Bethlehem

What good can ever come from Bethlehem? Not the Palestinian village up north but a little town called Bethlehem in the eastern Free State. Yes along with Bethlehem we have our own Aberdeen, Belfast, Berlin, Boston, Margate, and even a Utrecht.

Lynda’s dad moved down to Cape Town from Durban recently and one of the vehicles broke down in Bethlehem. So Lynda and I had to go down to Bethlehem today with my pick-up towing a trailer to rescue Lynda’s dad’s stuff. Can I use two apostrophes with two nouns like this?

More rain was expected in the afternoon over Johannesburg so it was a race against the elements but as luck would have it Lynda’s dad’s stuff was in three different places. What a mess? And the cherry on top was the last group of stuff was inside a shanty town to the north of Bohlokong, the township just outside Bethlehem.

So I ask again what good can ever come from Bethlehem?

A ferocious storm hit Johannesburg this afternoon and we drove into the tail end of it. It was severe even for us towing a trailer but thankfully we arrived home in one piece but with no electricity. News started coming in of hail blanketing the West Rand like snow, a shopping mall in Krugersdorp roof collapse in under the weight of the hail, and lightning hit the Hartesbeespoort cable buildings at top of the mountain which caused the pup and restaurant to burn down. It looks like we came home to a war-zone.