Park's department | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The Sweet Service Award goes to Rian van der Merwe and his team at Battery Centre in Stellenbosch, who were kind enough to wait for us to get to their outlet from Franschhoek, after their 12h00 closing time last Saturday, to have a new battery installed, after the 6-year old car battery had come to its end. Not only was the service excellent, but the price charged for the new battery was far below that of the Mercedes Benz workshops we called, the labour cost of the battery installation charged at 1,2 hours and costing R1100 alone (it took Battery Centre 15 minutes and they did not charge extra for labour)!

The Sour Service Award goes to the City of Cape Town’s Parks Department, and is nominated by Tanya Kotze: “I nominate the City of Cape Town – specifically the City Parks Division – for a big fat Sour Award for demolishing a green park with indigenous fynbos in Melkbosstrand and planning to replace it with concrete (a parking area/skateboard facilities) without even consulting the residents (and ratepayers) in the surrounding area”.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog. Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at info@whalecottage.com. Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

The Sweet Service Award goes to La Motte wine estate in Franschhoek, and was nominated by Ryan Smith, of Ryan’s Kitchen in Franschhoek. He writes: “Lana has one of those charm bracelets that my mother gave to her some time ago and every year my mother gives her a new charm. It’s of moderate value but particularly sentimental. This morning Lana woke up hysterical and in tears, she had lost the bracelet. We looked high and low, and couldn’t find it, we went in to work, had a look around and still no luck. I said to her that she should go out to La Motte and see if anyone had turned it in. This was very much a last effort, as she was already despondent that it was gone forever and had it been dropped on the floor or grass there, anyone that found it would have pocketed it. Lo and behold…one of the staff had handed it in and it was locked in their safe. (Chef) Chris dropped it off for me later that afternoon. Lana was obviously overjoyed and I was very impressed that there are still some good people out there”.

The Sour Service Award goes to the City of Cape Town, for planting palm trees all over Cape Town, but for not checking up on their fronds coming crashing down on stormy days in suburbs such as Camps Bay and in Fresnaye. A heavy winter’s storm in early June caused all the dry and dead fronds to come down. They were neatly packed on the pavement after the storm, awaiting collection by the City’s Parks department. The refuse collection vehicle came every week to collect the garbage, but did not take the fronds with them, nor reported it to their City Council colleagues. Even after calling the Call Centre, it took ten days for the fronds to be collected.