did for a couple of days, then flew
back on the Sunday. Not called Sun Day for nothing; leaving there on
an 8am flight I was in the sun the whole way back before arriving here at 5:30pm SA time,
effectively 20 hours of daylight of which I think I spent about 16 to 18 hours sitting, sorry,
cramping, on a plane in cattle class. That’s the price of a scattered family, something many
of us South Africans unfortunately have. The cost of living in SA these days it would appear.
Being in so many places in such a short period of time allows one to place living in
Thornhill in context. In Durban, nobody seems to worry you’re from Jo’burg. No ‘Oh shame’
or anything like that, just a friendly hello and an invite to enjoy your stay. In Cape Town,
however, I constantly get asked when I am going to ‘semigrate’ to the Mother City. Some-
thing I do think off but I cannot find anywhere like Thornhill down there so not going just
yet. Being in Australia was a more surreal experience. I found myself justifying living in SA
but struggled to believe myself mid-sentence. ‘I have a real sense of freedom in SA that I
don’t think I can have elsewhere’, I heard myself mutter. ‘Easy to start businesses here, get
things done and we have great weather, mountains, beaches, forests and everyone speaks
English’. By this time I realized I was sounding very lame but it was the next bit that had
me breaking down in laughter as I tried to get the words out to the shocked looking guests,
‘Yes, it is violent in places but once you have been held up once, so long as you don’t fight
back, it’s over pretty quickly, just be careful and you should be fine, great country, great peo-
ple really and none of that nanny state stuff you guys have like sticking to the speed limit
and all that.’ You could see the look of pity in their faces, they would rather pay ten times
the price for a drink or hotel room than we would, drive an older car and take a simpler job
so long as they felt safe and they had a future. Which brings us to Thornhill Estate, your
safe home and future for you and your family. Currently it feels like it is the calm in the eye
of the storm with so much crime around us, but being pretty safe inside the fence. We are
adding to our cameras once more, this time more down at the entrance, (can’t call it the
roundabout anymore as it is about to disappear). This is so we can monitor what is going
on and provide quick information to the authorities should they need it. We have entered
into discussions with the shop developers regarding security in the area as well as ques-
tioning how they got to move the road after it was refused over ten years ago. It appears
that the JRA is demanding the traffic lights based on some road traffic report and it seems
to be the way they want to go as opposed to the great big roundabouts that have proved so
successful in the area.
Despite how nice it was to be in Australia for a few days, I was really pleased to arrive
home to Thornhill, our rolling parks with the improvements in the watercourse starting
to make a difference already - big shout out to the Estates & Gardens Committee for all of
that. Coupled to an estate full of such wonderful people, this still has to be the best place
Continued....
Your Thornhill Estate Contacts
WEBSITE: www.thoa.co.za
EMAIL: [email protected]
GUARD HOUSE: 011-608-4361
ESTATE OFFICE: 011-608-0835