Mother's favourites

It's funny how, despite the plethora of cookbooks - so many and from such a variety of cultures - food channels on TV, online recipes freely available on the web and live cooking classes hosted by celebrity chefs at their restaurants, most of us stick to the recipes our mothers used when we were children. I still make Chicken Evergreen, a delectably delicate dish with a white wine sauce; Lemon Delicacy, that old favourite that is self-saucing with sponge on top (HWCFA eats a whole pudding on his own!), Apple Crumble (no explanation needed there).

Over the years, I have added my success stories to the handwritten recipe book that I still refer to. The pages are now dog-eared and blotched with a variety of ingredients, particularly the ones I make most often. Some of the recipes in this book are from my grandmother, most notably her ice cream, and also the best cornish pasties I've ever eaten.

My children have their particular favourites which they can have on their birthdays (I use the term 'children' quite loosely here, as they are well into adulthood), as it is traditional in our family to have the food you like best for birthdays. While Robert is here on his short holiday, he hopes to cover the full spectrum - he had peppered steak last night, then it will be the lasagne I have been making for the last 40 years and which, in my opinion, could teach an Italian a thing or two, and most definitely a really hot chicken curry. I make curry with all the spices individually and chilli is always thrown in in copious amounts. It's not a good curry unless your nose runs, and if your eyes water, even better!

I've given it some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the reason why we still make the food we ate as children is to take us back to the days when someone else did all the cooking and dinner only involved sitting down with the family at the table and consuming it! Those were the days, my friend!

International Arrivals, Cape Town International Airport

Airports are such exciting places. There is the air of anticipation in the international arrivals, the tears of the departure lounge, and the shock and horror when you put your ticket in the parking pay machine and get a bill for R80 when you've been there for less than one hour! I made the mistake of going into the ground floor pick up parking at Cape Town International, and once you are in, you can't reverse out, because there is already another car behind you. So it was take the ticket and bite the bullet, except I didn't know the bullet would be so hard.

Once the plane had landed, there was the excitement of trying to identify Robert among the hundreds of weary travellers disgorging from the plane and making their way along the upper walkway. The glass windows let you see the reactions of the newly arrived tourists and returning family members. One young man wearing a T-shirt with a South African flag beat a tattoo on the windows to indicate his pleasure at being back home and it looked for a moment as though the glass would fall out, it was buckling so, but I'm sure the construction company anticipated such events and made sure it was shatterproof!

One of the funniest sights is the line of dark-suited gentlemen waiting in a long line, holding up their respective hotel boards. They look like penguins, not quite in a zoo, but definitely waiting for feeding time!

It seemed as though there were very few people on the plane and eventually there were no more passengers exiting, so I realised I must have missed Robert and went to stand at the barrier where mothers and children, girlfriends, aunts, uncles and sisters thronged to catch a first sight of a loved one.

Yay! There he comes - hiding from his mother who was apparently making a spectacle of herself trying to take a photo - lol!

But soon enough, he was pleased to partake of his favourite food, my incomparable (to my family, anyway!) peppered steak and chips!! Welcome home, even if only for a short while.

Colourful garden, full of new life

Monty sniffing the cactus flowers

Well, I was a day wrong in my prediction for the opening of the cactus flowers, but this morning they were open before the sunrise, so they must be nocturnal flowers. The heat of the day has shortened their life and I think by tomorrow they will be dying back already. All that effort for such a short time!

On the other side of the fence, the agapanthus are a riot of blue - it just occurred to me that the success this year may be due to my handpicking the big brown snails off the leaves every week and translocating them to the field next door. They've probably eaten every bud over the years!

The most successful planting in my garden over the years has been clivias, which have reproduced from offshoots as well as seeds thrown in the undergrowth, but at this time of year, the only one flowering is the lovely clivia repens, which my mother gave me a few years ago and are still only the original two plants. The attractive tubular flower makes a nice show in a dark corner and I'm hoping that they will produce seeds this year.

The garden is filled with young, newly fledged birds of all varieties, so it's been a successful breeding season. They obviously can find all the food they need in the area, and the burgeoning pigeon population attracts the raptors, too. Very exciting when they jet in for the kill, although HWCFA doesn't agree with me on that point!

Decisions, decisions

There is a black bag behind my front door, between it and the couch, and I think it may have been there for six months now, maybe more. Time does fly.

It started its life in the spare room of someone else's home and found its way here en route to a better home for its contents, perhaps nine months ago.. First it was concealed (or was it dumped?) behind a large chair in the corner, where nobody would ever have spotted it unless they moved in with a vacuum cleaner to do housework that actually involved moving the furniture. So it remained there for some time, and occasionally I would look inside it and wonder what I was going to do with it. Who would want the contents?

Months later, the lounge furniture was rearranged and the black bag moved closer to the front door, to continue its journey to a better place for the contents. It must be quite inconspicuous, as He Who Can Fix Anything has never mentioned it, and he is not one who would lightly accept such an eyesore at the entrance to his home. This can only be attributed to his always insisting on leaving the door open 'for fresh air' even on the coldest of days, and so he has never seen it.

I must move it out before Christmas. It will be pushing my luck to think he won't see it as he manhandles the Christmas tree through the door after issuing instructions for the furniture to be rearranged!

But I still don't know where to take it to. If only I could make a decision. The contents (I've just had another look to refresh my memory!) are an odd assortment of ties (yes, neck ties), a computer joystick, binders, a laptop case, a blow-up plastic hat in the colours of The Netherlands and a do-it-yourself model of a racing car.

I bet you also don't know what you would do with it!

No time at present

So much going on at the moment and not enough time! Being a freelancer means you have no idea when you will have work, but it always seems to be November/December, and this year is no exception. I have been nose to the grindstone for 10 days and the end is not in sight, but my son is coming out for a brief holiday in a few days' time and I will still have to work. Ho hum! There's always night shift, I suppose.

Tomorrow morning I expect to see a magnificent sight in my garden - 8 cactus flowers are going to open together, and there are 6 small buds still growing! The effort that these little cactus plants put in is amazing, as they produce exquisite flowers year after year with no attention from me. In fact they are completely pot-bound, as there is no way I can handle them without some kind of leather gloves (or perhaps a couple of forks!) and they are really starting to need some extra space. If anyone has any tips on transplanting fat round cacti, please let me know.

In the meantime, a small patch of agapanthus are flowering better than any time in the last 25 or so years, surrounded by flowering aloes (wrong season?) and long stems of delicate wind flowers waving in the breeze. There's no doubt that the garden prefers rain water to municipal water. Everything grows visibly after heavy rain, which we had today again! Lucky, as I have no time to water right now.

I will post photos of the cactus flowers tomorrow (unless I've miscalculated - then it will be the next day!)

Inspiration of others

Had the great pleasure of listening to Jenny Morris speak in person tonight. What a tremendously inspirational woman she is, with such talent and speaking ability, not to mention her achievements. Made me want to go home and kick my butt into action! I would imagine a cooking holiday in the East with her would be a memorable experience, but will have to publish quite a few more books and sell a heap of paintings before I can tag on to the tour! And yet, as she says, believe in yourself and do it!

I will only have myself to blame if I don't. Surrounded by a room full of people who are following their dreams, some more successfully than others maybe, but nonetheless doing their best to go for it, made me realise how many different kinds of people there are in the world. For some it is smooth sailing and others struggle to meet even the most mediocre of standards, and yet each is a success in their own way.

The problem is, we have become spoiled by television, where we see only the best of everything - the top movies, best tennis players in the world, Olympic standards of individual sports, world-class rugby, cricket and football, and anything less than the best tends to fall into obscurity, not worth a second look. If we went back to the theatre, where slip-ups show actors as being real people, or became spectators at a live game, without the professional commentary to tell us what we are seeing and the cameras zooming in as if we are on the pitch with the players, we could start to re-appreciate what it is to be human and less than perfect (according to society's standards) and accept that the real beauty of life is the journey and not the destination.

Morning walk

It's been too hot and I've worked too hard today to have done anything remotely interesting, so here are the things we saw on our morning walk!

A rough and potholed road leading to the lighthouse

The boardwalk through the field which is a vlei in winter

Slangkop lighthouse

Nice shore break

Looking towards Cape Point

Outer Kom 

A tortoiseberry bush full of orange berries but only for tall tortoises

Lots of lizards lounging - there were at least 6

Nothing needs to be said!

A Clovelly Childhood (contd)

This lovely little oil painting, circa 1960s, is of the house next door to where I grew up in Clovelly. The lady on the steps was an artist and keen gardener, and her husband a work-from-home stockbroker and mountaineer. The local kids (us) called her Leechie and he was Russell and they had no children, but we made up for it, by spending a lot of time in the garden with her. I remember sitting in her studio, with its sharp smell of turps and well-used tubes of oil paints and brushes, while she painted my portrait. I couldn't have been more than three at the time. The painting, together with those of my sisters, hangs on the wall at home in the house on the left side of the steps. Our likenesses are quite remarkable - she must have been very talented.

The personal friend who painted this has captured her stance so perfectly, with the ever-present hat, that it brought back vivid memories of those far-off days, which seem like only yesterday. Although the house has had many owners and alterations in the years since Russell died and Leechie moved to Queenstown to live with her sisters, it remains recognisably this house, as the gable has been left unchanged as well as the garage and driveway. The terraced garden has only changed in that each resident has had their own taste in flowers and shrubs, and the stone paths which meander up the mountainside, incorporating the natural rock features into each level, are also a testament to her artistic touch.

The painting came into our hands through interesting quirks of fate, and it now hangs alongside a similar one of our familial home with our portraits. It is a fitting tribute to a couple who played a huge role in our formative years and brought much joy into my life.

Jostling for position

It doesn't take long to train a cat to eat tinned fish, but to get it back on dried pellets is another story! I ran out of cat pellets the other day and didn't want to make a trip to the mall for that, so I opened a tin of mackerel. Well, wasn't it just Christmas for the cat! I had to let her eat on the kitchen sink otherwise the dogs would have shouldered her out of the way and slurped it up in the blink of an eye. So now every time I open the drawer with the tin-opener, the cat is up and waiting. Her pellets remain untouched on the floor - after all, this is a cat with elevated status. No more eating with the dogs. She has been drinking water from the kitchen tap for a long time now, something one of my old kitties also did. Probably doesn't like the taste of water that has stood for a while, and who can blame her?

Tonight I made the most delicious fresh fish in butter and thyme, and here she sits, waiting to claw it off my plate the instant I drop my guard! I've pushed her off a number of times but that's part of the game, apparently. Behind me, the dogs are observing that the cat has the closest position to the plate - usually they get to lick them - we just put the plates back in the cupboard afterwards, as they don't need further cleaning - but now they have competition, and they can't jump up onto the kitchen counter.

I surreptitiously let Felix eat behind the computer screen so they couldn't see her - how devious you have to become with animals and food! The dogs were none the wiser, but I'll give them the rest of the tinned mackerel just to let them know they haven't been replaced in my affections!

Slight rant

I started to write my Christmas wish list for the world, but reading it made me see that with the primitive state of human evolution on this planet, that really would be wishful thinking. The stories that are on the news, regarded as 'newsworthy', are so puerile and of infinitesimal importance in the greater scheme of things, that I also know why I seldom watch news programmes or read newspapers. We raise our blood pressure and temper levels over things that we have no control over - and there is seldom a report of any good deeds or moral and ethical fortitude - particularly from those in 'power'.

Funny word that, power. It means so many different things, depending on your perspective. It becomes more obvious every day that the man in the street has given away his power to live his own life to people who make rules for us to live by - none more ridiculous (to me) than the latest road rule pertaining to bicycles. I have blogged about this a number of times, as it is probably one of the most astounding ideas (to me) that a person playing sport on a public road should get preference over a licensed vehicle for which the roads were built in the first place.

I am working on resolving the problem of how to measure the exact distance of 1 metre between the car and the cyclist as I pass by (assuming that there is no oncoming traffic or a sold white line causing me to have to crawl behind these merry sportsmen as they refuse to ride in the gutter) and I have hit upon the solution. I will patent and market an electrode that is linked to the car battery, measures 1m when fixed to the left-hand side of the car, and makes a loud buzzing noise if it comes into contact with any body part of the cyclist. This will entail a small shock for the cyclist to activate the buzzer, but hey! if it keeps me 1m away, he will probably be more than willing to take the pain.

 I anticipate that this will become an indispensable car accessory and make me a multi-millionaire overnight!

I am what I eat

I'm thrilled to announce that I am what I eat! Through following a definite eating regime, with only the occasional fall off the wagon, I have sorted out my insides and everything is now in excellent working order. I have resolved inflammation, poor absorption, irritable bowel syndrome, parasites, inactive thyroid and high cholesterol through careful selection of food and the way it is presented. All it requires is authoritative guidance, an open mind, research, careful shopping, lots of chopping, self-control and the desire to live a pain-free life in the body you have been given. Oh, and a willingness to swim against the stream.

I have no interest in converting you to my way of eating or even thinking. You may live your life any way you like. But if you want to talk about it, I'm here to listen. If you want advice, I will give it. But if you don't, that's alright, too. We can have coffee and share a laugh!

Going down the drain

I must take after my maternal grandmother. I'm famous (well, almost) for turning on taps and then going off to do something else and returning hours later to find a flood. She seemed to favour stoves and irons - more of a pyromaniac than an aquamaniac. Many years ago, I left the bath running and went outside to do some gardening. I only realised that the taps were still on when HWCFA shouted from the garage that the ceiling was caving in and there was a flood!

This is the busy time of year for my freelance proofreading and today has been quite a marathon, but without the benefit of the exercise. I've been glued to the computer since 6.30 this morning, with a short break for cappuccino at Espresso up the road, and the odd trip to the washing line with laundry. When I peeled the vegetables for supper, I threw a selection in the juicer and made green juice and ginger. The bits of the juicer need to be washed straight away, otherwise parsley remnants tend to stick tenaciously, so I turned on the hot water tap. Because it runs very slowly - probably got a very clogged pipe after 32 years - and runs outside the house from the hot water cylinder to the kitchen, it takes a long time to warm up and never actually gets very hot, so I didn't put the plug in, thinking I would come back in a few minutes to do that.

About 45 minutes later, I was sitting in front of a document on law for financial planners, enjoying some Collective Soul and Florence and the Machine to relieve my spirits, and interspersed with the music was a continuous unidentifiable noise, like - running water in a metal sink!  Aaarrgghh!

I don't know how much hot water ran down the drain, but if I had had the plug in I'm sure I would have been able to make an assessment by the size of the puddle which would have formed in the garage below! Thank goodness for small mercies!

I did eventually get the washing up done and returned to my post at the computer, but now it's 7pm and I think I've earned some time off. It's comedy night on DSTv, the only night I watch, so I can be sure of a good laugh, although not an early night!

Break of day

There's a lot to be said for going to bed early and waking up with the sun! The best part of the day is just before the dawn (hmm, I've heard that before - no, the darkest hour is just before the dawn (Long time coming CS&N!)). This is the time when the birds have started to hop in the hedgerows and twitter in the twigs. It's the time when the wind hasn't started to blow and the white horses are not yet charging across the surface of the sea.

At this time of year, the sun is far enough south to light up the back table of Table Mountain and the buttresses of the Twelve Apostles with a pink glow and perhaps a few feathery clouds starting to form the famous tablecloth that sweeps down the sheer cliffs of 'our' mountain into the City Bowl in November. I can enjoy this view from my bed, but I prefer to go out onto the balcony where I can surprise a sunbird as it hovers nearby, startled to find another moving creature so early in the morning, and breathe in the fresh drift of sea air as it transitions from inshore to offshore with the sunrise.

A shorebreak provides a dramatic background to the fly-past of the flock of swift terns which live on the island and fill the skies with their random, wheeling flight at dawn and dusk, although silently. If I weren't so lazy, I would go down to the rocks and enjoy the solitariness, but work calls and breakfasts must be made. But maybe on Sunday...

Sunset

Early morning

Full moon at sunset

After a few days of torrential rain over Cape Town, the skies have cleared and at sunset we were treated to my favourite natural phenomenon of the last sunlight filtering through the big swells at Outer Kom, creating that incomparable glass-green shimmer as they crested and fell in a tumult of snow white foam. The only evidence of the bad weather is a huge pool of water in the driveway, which is being fed by a natural spring which appears in particularly wet years in the middle of the lawn. I have planted restios to absorb most of the water, but in dry times they are very unhappy and need to be watered every day. I suspect that the spring is the reason for the existence of the huge gum tree in front of the house, and as that is dying rapidly, the area will soon become very soggy again once the 'sponge' has gone! I'm really looking forward to its demise - it's not very attractive and I'd rather plant proteas and other indigenous plants in its place.

An exceptionally bright full moon looms above the mountain, perhaps because the rains have washed away any pollution that was in the air, making everything fresh and clean again. What an excellent by-product of stormy weather!

MOONRISE AT SUNSET 17.11.13 - LONG BEACH, KOMMETJIE
(Photo by Deborah Wynne)

Family interests

My father has kept records of the weather - wind direction, rainfall, cloud cover, etc. - for probably 40 years now. He can state that so far this year we have had over 800mm of rain, and there are only 5 other years with that figure since 1972! So if you are feeling it's a bit of a soggy summer so far, you are absolutely right.

My sister is busy transferring all his data from diaries to a computer spreadsheet so that some interesting statistics can become the result of all these years of meticulous record-keeping. He also records every bird he sees and other interesting things every day. His interest in so many areas of life has resulted in all of his children being of a similar bent, and we all belong to numerous organisations and interest groups, because we all like to learn something new all the time.

Fortunately my mother is also interested in keeping records, and she has an amazing collection of diaries of all the holidays they have gone on, something I should have done myself, but have only started rather late in life. As a result, she can look back to see exactly when a particular event happened and what her thoughts were at the time. She is an avid reader and also keeps a note of every book she reads, with a brief critique.

Although Mom has been a housewife all her life, she has never stood back when called upon to lend a hand with church duties, fetes and other organised charitable duties and that has also been passed on to us. There is always great satisfaction to be gained from being of service to others, no matter in what way or how briefly. Although they are both in their 80s now, they are possibly more active than your average middle-aged person and certainly most young ones.

Mom, Dad and my two sisters and I have breakfast somewhere nice every Saturday, as well as seeing each other in between, and I consider it one of the highlights of life - there are not many families of our advanced age who are all still together!

A rather miserable day

It's raining cats and dogs - they are all inside! A black southeaster (very strong prevailing 'summer' wind, for those who don't live in Cape Town) has combined with weather conditions moving from the interior of the country to create a thunderstorm of note and exceptionally heavy rain. This is not the cold front of winter, which comes from the north west and is a fairly steady drizzle (or used to be in the old days), but a fairly rare phenomenon, and the air temperature is not particularly cold.

It causes chaos on the roads, though - you may have read about our particularly unskilled drivers - and it's best to stay off them if at all possible. The homeward-bound traffic from town to the suburbs is a nightmare, according to the towing companies, who are probably looking forward to a profitable day or two, and it's times like this that makes me exceptionally grateful to be working from home.

Early morning 5.40

Afternoon 5.40!

The upside is that I won't need to water the garden for at least three days, the hadedah poop is being washed off the walls of the house and the cars are getting a good wash. The windows on the south side of the house are also getting a much-needed rinse, as I need an extension ladder to get to them and what are the chances of that!

The guinea fowl are looking rather bedraggled as they peck at their reflections in the car door. They make an annoying racket, sometimes for hours, on and off, as they peck away on a metal surface. A man walking his dog yesterday chased one away from the neighbour's car as he passed by. I was bending down weeding and stood up to see what was going on and he said to me: "That bird's going to scratch the paintwork!" Really? "I doubt it," I said, and he scuttled off, hopefully never to return - he probably lets his dog do dirty deeds on my front lawn!

Watching ships go by

You would think that I had enough to do without finding time to look up the names of all the ships passing Kommetjie. I recently discovered Marine Traffic, a website that tracks all ships at sea. You can select an area of the world to view, and it will show you the position of all the ships in that area. The search can be refined to just passenger boats and yachts, or tugs and pilot boats, or fishing boats, tankers, in fact anything that floats. It gets a bit cluttered if you look at all the marine traffic, so I tend to follow passenger ships, yachts and fishing boats. It can be quite entertaining to track their course, seeing how busy the shipping lanes really are around the Cape. There can be no time for dozing on deck, that's for sure!

The reason why I got involved with tracking marine traffic is because our friend is an observer on fishing boats from China and Japan, keeping track of what they catch in the nets that do not form part of their target fishing and also recording how this aspect is handled. In other words, checking that no shark-finning and other illegal activities are taking place. Not the most popular man on board! The accommodation is a far cry from a cruise ship and the food is monotonous and not exactly appetising - mainly cabbage and steamed fish.
He goes to sea for about 6 weeks, ending up in a port such as Singapore, flying home for a few weeks before going off on a new boat. He said I should track this one on the web and sure enough, as they sailed past the lighthouse, I called him on his cell phone to say goodbye, having spotted him on the map. I asked him what his cabin was like and whether he had tried the food yet and he was over the moon! A cabin with a toilet! and crab for lunch! This is a Japanese boat, the first time he's sailed with them, so his rudimentary Chinese is going to be no good and it's going to be another lonely trip with little or no means of communication with the rest of the crew. But it's work and the pay is good. Being top of the popularity polls doesn't go with the job! The picture below is of the boat - hard to spot even though it's about 160ft - a mere speck in the ocean, with a massive tanker making an imperceptible bump on the far horizon right above the bow.

 The best use for this website is to identify interesting ships that I see passing through The Gap, track friends' fishing boats and knowing when to go down to the rocks to enjoy the graceful lines of the cruise ships which are starting to arrive for the summer season.

I've just had a look now to see what's out there and the RMS St Helena has just left Cape Town and is off Kommetjie, but too far out to be able to see, and she is on her way to Tristan da Cunha. I had no idea she did that route as well. How wonderful it would be to do that trip!

Parallel parking - or not!

There is no disputing that the standard of driving on our roads is so abysmal as to be laughable if it didn't cause so many accidents. A large proportion of the driving population are unlicensed because it is so easy to bribe those who do the tests to pass you. In fact, you are likely to be failed at least three times if you don't offer a bribe just to swell the legitimate coffers through additional application fees. Sometimes, it is easier to buy a completely fake licence so you don't have to go to all the inconvenience of turning up for a fake driving test!

For the small percentage of the population that actually understands the purpose of a driving test, it is hard to tolerate the arrogance and lack of consideration displayed by a person who can start a vehicle and steer it in the general direction the road is taking, without understanding a single road sign, or what road markings mean, let alone the basics of the colours on a traffic light. A speed limit is just a number (although I must admit that there are occasions when I can agree with that - case in point, Chapman's Peak Drive, where some Charlie decided 40kmh was a suitable speed to negotiate a road that is subject to unanticipated rockfalls which cannot always be contained by their safety nets. But I digress again...)

But for me, there is one aspect of incompetent driving that never fails to amuse. The inability to parallel park. For many years, our local traffic cop was someone to be feared for his uncanny ability to spot every single traffic offender in Fish Hoek, and no-one was ever able to escape the long arm of the law when he was around. Nobody would dare park under a No Parking sign, or attempt a U-turn in any road and most definitely never park facing the wrong direction. But since he retired and a whole new dynamic took over our traffic policing (or rather, lack of it), daredevil deeds are the order of the day. No effort is made to even adhere to the guidelines painted on the road for parking places.

 Today this gem presented itself in Fish Hoek Main Road and I joined a small crowd who shook their heads in disbelief. To make it even more ridiculous, this must be one of the smallest cars you can buy!

Pigeon saga

There has been an ongoing saga of the baby pigeons in the nest on the roof, which cat Felix and the neighbouring interloper have been trying to nab for a while. This morning Felix caught one and disembowelled it on the kitchen counter while I was in the shower. So that was a delightful scene. Of course it was left to me to clean it up, and I had the opportunity of seeing that its crop was filled with small grains which the parents had fed it earlier after I had fed them.

A while later, the dog was chasing something in the undergrowth, which turned out to be the other half of the pigeon pair. It must have scuttled off the roof. It is about the size of my hand and has wing feathers but is not fledged, although there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with its legs! I rescued it and put it on the ground where the pigeons feed. I threw some grain around it and in no time the parents arrived. They pecked up every seed and took absolutely no notice of their remaining offspring. So I put it in a box with seed and water and left it at the side of the house, hoping they would come and look for it.

Later, I found the box empty. Hooray! It must have flown off - there was no sign of it anywhere. For reasons of expediency, I decided not to tell He Who Can Fix Anything about the dead bird or the live bird. He would do his nut to hear that Felix had killed Hoppy and Poppy's baby. Unfortunately, when he came home and opened the garage, the baby bird was inside on the floor - don't ask me how. Into action mode - I must hard boil an egg and feed it to the bird. I ask you. Anyway, I had to admit that I had come across the bird already today, but left out the bit about the dead one and the dog chasing this one and just told him about the box and thinking it had flown away.

I retrieved the box from the dustbin where I had hidden it and went through the whole thing again - putting the bird in with food and water - and then we sat down to feed it the egg. It's amazing how sticky an egg yolk is while you try to use your fingernails to prise the beak open of a rather feisty little pigeon. Soon he was covered in bits of yellow, mushed up with water. I added a few tiny grains and those went in easily and after about 10 minutes we thought he'd had enough. Then I had to drip a few drops of water into his beak and it was time for bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I couldn't tell HWCFA that I knew what he'd eaten already today because I saw what came out of his dead sister, and had to pretend that I knew it could handle a few small grains!

Interlude with a butterfly

As I left the house this morning for my Tai Chi class and pulled the gate open, I suddenly noticed that there was a large butterfly on the gatepost. I had barely missed knocking it off and then saw that its wings were hanging limply and blowing in the wind. It must have just emerged from its chrysalis and was waiting in the early morning sunshine for the veins in its wings to fill before setting off on its short but no doubt joyous life.

Of course, I was then trapped at the gate, because I couldn't close it without squashing the butterfly, which had moved slightly. A strong wind blew its wings, folding and flapping them with the butterfly clinging to the post, wondering what this strange new world was all about. I put my finger in front of it and straight away it climbed aboard and started to walk all over and around my hand. It's not often you get a chance to do that with a butterfly. Still its wings flipped and flopped, so I put it in a safe place where the animals couldn't disturb it and eventually set off for the class - I had to apologise for being late, but the teacher understood completely when I told her I was waylaid by a butterfly.

No doubt this butterfly will lay hundreds of eggs which will hatch into caterpillars that will grow gigantic and devour my plants. But perhaps it will remember me and lay them in the neighbour's garden!

Alexander's 2nd birthday

Another year has passed and it is my great-nephew Alexander's second birthday tomorrow. We had a tea party for the adults while the little cousins created mayhem on the climbing frame, on the push bikes and with a large variety of cars, trucks and other wheeled toys. Four of them under the age of 5 makes for a busy time!

Alex is already a seasoned traveller, having attended his uncle's wedding in Marbella when he was 6 months old, and recently enjoyed a Mauritian holiday. It's not an exaggeration or the bragging of a proud great-aunt, but he has been a model traveller and toddler, always eating his din-dins and placidly surveying the activity around him with wise eyes. A real cutie-pie. But his mother tells me that he is now starting to demonstrate his willpower and I fear she is in for the terrible twos. He has just been absorbing the dynamics and is now going to flex his developing muscles! But I'm sure he will retain his cutie-pie-ness. I mean look at him, butter couldn't possibly melt in that mouth.

When the time came to blow out the candles, big brother Connor was on hand to assist, but it soon became clear that they were both after the cherry. After a little prodding, Alex won the day and put it in his mouth, but it soon came out and he put it carefully back between the candles! I'm not sure if anyone else saw or who actually ate it in the end, but it definitely wasn't me!

The budding garden

The garden is looking quite respectable at the moment, no doubt due to the plentiful rain we have had all winter and up to yesterday even. Or maybe it's because I have at last listened to my mother, a very capable and successful gardener, and given the plants some food! The months rush by so quickly that it is very easy for me to forget to cast a few pellets of slow-release fertiliser around the garden every so often, but this winter I actually did the whole garden twice.

As a result, the small patch of agapanthus in the front garden has 25 buds swiftly rising out of the greenery which will provide a display worthy of Garden & Home in a week or three. The hibiscus that I planted next to them about 30 years ago, and which is embarrassingly stunted through neglect, lack of water and having been driven over by departing guests a number of times, is showing me what can happen if you pay it some attention and has many magnificent golden-yellow blooms. I will feed it again tomorrow!

Even the bougainvillea is bursting its bracts - this one has never 'flowered'! The coprosma trees are now getting very old and losing their leaves in the top branches as they die off. I am training the bougainvillea, jasmine and a very decorative deciduous creeper over these trees as they provide perfect supports and the creepers can really go wild!

The clivias didn't enjoy the cold winter (they aren't happy under 10 degrees Celsius) and the flowers weren't as good as last year, but new plants continue to shoot up and growth from the seeds I throw around under the trees is very successful. Bromeliads are multiplying in ever-thickening growth and I will soon be able to transplant them to fill all the shady parts of the garden. They are very rewarding, needing no care, being basically air plants and can be grown successfully in the branches of trees as well. The different varieties flower in stages and as they are all mixed in together, there is almost always a new and interesting flower to admire from this most interesting species (genus? not all that clued up on the technicalities!).

I've just finished the watering from our free underground water supply (although technically not free, as we have to pay for the electricity we use to pump it out - you can't win), and now it's time to relax as the sun sinks into the sea and enjoy the scent of the buddleia and jasmine which grow below the sundeck. Cheers!

Fish Hoek beach

With the somewhat slow advent of summer in Cape Town this year, it was a real treat to go down to Fish Hoek beach this week for morning coffee. The sand stretched endlessly before us, the mirror-smooth sea providing the perfect surface for the water taxi crossing the bay on its trip to Simon's Town. Although the water appeared to be crystal clear from the shore, the black shark flag was flying, cautioning the handful of bathers that there might be no warning of approaching sharks. A large group of pre-schoolers splashed safely in the shallows, but it would have been an exaggeration to say that it was a good day for swimming, as a cool offshore breeze took the edge off the sun's heat.

A freshly breaking wave wafted that unmistakable scent of salty sea in our direction and I was immediately transported back to a time when kids would stand sandy-footed on the concrete floor of the beach cafe, waiting for a vanilla or chocolate cone or candy floss, while sea water dripped from their costumes and left clumps of damp sand where they stood. The only shoes you saw were red or blue slipslops with embossed fish on the thong. I remember painting my fish with pearly nail polish to make them look pretty. We would write our names on the side of the sole to ensure that we took the right slops home at the end of the day.

Today everyone wears Crocs (or a cheap knock-off) and the cement floor has been replaced by a real carpet. The beach cafe has been turned into a restaurant where cones and candy floss are no more, and an ice cream machine for twirly cones has replaced the old-fashioned scoops in a tiled corner of an enlarged facility. An attempt has been made to grow a lawn, although astroturf has won the day and palm trees provide a little shade without adding to the natural beauty of the area.

But the sea, the beach and the rocks along Jager Walk will most likely remain the same and not succumb to progress and today's and future generations of kids will still have the opportunity to gather cherished memories of carefree days spent in this special corner of paradise.

A late afternoon stroll

Went down to sit on a bench at the rocks today - after all, why live here if you don't do that? A minor cold front has passed over Cape Town for the last few days and now the sea has caught up with the clouds - as I sat there, the swells rose visibly as they thundered in from the Atlantic and in no time at all the air was filled with the deafening roar generated by crashing waves. I would imagine that the roar of an approaching tsunami would alert anyone to it long before they could see it. It must be enough to strike terror in any heart.

After enjoying the ozone for a while, the noise actually became almost painful to the ear (I know, it doesn't seem right) and I retreated back to the relatively muffled comfort of home a short distance away. The local guinea fowl pair came rushing out from under the hedge to greet me, knowing that it was dinner time, and a large flock of doves and pigeons swooped down from the dying gum tree and the rooftops. Less than a week ago, there were five young guinea fowl, but I have seen no sign of them for a while now and you may be sure that either the crows or the black cat from next door has got them. The cat lurks in the shadow of the fence and so the birds are easy prey as they peck away at an assortment of mixed grains that I put out for them every day. I should squirt it with the hose - that will sort it out, if only for a little while!

Looking after the family

I'm often asked why I do so much for my family. I work at various forms of employment, do the garden, maintain the house, shop, cook, attend to the animals and still manage to spend a lot of time in coffee shops. I'm expected to produce meals of restaurant quality at all times, lend a hand in the garage on weekends and occasionally wash the car. A hot pudding in winter and a cold pudding in summer must always be on the menu. I mend clothing when absolutely necessary and taxi them around in an emergency. I sometimes do wonder why I do it and there are certainly times when I could quite easily give it all up for a single life, preferably in luxury far away!

But in the words of James Brown, I feel good! It makes me happy to know that when they come home, there is a meal waiting, clean clothes are in the cupboard, the TV remote has batteries, the dogs have been fed and bathed when necessary, there's soap in the soapdish and toothpaste in the tube. It feels good to be able to provide comfort on a rainy day and a place to relax without stress after a busy day.

In return, I get to do pretty much what I want with what little is left of my time (actually quite a lot!) and am free to travel locally and overseas without having to drag an unwilling partner to places that won't interest him. That is worth many years of puddings, hot and cold!

Another great day in Kommetjie

Today I awoke to the scent of jasmine wafting through the open window and the sound of a flotilla of 30 to 40 white tunny boats heading out to the fishing grounds. They made a pretty sight in the early pink sunlight as they went in search of the tuna which has been elusive for such a long time now. This is competition fishing, so hopefully it was 'weigh and release'.

It was a mild day, sunny but with high clouds, and towards evening a friend and I took my dogs for a long walk from the lighthouse to the island and back. They love to go out and sniff at every blade of grass or bush along the way, straining at their leashes as though they have never seen the outside world beyond our fence.
At one stage when I was holding them both, I was being dragged along so strongly that I could imagine myself with six beagles in each hand and a brace of pheasant between my teeth! There must have been some really interesting messages out there today, as they sniffed and replied to literally every one.

We stopped off at the memorial bench at the car park to watch the sea for a while and I took a photo of the scene to the south west and another to the north. You can scarcely believe it is the same time and place, but the edge of a cloud bank was clearly defined right overhead. No wonder they say you can have all four seasons in one day here in Cape Town!

Right now the setting sun is casting deep shadows among the warm red rocks of the Sentinel and Chapman's Peak, and sparkling off the windows of the cable station on top of Table Mountain.

Another perfect day draws to a close.

Changing the way you think

Did you know that every minute of every day is an opportunity to reinvent yourself? That is one of the most exciting things about life. You do not have to be the same person your whole life. You can choose from so much. The most obvious choice would be to try and improve your circumstances if you are not in a good place at a particular time in your life. But it can be as simple as changing from not liking Marmite to deciding to have it on toast for breakfast every day. Or telling yourself firmly that you actually have no fear of spiders and are not going to let them bother you any more. Your mind is your most powerful tool, because no-one else can control it for you, unless you allow them to. And that is where the problem lies...

We allow too many outside influences to dictate how and what we should think. This causes anxiety in areas such as what we look like, what we sound like, what clothes we wear, what car we drive, our behaviour and our social standing. Advertising is a powerful force in moulding our thoughts in the direction desired by the producers of the items being manufactured, and it is only our fear of being thought inferior to our peers that keeps us in tow.

The only way to control your own mind is to form your own opinion on the events and experiences that shape your life, rather than reacting in the way you have been taught. An example would be the binpickers that we loathe so much - why do we? Is it because we regard even the rubbish we throw away as "ours" in this proprietorial society we have created? Or is it because of an inner fear that, but for circumstances that have weighed in our favour, it could be us digging through the trash? Or is it revulsion at the thought of someone actually eating off the remains of the Sunday roast? I know it is for me.

So I have decided not to loathe the binpickers, and put out food that we could still eat without acquiring botulism, in clean packaging on top of the bin. Perhaps they will learn to trust us and know that they don't need to open the bin because there won't be anything edible inside and that will solve a few problems. And wouldn't it be nice to have done something even so small for another human being, rather than wait for the 'season of goodwill'?

It only requires a change in the way you think.

Low tide at the lighthouse

With a solar eclipse today, and a new moon so thin I haven't spotted it yet, the tide was exceptionally low early this morning when we took the dogs down to the lighthouse. Last week the tide was low enough to gather black mussels, but the rocks had been picked clean the day before by a group of about thirty (according to local talk) who had just stripped the mussel beds without regard for the law of conservation which restricts you to 50 a day per person and you have to have a permit for them. The law enforcement officers were called to attend to their duty, but as is always the case, fear of intimidation or worse kept them well away from the scene until most of them had left.

Today we were alone down there and the most inaccessible mussels were now exposed by the low tide. Although the shells were very big, when they were steamed open the mussels were very small, as if they hadn't had enough food for a long time. So the gatherers last week probably had very slim pickings indeed which serves them right. It's very difficult to encourage a culture of conservation and awareness of the need to consider future generations in those who have no interest in such things. These things aside, it was lovely down there, with no wind and not a soul in sight.

We've been going down there for more than thirty years - seems like it's gone by in a flash. It's quite different to be level with the sea down on this vast, very smooth shelf of rock which was once the sea bed, rather than looking down from the path at the top of the jumble slope of rocks which have piled up on the shoreline over millenia. When the tide rises, the rocks are covered quickly, rather in the way an estuary covers up its mudflats as the sea rushes upstream. In winter, massive seas rush up the rocky slope but never make it to the top, as it is a perfect natural barrier to dissipate the power of the sea, rather like the 'dolosse' that are used at harbours around our coastline. I often wonder what it was about this short section of coastline that caused the boulders to pile up - it hasn't happened anywhere else on the Peninsula as far as I am aware - perhaps it is the feature that the geologists refer to as a wavecut platform. I'd love to know.

HWCFA and Monty at the edge of the rocks

A quiet scene showing the slope of rounded boulders

Solitude

A sad snake story

In my mother's garden in Clovelly, a pair of robins have raised two chicks about to fledge. Yesterday there was a commotion in the garden, with all the birds fussing and fluttering near the nest. Everyone rushed outside, as they know what this signifies and, sure enough, there was the resident cobra, very large, slithering up to the nest. Frantic robin parents divebombed the cobra, getting dangerously close to the gaping mouth, but nothing was going to stop it and it wasn't long before the first chick was gone. The commotion continued and the snake slid off up the mountain taking a circuitous route towards its home, but then turned round and came back to the nest for the other chick. It then made its way to an old tree stump on the top lawn, where it coiled up for a few minutes in the sun before heading for the hole under the steps where it lives.

The robins fluttered around it the whole time, sitting on the step and watching as it disappeared from view. If they could have, I'm sure they would have blocked the hole with a big rock.

The cat went to have a look and appeared to be hypnotised by the snake. We had to throw a rock at the cat to chase it away.

The cobras have been there for many years, and we have no idea how many there are, but this one was slightly speckled, while the other sightings are of even colouring and recently one only about three feet long. So maybe there are a whole nest of them!

Cat commotion

There has just been a tremendous commotion on the roof! In the good old days before the 'problem' baboons were 'eliminated', it would have been the local troop taking a shortcut over the house, but they haven't been around in months. Then there was caterwauling, and then silence. My kitty, Felix, is always up on the roof (double-storey) catching pigeons, but I couldn't imagine a pigeon inflicting damage on the cat and thought it might be the sparrowhawk trying to catch something far too big.

I called the cat and went down to the back alley but she didn't appear and there was no sign that she might have fallen to her doom. I kept calling and eventually she peeped over the edge of the roof but wasn't ready to come down. As I looked up into the trees that line the side of the property, I spied a white cat high in the branches. The neighbour's cat, trespassing in Felix's hunting ground! Having established that it was just a little healthy competition, I went back inside and the interloper must have made its way down the tree and back home, because shortly afterwards Felix arrived in the kitchen, her tail like a bottlebrush and very pleased with herself!

 White cat in tree - middle left.











Below is Felix's route to the roof - runs up the pole then swings round to the left and pulls herself onto the bamboo!

Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth after seeing off the competition!