Taking it easy

May was the season of sunsets, with spectacular light shows every evening to cast a glow upon the mountains of the Peninsula and soothe our souls before the long dark nights of winter - compliments of Eskom and loadshedding! We are now only 5 days from true winter, the solstice, after which the sun will drift south again and the days will become longer. Here at the southwestern tip of Africa, our winters are in fact very mild compared to inland, where temperatures regularly drop to freezing and below, while we seldom get down to 8 degrees at night, apart from this last week when a particularly icy wind blew in from the South Atlantic.
June has brought us many of those magnificent late autumn days, when winter is not quite upon us and the sun is still warm on our upturned faces, the skies blue and cloudless and the wind but a zephyr. The early morning and late afternoon light has a special quality at this time of year, a softness rather than the bright glare of summer, gently reflecting off the greenery of the wet season. Driving over Ou Kaapse Weg behind a slow truck is pure pleasure, as it allows one to cast a quick glance at the fynbos that is so richly abundant on the mountain, which is a giant sponge and has seeps and waterfalls almost all year. The sudden sight of a back-lit pink Erica is startling in its simple beauty, and the grasses on the verges fill one with awe as they light up like soft candles in the early sun.
We should not always be in a hurry, but rather take the time to observe what is so freely given  by Nature to feed our senses. Whatever we are going to will still be there a bit later.