Ten Ways to tell you’re in Dundee …

Dundee is a fascinating town to live or work in. To mark Heritage Month we take a look at what makes this dorp special and why people are so patriotic towards NDE.

Situated in the heart of the Battlefields, the town is steeped in history but also has its own quirks which set it apart from other towns.

Here’s the ten tell tale signs that you are in Dundee:

1. No one knows how to navigate a traffic circle.
Time and time again you see it; drivers not knowing when to go and when to stop. This has led to numerous accidents and awkward situations.

2. Motorists park anywhere they want.
Who needs designated parking bays when you can park in the middle of the road or on the pavement. Drivers have a habit of parking where they want in the CBD. It’s not just the locals, drivers from out of town are guilty of it as well. Just put on your hazards and you’re forgiven.

3. You can conduct all your shopping on the pavement.
From shoes to clothes, sweets and even crocodile meat, the pavements of Dundee hold many a strange thing. The meat suppliers are especially health conscious and use Doom to spray the meat they are selling to ward off the flies. You can have your hair cut on the pavement in a tent near Shoprite and the guy is cheap because he does not pay rates even though at your business, you pay an encroachment fee to the municipality should your sign jut out on to the pavement…

4. The parking meters are still operational.
Yes, you read that right. Motorists from out of town are often amazed to find operational parking meters in town. They take 20c and you will be fined if you don’t use them. We told you Dundee was steeped in history.

5. Pedestrians have right of way.
The light flashes red, the cars are speeding through but yet the pedestrians continue to walk. Dundee pedestrians are either colour blind or don’t know how a robot works, but surprisingly, they always manage to avoid being run over – well sometimes…

6. Everything happens on the same day.
The old adage, yes, but there is nothing to do in this boring town rings true for all small towns and Dundee is no exception. That may be true some days but we have that special knack of hosting about 100 events on the same day…. Tourism Dundee has been trying for years to co-ordinate a What’s On calendar but to no avail…. We appear to like extremes – too much to day or zip to do – except complain, of course.

7. There’s more livestock roaming around than on a farm.
You would be forgiven for thinking that Dundee was a rural area with the number of animals wandering around. From cows to goats and sheep, the animals seem to like wandering the streets, visiting the residential areas and even chomping on the roses in front of the municipality. The stock also like having meetings near the hospital and playing chicken with motorists on the Glencoe road.

8. The parks are a free for all zone.
There’s no limit to what you can do in Dundee’s parks. Sure, the sign may say no no parties or littering, but who worries about the law anyway? The parks have been used as a dumping zone, a toilet, a party venue and even a spot for more adult activities. The good thing about this is that there is always a party going on…

9. There’s always a drifter wherever you look.

Dundee seems to attract drifters with the strangest stories who always pop up when you least want to see them. There’s always that guy who needs just R10 more to board a bus to Durban but hangs around for months. Or the youngster in the hoodie who needs to catch a taxi to Hattingspruit to see his sister and his parcels are at OK Supermarket and he needs money to do this and that, and, and, …

10. If you don’t know what you are doing, there are plenty of people who do

The good thing about living here between the Twin Peaks of Mpati and Indumeni is that even if you do not know what you are doing – it happens to everyone – in our busy lives, we cannot remember who have spoken to, what we have said and what we have done – there are plenty of others who know exactly what you are doing and even what you are going to do next.

We have an extraordinary number of special agents around here who know the news before it happens. They even know who you are related to even though your closest living relative is in Saigon – you think

Having people know what you have done is handy when you have one of those occasional off days …