A Clovelly childhood #9

Went to Mom and Dad for tea this morning, rather than meeting at one of our favourite eateries, as this is not the time of year when you want to join the throng if you really can avoid it. And what better place to be anyway than the family home in Clovelly, where we have been since 1958? Things have changed vastly since we first arrived. There were probably about 20 houses in this quiet nook - its saving grace being that the road ends at the country club and so does not attract through traffic - and over the years, as people have sold and moved to smaller properties, plots have been divided and new roads opened up in the valley, so that there are very few empty plots and the mountainside has become spoiled with huge edifices, many of which remain uninhabited for various reasons - in fact, one large home was recently completely demolished, leaving just the bare slab and a somewhat out-of-place funicular giving access from the road.

The best things, the free things, have not changed - the view, the fresh air, the shelter from the summer south easter, and the cloud over the mountain that hides the sun until afternoon when the wind is really bad, and the bird and animal life that is ever-present. Although we don't usually go up the mountain in summer, due to snakes and heat, it was comparatively mild today and the earth was still damp from a sudden change in the weather that brought a heavy shower at dawn. And so my sisters and I climbed up to the firebreak and took a walk down memory lane as we clambered over rocks and streams, through old pincushion bushes which have survived the many fires that have ravaged the mountain over the years, all the while under the constant observation of the mountain that was the playground of our youth. Even that has changed, as boulders have dislodged themselves from the cliff-face and rumbled down the slope, bouncing off rocks and crashing through undergrowth until coming to rest at a man-made obstacle - a house. There is no mistaking the sound of a falling boulder, particularly one the size of a car, and it is a privilege to be there to see nature reshaping our world.

Although the sanddunes have been covered by alien vegetation for many years now, and a large portion has fallen prey to development, the memories of tobogganing down the dunes on bits of hardboard, polished with Cobra Wax, and collecting platannas from the vleis in winter and the blinding sunshine reflecting off the pure white sanddunes under that blue, blue sky will never disappear.

Me, age about 12