LIVING IN A TUPPERWARE BOX

Finally, we are almost moved into our Tete ‘home from home’.  Which happens to be a lidded plastic box, with a few windows, doors and airconditioning.  You’ve heard of Silicon Valley, we are in Tupperware Tete!

I’d best be circumspect, because if Him Outdoors gets to read this, I’m in trouble.  He’s gone to extraordinary lengths to secure a double unit, hunt down a sliding glass door, find a carpenter to fit a mini kitchen (all non-spec) and ensure we’ll have running hot water by tonight.  Bless him.

My job is to pack up our bits and pieces at the house in Matema and get them safely across to Moatize, which is a doddle as we don’t have much left to move, HO has transported quite a bit in the past week.  He also, in the process of hunting and gathering the above, tracked down and clasped to his chest not one but TWO of the largest TV’s I've ever seen, and has already safely locked them up on site!

One will fill the lounge end wall, and he seems to think the second one will fit into the bedroom, for use when I’m not there.  After all, much comfier snoozing in front of the box on the bed  than falling asleep on the couch, waking up, and having to walk 3 steps into the next room.

He’s a nutter – a screen of that magnitude requires a room the size of the average town hall, failing which our eyes will be blown backwards out of their sockets.  That ‘essential’ will find a home elsewhere in the Kwikspace complex – it’s too big for the gym or communal dining room so either he builds an outdoor lapa pub next to the swimming pool, or we set up a cinema in town.

Anyhow, enough of the boy toys, back to the plastic box.  Our new home closely resembles a shipping container, made of plastic panels. It’s quite compact and neat - a wipe down with a damp cloth will clean interior and exterior walls, floors and ceilings. The shower is a plastic nook, but a decent size, taking up at least half of the bathroom.

As you can imagine, this is a huge adjustment.  We've always lived in brick and mortar houses, differing only in size and roof types (tin, slate, thatch.  3 or 5 bedrooms, 1 or 2 lounges, single or double story.) But we've also always lived in established towns or cities with a growing family.  Now we are pioneers in a mining town and the boys have grown and flown.  Darby & Joan enter a new era.

On an intellectual level, I get this, I really do.  It has everything we need and is plenty big enough for our rather simple lifestyle.  A large outdoor living area is planned, thus the box is purely for sleeping, showering and privacy.  Anything bigger would be a complete waste of space.  We can lock up and go; the unit seals like a dream, therefore it will be very energy efficient at keeping dust out and chilled air in.  Arguably its construction footprint is better than a plastered, painted, brick and mortar house would be, especially in this neck of the woods.  What more could we want?

Meanwhile, I’ll get cracking on planting a vegetable patch and establishing the garden.  Perhaps that’ll pacify the tiny inner voice questioning the weirdness of calling this soul-less plastic box ‘home’.