You'd think I would answer my letters within a couple of weeks if I liked the people who wrote to me, right? Wrong. I've got this Woolworths carrier of letters and postcards etc. that I need to answer at some stage. It's not that I don't want to answer them. It's just that I haven't got around to doing it in quite a while. I have too many stickers displaying my Ebenezer Court address left over as well, so it looks like they will be going to waste. Hopefully, though, we can still retrieve any mail that arrives in Wynberg. It will be a bit of a pain, but I'm very fussy about none of my mail (or socks, but that's another story) getting lost, despite the fact that I take months to answer anyway. Please note my new address at the bottom of this page right away. Go on, get out your address/little black book and scribble it down with immediate effect.

For weeks there were newspapers everywhere. Every single day (almost; we may have missed out two weekdays and Sundays) we bought The Argus. We tried The Cape Times once and the past few Thursdays we've given the CapeAds a chance. I ravaged the property rental columns, chose our victims and most of the time it was Michael who pounced on them, for weeks and weeks. Due to silent rejections, bad luck and the lack of suitable accommodation, we spent many days and nights searching, shining torches into every dark corner of the relevant classified areas. We knew it wasn't worth looking at anything advertised for under R1000 per month, unless we were interested in living in a rathole or a room where we would have to share the facilities with others or if we didn't mind venturing into a crime-ridden area. (Wait, hasn't the whole of South Africa been designated as a Crime Zone?) Another major problem was not being prepared to pay more than R1600 per month. Boy, was it difficult finding something for under that price in the areas we wanted to live in. So many people can't believe you have to pay that much for a flat of one or two bedrooms. And there's nothing elaborate about these places. You'd have to pay R3500 for that I suppose. And the places we looked at were sectional title; I'm talking packed together places in which you can't play your radio too loudly. I'm not talking about big gardens, studies, private laundry rooms, double garages, main ensuite bedrooms (although you could get a place where the sole bathroom is reached through the only bedroom) and dining-rooms. Dream on.

It was 19 July when we were finally offered a place we were willing to take. (Prior to that Saturday, we saw a few places that would have been given to us had we been interested.) We'd seen the flat the evening before, after arriving embarrassingly late. This happened because we got caught at the Kenilworth railway crossing which for some reason has a boomtypething that stays down for no apparent reason. This godforsaken gate-effort stayed down for at least fifteen minutes, trains coming and going intermittently.

[We have since discovered that on weekdays, the gate is down for approximately two hours at peak hours in the morning and two hours at peak hours in the evening. They have these little inconspicuous signs up at the line telling you this. I still see people standing there for long minutes, unaware, because they have this ridiculous, unnoticeable sign next to the booms. We only noticed it because some guy on a motorbike showed us one day when we were innocently waiting to cross the line.]

Eventually we went another route, and I was in a state because being late would not fall into the category of good first impressions. I just thought of something. When we went to have a look at our Ebenezer Court place, we got lost because we didn't know the area well and besides it was tricky getting into Ebenezer Road because of one-way streets and such. So I was in a bit of a state then too because we ended up being late. Also, then I looked up at the six-storey block of flats and realised that I didn't know the number of the flat we were to see. I had forgotten the directions at work and just hadn't considered, until that point, how I would know which flat to go up to. I almost went nuts. I think we went to a couple of floors to see if we could see anyone who looked like they were expecting someone, and Michael asked a woman on the first floor if she knew of any vacant flats in the building. Little did we know that she would turn out to be a busybody body corporate person, but that's beside the point. Then I decided to look at the list of occupants in the foyer to see if any of the names looked familiar. It was a long shot because although I knew the first name was Ruth, I couldn't remember the surname. And the board featured only initials and surnames, if anything at all. I had a feeling the number was sixty-something, so seeing an "R Bratusha" on the 6th floor made me try it out, and amazingly it was the right flat. It was actually unbelievable. And then with this new place, again I didn't find out or hear the number of the flat (usually we're pretty clear on that point) and only when we arrived there, late, did I realise this. Luckily, standing at the electric gate looking like lost puppies, seemed to help. A man approached us from one of the flats. Fortunately he was the connection and he didn't seem too worried about us being late.

Our flat is on the ground floor of a three-storey face-brick building and we have a so-called garden facing a children's park. Most of the garden is covered with large concrete slabs, so it doesn't look very botanical at all, and is surrounded by a low brick wall. There's no gate in it, so unless you scale the wall, visiting should be done via the black gate on Wessels Road. Since it's a security gate, you'd need to beep the number 5 button. Once you're through the gate, you'll eventually reach number 5's door on your left with our parking bay (number 4) on your right. I'd rather talk about the inside of the flat in the next newsletter, after we've seen it again and organised it to our needs. It has two bedrooms, a lounge, bathroom (no shower this time) and kitchen. There are not enough built-in cupboards in the three rooms or enough counter space in the kitchen so we'll need to sort out all of that in time. I can see my bank balance stumbling after paying the deposit and then falling when we buy our lounge suite (I am determined to get this soon! i.e. by the end of August) and all the rest of the furniture we need ("need" in the sense of not being satisfied with having things just in boxes or all over the floor).

This whole moving thing is eating at my brain because we haven't exactly started packing and we're probably going to be moving most of our things or at least all our big things on Thursday (in three days time). We need to have everything out of Ebenezer Court by the end of Saturday (2nd August). *sigh*

Talking of moving, the house in Steenberg (like that's all it is to me: a building in a southern suburb) has a For Sale sign on the front wall now. It was horrid seeing it there on the weekend, but I can't say a cold shiver went up my spine, or that my heart stopped because, I suppose, I have pretty good control over my emotions most of the time. Big deal, it's just a house, life goes on... and I moved out of it by my own choice last year, but that's not the same as not ever being able to visit it again. I guess it gives me the same sad feeling as when I think of how long it's been since I've seen my parents in the same glance. Then again seeing them together has long since made happiness swell in my heart. But still. They're my parents, and even if I don't show it in a way I probably should, I am very emotionally attached to them, and we moved into 19 Powell Rd, Steenberg, when I was four years old. Before that we lived in Chatham Road, my dad's parents' place. And that's where he's living now. Hmm, 19 Powell Rd, isn't just a number in a cul-de-sac either. It's got a name that's come from my name - "Melodia". Actually I don't know if the board with the name is still up. If it is, I don't know if I want to take it off and keep it with me or if it should stay there as long as the house does. It wouldn't be my choice though, if it was left there. The new owners could give it a new name or no name at all. All this conjecturing and I don't even know if it will be sold.

This is all such moosh really, isn't it? And, guess what, it's making me upset, which I suppose is therapeutic, but I don't think you need to hear all of my whining all the time anyway.

I've been so negligent lately, I've really had to exert much energy to write this newsletter. I started off talking about how I owe countless letters. I feel extremely guilty about this. I have no real excuse, apart from a preoccupied mind. I promise that I haven't thrown away any letters. I will answer everything. I'm sorry, Kerry, that I haven't written to you in so long when you deserve a letter so badly. I'm sorry, Bonnie, that I owe you about ten letters. I'm sorry, Peter, that I haven't yet acknowledged your photo personally; I'm sorry everybody. And I hope you will forgive me. I know this newsletter isn't personal enough, it's not a direct answer to letters, generally, and I don't mean to replace my handwritten letters to you with it, it's just happened out of negligence. I've just been tired, worried, anxious, distracted, lazy, sad, and stuff. Funnily enough I've also had some of the best laughs of my life in the past few months because the atmosphere in the office has been wonderful. We have some good fun, and if I didn't have that and Michael and your support (thank you for reading my newsletters - I mean it!), the bad stuff would be so much worse.

Um, one friend I can do something for right now is Bhavic Nana (a.k.a. NaNaSpLiT). I got a letter from him sometime in the past year ;) - well, he wrote it on 24 June 1997, so hopefully what I am about to say here isn't hopelessly out of date, and isn't liable for a lawsuit.

Bhavic wants to me to place an advert in ADT on his behalf (little does he know that the bill of R10 per word is on the way to him as soon as tomorrow hits the horizon):

Bhavic has started his own newsletter called Non-interactive Revolution Guide (NRG for short because it sounds better than NIRG). He will publish an issue per month, and it will feature...

"a wide variety of articles which will be categorised (music, movies, good stuff, bad stuff, general stuff, books, short stories/poems or extracts thereof). Like ADT, I will try to include anything I receive by correspondence in either of these categories. NRG will be somewhat more umm... vocal than ADT (and no, that isn't a criticism of ADT). I'm not saying NRG is exactly aggressive, but if someone has something they would like to get off their chest, or would like me to help get off their chest, then NRG would be a nice place to do it."

If you think you or any of your friends would like a copy of Bhavic's new newsletter (no, I'm not stuttering) to appear in your mail once a month, please mail him once (sort of subscribe), either to his home address: 125 Meranti Street, Mobeni Heights, Durban, 4092, RSA; his email address (which may not be "perfectly reliable" beyond about three months from now): 2buser04@wp0.mlsultan.ac.za; or phone him: (031) 400 2161 (7pm - 10pm most of the time). Bhavic has already written an introductory issue which he says doesn't have much content, but if anybody is curious about NRG in addition to ADT, Bhavic pleads that you at least give the intro a chance (I think you should too because it will obviously be worth it, him being so err good at writing and deep thought). A very important point to note is that he will not go ahead with this plan of his unless he gets a favourable response of at least fifteen to twenty people to begin with, within two months (of this issue going out?). So don't be like me, write him a letter, type him an email, or dial his number.

If I was making any money out of ADT I think I'd be putting myself out of business, placing this ad-of-sorts for Bhavic, because he writes a lot more than I tend to at the moment, which is one thing that makes one's writing better: keeping at it, and being frequently motivated to keep at it. Creatively I guess I'm in a bit of a slump at the moment, with nobody to blame but myself.

Oh, I have a couple of things I should say to Bhavic. One is that I will answer your letter and emails eventually (god, how boring this is getting). The other is that I should say thanks for responding to my last newsletter and Nadia's email in it. At this stage though I'm not going to be publishing any part of that because really I shouldn't have published Nadia's email without asking her if I could in the first place. She didn't mean for it to be published because she felt that it was the start of a personal conversation between me and her. I, on the other hand, looked at it as a response to my ADT writings, and I used to look at any responses to ADT as if they are publishable and even as if they were intended for publication in my newsletter. I see now that I should not have assumed that, and I want to say sorry to Nadia for what happened. It certainly wasn't done in order to make her look like a critic of me. Rather, I put it in the newsletter to admit that I am not very good at making the best out of life, and that she was right in saying what she did. Writing this makes me feel like even now I am saying things she would rather I didn't, because it refers to her email, but I just feel that I need to say them.

Today is the first day of two and a half weeks of leave for me. So it's supposed to be my day for unwinding, I guess. I am not going anywhere, I'm just at home. And I guess I shouldn't even be writing then. But maybe I will only allow myself to unwind - what is that anyway? - once I get back into touch with the things I have been neglecting, like my newsletter-writing and my letter-writing and my fiction-writing. I have been doing a little bit of the latter two in the past few weeks actually, but not enough of it. As you can see, this newsletter hasn't been touched since we were living in Ebenezer Court. But it's time to move on now. Time to print new stickers. Speaking of which, Southern Life finally sent me some "new address" stickers. But they were for Ebenezer Rd, can you believe it? What a complete waste. I wonder if they will do another set. Then again, I shouldn't tempt fate. Our new landlord may boot us out because we haven't yet paid the deposit See, we were supposed to get some maintenance done on the place, mainly plumbing. We were supposed to pay for the maintenance out of our deposit and then give the balance of the money to our landlord (who happens to be the head of one of the academic departments at UCT, i.e. the institution I work at). But with us both working, it's a little tricky getting a plumber in. But Mike is calling up a plumber today and hopefully will organise quotes and stuff, because we can't really just go ahead with it without telling our landlord how much it will cost. So I felt bad that we didn't sort it out sooner, but he could have organised it himself if he wanted speed. No, I'm being mean now.

What's happened since July? We moved in here and furnished the place quite nicely. I got my long sought-after lounge suite - it's navy leatherette: a two-seater and two armchairs. We bought curtains for the lounge and main bedroom and a wall-unit. Then when Michael's parents and youngest sister, Julie, visited Cape Town at the end of September/beginning of October, they brought with them lots of things for us. We are extremely thankful to them for providing much-needed storage space with the newly Woodoc'ed chest of drawers, a bed for our single mattress in the second bedroom (no, I am not pregnant. Bite me), a beautiful ancient wardrobe to make space for the rest of our clothing, a little round teak dining-room table so we can eat respectably at a table rather than in front of the TV (the only problem there is, we need chairs for it now, and we will still quite often eat on the lounge suite, but it makes a difference when we have visitors) and for Michael's motorbike which we hope to sell so that we can have more money to buy a car. Mike isn't that keen to sell it because he's attached to it, and I don't blame him, but he's going to anyway. Actually we have already made our first attempt, by placing an ad in last week's CapeAds. It was just a test really, to see how people would react to it costing R5000. Unfortunately no one has been to see it yet. Possibly this is because CapeAds screwed up the ad, by calling it a 1996 model instead of representing it correctly as having been serviced in 1996. So when people phoned, possibly five of them, they were let down by the news that it's a mid-eighties model.

Anyway we didn't lose anything by trying. Besides it may just be safer in the end to trade it in. Whether we do that, though, depends on how much a used car company would pay for it or how desperate we get.

We really want a car (despite all the hassles cars bring along with them), so we are starting slowly, but surely, to look out for one. There are so many out there though, how does one choose? Initially I was really keen to get a Conquest, a new one, and then I was introduced to the idea of rather buying a car that is a few years older, with more to it, but costs the same price.

And now I am not so sure we should try to buy a car that is so expensive, and perhaps we should rather go for R20 000. I guess time will tell what we decide.

The most problematic things to deal with because we don't have a car are: shopping, laundry and just generally going out at night. Not to mention weekends away. Still weekends away don't sound that wonderful to me at this stage. I just moved into this flat in Harfield Village, why should I want to get away? But the idea is still good, it is fun and interesting and refreshing to see new places. It broadens one's mind.

Our place is looking pretty good now since everything has been unpacked and put in place, although things don't tend to stay in their places. We're not very neat. And we don't keep the kitchen in a constantly washed-up state. I'll try to work at it this afternoon sometime. Also I don't like the kitchen very much because the cupboards are old and smell musty. But it's okay and certainly above bearable.

It's good to have the desk in a separate room. It lives in the second bedroom where we also now have the chest-of-drawers and the single bed. We've also dumped the bean bags in there, although they will probably migrate to the lounge if we have more than two visitors at a time.

I'm talking about the flat too much, I know.

Well, I don't want to talk about my parents' divorce because it's a bit of a nasty, messy subject. I'm just trying to survive it and to get on with my life even though it makes me feel selfish because I am not in the least bit supportive of either of them. I just can't be. I don't think the children can be the crutches of divorcing parents, guilty as that thought makes me feel. It is just too emotionally scathing for me to deal with. I just hope my sisters will be okay. And that my parents will survive it too.

Next month my location at work will be different. Our department is going through a restructuring process and part of it involves trying out the decentralisation of HRM. A three-person team will be relocating from lower middle campus to upper campus, more specifically the seventh floor of the Jagger library, in order to be closer to the departments it will service. I am one of the three people going, the chosen one (ha) out of those who will be working at my level (seven of us), because it was felt that I would not need the support of the rest as much as most of them would, and it was also felt that I am a fast learner when it comes to computers (we are going onto a new system - SAP R/3 - and this will need intensive training). So next month is going to be very different for me, and I will just have to do my best and see how it goes. I hope it will be fun and exciting, as well as fulfilling. It is supposed to be, since it is a little pilot project.

This newsletter is meant to be a sign to you that I still exist and that I have not stopped producing it. It is meant to prove the same to me!

It is difficult to look back on the past three months and try to remember all the important things that have happened. Or all the interesting things.

I still work at UCT, I still irc, I still email, I still eat, sleep and drink.

I want to say a special thank you to Carlos and Vicky for helping me and Mike move and we are very appreciative to Mike's dad for helping us move the big stuff.

I would also like to congratulate Tamsyn on her brave venture into what looks to be a great new, flourishing relationship. He'd better make sure he looks after you. :-)

And I want to tell Nadia that it is about bloody time that she has got herself out of Cape Town for the first time in her life. She is in Johannesburg and loving the fast life (?), and even thinking of working there for a bit. Very impressive.

Someone who's come back into my life: Milo, my close buddy in Australia. I'm really pleased you emailed me and regained contact with me. It's wonderful being able to talk again.

Phil, thanks for all the postcards you have been sending since you left South Africa. I still have to tell you that I have moved! You have motivated me to put up all my postcards again. They're here in the second bedroom, in all their splendour.

Here's to Carlos and Paul graduating this year. I hope those theses are well-engineered.

I want to wish my sister, Wendy, good luck with her end-of-first-year exams, because she deserves to pass everything.

Bonnie, thanks for writing to me so frequently of late, it has been wonderful.

Happy Birthday to Garth for the 23rd of October. Hmm, crown birthday too, isn't it? It's hard being twenty-three but you can do it.

Michael, honey, you need the most thanks because you, my dear, have to, always, put up with me, and you do it so well. Ta x 69billion.

Last, but not least (actually it's not like I don't want to thank other people for things, it's just that I think that this moosh has gone on for long enough now), I would like to thank you all for reading a newsletter that should have been published months ago and for putting up with my effort to get back into it again.

Here's to next time being a hundred times more exciting, more picturesque and more diverse. Till then, try to be good. Don't start or play a part in any wars, please.

Much everlasting love,
The Melodious One

A DifferenTune is a monthly publication (erm... mostly), previously known (for issues 1.1, 1.2 and 2.1) as A Different Tune. It has existed since I, Melody Joshua, created the November 1995 issue. All correspondence and contributions should be addressed to me at A DifferenTune, 5 Mayfair Court, Wessels Road, Kenilworth, 7700, South Africa or melody@adt.org.za. Everything printed in ADT has been written and edited by its creator unless otherwise stated. Back issues and my short stories are available on request. They will be sent free of charge for private, non-moneymaking purposes at the leisure of the creator or immediately for a small fee of three South African standardised mail postage stamps per issue. Foreigners, aliens and exiles may send me one bar of chocolate or box of Astro's per issue instead. These "rules" may change from month to month.