Somewhat hot here in Cape Town

So did you all survive Sunday in Cape Town? That really was a bit of a scorcher, and a large part of the day was spent spraying water from the hosepipe straight up into the air and letting it fall down on me like rain in a thunderstorm - heavy drops well spaced and not at all cool. The other part of the day, believe it or not, was spent doing a bit of gardening - well actually a big bit of gardening. We mowed the lawn.

Things have got out of hand here since I last had my gardener. He claims to have gone blind from cataracts, and yet I still see him mowing the lawn up the road and even pruning the restios, and he certainly knows how to find my gate when he is looking for an advance on next year's payment. But no matter how many promises he makes about coming to work the next day, tomorrow never comes for Daniel, and I have pretty much given up on him now.

Just before Christmas, I scattered lawn food liberally, and watered day after day from the wellpoint, and the results were marvellous to behold! Soon a veritable jungle of grass had reared its head, particularly around the potplants, which got the bulk of the water, and soon the cat had a place to hide during the heat of the day, and flocks of sparrows came to feed on the grasslands of my back garden. Every day, as I cleared a path to the washline, I would think 'I should probably just run the Flymo over this quickly' and then find some excuse not to.

So on Saturday, HWCFA declared that on Sunday morning he was going to mow the lawn. Shock and amazement! This will be a first. It didn't matter that the weather forecast was for the hottest day in who knows how many years - the decision had been made and nothing was going to alter it. After half the lawn was done, I took over while he went off to start the weedeater. Those things drive me insane - by the time you actually get it started, you are covered in petrol and exhausted from pulling the stupid cord, and after a quick spin around the pot plant, the cord disappears inside the little hole and you battle for 10 minutes to coax it out again. However, that was not my problem, and eventually all was trimmed and neat and all that remained was for us to rake it all up and put it into bags. Of course, the rest of the world was relaxing on the beach or in a swimming pool.

I have to say that it was all worthwhile and in fact we were finished the whole job before it got really hot, but my thoughts did occasionally turn to sitting on the rocks with my feet in the sea, doing absolutely nothing.