As I surface from a wintery Easter Weekend in the City. The kids are loving my spontaneous activities like feeding the squirrels in the company gardens and sitting at Cape Town international watching the "traffic"
Anyhow, as I have long lists of activities planned for tomorrow, I will just drop you a little something to read while I'm gone.
http://www.capetownmagazine.com/Shopping/Gone-with-the-Vintage/176_22_17611
Or do if you are into vintage clothing and just happen to be roaming the City's streets.
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Wednesday 13 April 2011
Warming up
Although in the city it's cooling down and sales of coats, boots and tumble dryers are taking off. In the Namib it is still comfortably warm and averaging about 25 deg Celsius. You can comfortably wear a long sleeved top till about 10am and then again late in the afternoon.
Boots are must in the desert but only ankle boots as snake protectors, not long sexy black boots.
Mine stayed in a box for all the 7 years I lived there.
Why am I talking about boots when the first thing on my mind has been the price of children's toys. It is legal to pay so much for items that outlive their play cycle. I have boxes of toys built to last a good 20years, but my kids were done playing with them in less than 2.
Check out www.nutsabouttoys.com you don't think they are a bit OVER PRICED?
Anyway back to the boots, somebody please help me find 25 pairs of ankle boots at about R200-R300 per unit.
Boots are must in the desert but only ankle boots as snake protectors, not long sexy black boots.
Mine stayed in a box for all the 7 years I lived there.
Why am I talking about boots when the first thing on my mind has been the price of children's toys. It is legal to pay so much for items that outlive their play cycle. I have boxes of toys built to last a good 20years, but my kids were done playing with them in less than 2.
Check out www.nutsabouttoys.com you don't think they are a bit OVER PRICED?
Anyway back to the boots, somebody please help me find 25 pairs of ankle boots at about R200-R300 per unit.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
An introduction comes first, as usual
Although I am not entirely new to blogging, I am very unfamiliar with this particular forum and format. The primary aim of this particular blog is to promote CandTtrAdInG, which is currently somewhere between being a brain child and a reality.
Since CandT itself is yet to establish a reputation or background, I would have to introduce you to the ins and outs of....the CandT birthplace.
Being a city girl was never seen as a greater gift than when I married and moved to a remote town in the Namib Desert. Along with hundreds of locals, a few handfuls of incomers, one company, no shop and no school; we tried to scrounge a normal existence.
Some issues were unavoidable, like driving your 10 year old 12 hours away for an emergency operation, or being stranded in the town for days because the diesel truck is stuck in a riverbed somewhere between civilization and your house or sending your kids on a bus for 70kms in the morning and again in the afternoon just to attend school....
Other issues were not as impossible, but some careful planning and negotiating had to be done.
During the 7 years I spent in the desert I managed to successfully source wholesalers who were willing to deliver perishables to a store 360 kms away from their regular delivery routes.
In a short time, a small but fully fledged supermarket supplying anything from toilet paper to fresh milk became a reality. Some things remained a bit odd, like getting the Sunday Times on a Monday Morning or starting an entire bakery because it was cheaper than having bread delivered daily.
Well, the supermarket took off but so did I. The logistics of living so remotely became impossible when my eldest had to attend high school. Now I reside slap BANG in the middle of the city and aim to establish not just a supply vein, but an artery. Thus the blog, the tweeting, the OCD circling of newspaper articles, the scrutiny of gumtree and capeads...etc...
CandTtrAdIng is on a sourcing journey. All in the aim of supplying a wide range of goods to a market desperately in need of real life products. Other than toilet paper and milk.
Thus if you've ever lived remotely and can think of something you would definitely need, drop me a comment, I would really appreciate the input.
BUT, especially if you are a small supplier of niche goods, or a niche supplier of small goods, or you have knowledge of a trade secret, a factory shop sale PLEASE please pop me a comment.
Note that this town has 300 families, one tiny supermarket, no toyshop, no shoe shop, no kids clothing, no sexy lingerie store, no funky gift shop, no library, no hardware store, no stationery store. And the nearest town is 360kms away and has only half of what I have just mentioned.
Since CandT itself is yet to establish a reputation or background, I would have to introduce you to the ins and outs of....the CandT birthplace.
Being a city girl was never seen as a greater gift than when I married and moved to a remote town in the Namib Desert. Along with hundreds of locals, a few handfuls of incomers, one company, no shop and no school; we tried to scrounge a normal existence.
Some issues were unavoidable, like driving your 10 year old 12 hours away for an emergency operation, or being stranded in the town for days because the diesel truck is stuck in a riverbed somewhere between civilization and your house or sending your kids on a bus for 70kms in the morning and again in the afternoon just to attend school....
Other issues were not as impossible, but some careful planning and negotiating had to be done.
During the 7 years I spent in the desert I managed to successfully source wholesalers who were willing to deliver perishables to a store 360 kms away from their regular delivery routes.
In a short time, a small but fully fledged supermarket supplying anything from toilet paper to fresh milk became a reality. Some things remained a bit odd, like getting the Sunday Times on a Monday Morning or starting an entire bakery because it was cheaper than having bread delivered daily.
Well, the supermarket took off but so did I. The logistics of living so remotely became impossible when my eldest had to attend high school. Now I reside slap BANG in the middle of the city and aim to establish not just a supply vein, but an artery. Thus the blog, the tweeting, the OCD circling of newspaper articles, the scrutiny of gumtree and capeads...etc...
CandTtrAdIng is on a sourcing journey. All in the aim of supplying a wide range of goods to a market desperately in need of real life products. Other than toilet paper and milk.
Thus if you've ever lived remotely and can think of something you would definitely need, drop me a comment, I would really appreciate the input.
BUT, especially if you are a small supplier of niche goods, or a niche supplier of small goods, or you have knowledge of a trade secret, a factory shop sale PLEASE please pop me a comment.
Note that this town has 300 families, one tiny supermarket, no toyshop, no shoe shop, no kids clothing, no sexy lingerie store, no funky gift shop, no library, no hardware store, no stationery store. And the nearest town is 360kms away and has only half of what I have just mentioned.
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