A most peculiar day

A dark purple sky stretched behind me as I sat in the traffic this morning on an infrequent trip into the office. For apparently no good reason, the line of cars had come to a halt and we crawled three kilometres in 20 minutes. From a certain spot, it seemed that there was no obstruction to the traffic and we all sped up to an almost respectable 40km/hr for a while. I can only imagine that one of the multitude of unroadworthy cars driven by unlicensed and inept drivers had coughed to a halt, rested awhile and then rejoined the traffic which had backed up due to the narrowness of the road. I was immediately reminded of why I work from home.
A similar situation occurred on Ou Kaapse Weg, where the traffic from a side road feeds in. Someone must have been travelling slowly enough to allow a car to take the gap and, as is always the case, not accelerate adequately to keep the traffic flowing smoothly. This disruption of the main traffic flow needs to be regulated by something - either a roundabout or a traffic cop (too dangerous) - before some serious road rage incident takes place. Not for nothing does the South Peninsula have a reputation for short tempers - we must have the highest incidence of shockingly ill-mannered and incompetent drivers per square kilometre than the rest of Cape Town, and this is aggravated by having only three roads out of the area - one a toll road which is iniquitous, the mountain pass referred to, which can block traffic for hours in both directions if a single car breaks down, and the main road route via Kalk Bay to Muizenberg, which has had road works for four years now and operates a stop/go system that can hold you up for 20 minutes and more, day and night.
But I digress...
As I looked in the rear view mirror, a bolt of blue streaked across the sky and the South Peninsula was treated to a thunderstorm of note. The hot berg wind that had blown all night had given way to a strong southwester and temperatures had dropped, but on the other side of the mountain the berg wind was still tossing the branches of the trees and gusting up and down alleyways. By midday, large raindrops battered the windows of the office building and all was grey and blustery. I left the building on the other side and it was still a warm, dry wind with the sun breaking through in patches of blue. I almost walked around the building to see if it was still wet and cold on the other side!
Back home, the thunder and lightning had come in for another session and there was no distinction between sea and sky - it was like peering into a dark smudge from whence a gale blew. Altogether a most peculiar day.