Second last day...

One more day of work, and I am done for one significant while!
This second-last day of slog was absolutely agonising to get through, but thankfully busy.
So the first assignment had PicturesEditor and me dashing out to a particular spot in Main Reef Road near Langlaagte. The Metro cops had blocked off this entire main route into the city because somebody had gone and spilt oil on the road. Off we rushed to check it out - I mean oil on the road??
It turned out to be the most bizarre incident you can imagine. Some little factory business - which I suspect manufactured somekind of extremely unhealthy snacks or fastfoods containing those killer trans fats that dieticians are talking about - had experienced a leak of some kind in the middle of the night. Apparently.
So this oily goop had run out of their yard, through a gap in their grey pre-cast wall, down the pavement and then spewed like a river down the middle of the road. However, it is somewhat chilly here in Jozi these days - particularly outside in Langlaadte in the middle of the night - so this stuff hardened into what looked like congealed fat.
And then cars started driving through it, skidding like crazy, and one truck apparently even flipped and knocked over a street light leaving crazy amounts of wiring standing exposed on the centre island. So THAT's why the traffic was ultra bad this morning.
We tried to get onto the factory premises, but people in the yard had locked the gates and weren't letting anyone in. Not even investigators. PicturesEd held his camera up high, tilted the lens over the wall and shot images of what was going on behind the scenes. But we couldn't figure anything out.
Ah well.
Back to the office. Then out again to one of those awful, awful stories. A father in Sundowner was shot dead in front of his wife and kids last night by armed robbers who ran off with the hard drive of an old computer. His phone, keys, car, wallet and everything of remote value around was left untouched. The family's phone number was unlisted so I got the job of heading out to speak to them at home. I was relieved when they asked for a bit more time to grieve and gather their thoughts. I handed the story over to the night shift guy. I breathed a sigh of relief.
One more day at the office, then tomorrow evening Little One and I will be seated in the sky....
The e-mail torment today was not so bad: