Summer days of yore

The southeaster is back with a vengeance, whipping the sea offshore towards South America, white horses all the way! With so much spray, it's easy to imagine a whale blowing or even a whole school of dolphins frolicking by, but when I grab the binoculars for a closer look, it's just the crests of the swells! What a disappointment.
False Bay has had so many dolphins and orcas of late that it is becoming almost better known for them than for the aerial displays of the great white sharks. Unfortunately I am seldom over on that side of the Peninsula and have never yet seen a live dolphin. Ah well, you can't have it all!

The southeast cloud bank is racing up the Fish Hoek valley, cloaking Clovelly mountain in an unpleasant dampness for those out walking, but gratefully soaked up by the abundant indigenous flora to be found across the Table Mountain chain - proteas, pincushions, leucadendrons, ericas, mountain dahlia, chasmanthe and the soft, sweet-smelling confetti bush. The mere scent of this brings back childhood memories of days spent scrambling over rocks and through dense thickets up on the mountain behind the family home, the playground of our youth. Of little picnics up on the 'Flat Piece' at the top of the garden overlooking False Bay and the far Atlantic on the other side of the Peninsula, then running headlong down the mountain back home, shouting "Cobra!" or "Puffadder!" depending on what we had just seen. I don't think we ever felt any real fear, just excitement as only kids can experience it.
Good times.