Back streets of the city

Today I was on a mission to get a few long outstanding projects out of the way - long outstanding because they involved going a little further off the highway into town or the local malls, and aren't we all focused on getting to the most convenient place in the easiest way and back home again, rather than turning down the side roads and joining the main road melee with a traffic light at every intersection?

I had forgotten how fascinating the real shops of Cape Town are, the ones where wooden sprung floors have creaked for more than a century, where the counters are still the original wood and glass-fronted, displaying buttons, threads, all kinds of fasteners, racks of riempie waiting to become a seat in an old yellowwood jonkmansbankie (my reason for being there), leather shoes half-cobbled on a shoe-horn, hand-made hats hanging hopefully for purchase. Behind a counter, a young man was punching holes through a piece of suede, then adding rivets and finally attaching the suede to a jacket. He then did the same with the collar of a garment to add bling for a customer, who said it was 'sharp, sharp'. A real mix of cultures doing things we have got used to buying ready-made and usually from a Chinese shop. What a treat to watch active creation, the smell of leather prominent without a horse in sight, although a row of saddles high on the wall at the back of the room reminded me of our usual association with leather. Having selected sufficient riempie, I was told, to complete the job in hand and let the young man know that He Who Can Fix Anything would be doing it himself, it was time to set off for another well-known but never been there destination, the Cape Town Society for the Blind in Salt River.

Nearly 30 years ago we bought cane and rattan bar chairs for the kitchen from the Society and they have served us well, being repaired twice since, so I think they were a great investment now that they will be completely refurbished for almost a song. Finding the place gave me an opportunity to familiarise myself with Victoria Road, Salt River and Woodstock, and some of the businesses along that stretch are surprising, perhaps as a result of the gentrification of Woodstock and surrounds, or maybe they were there long before degeneration and regeneration.

When I worked in Adderley Street in the 70s, lunch hours were spent buying wool at Betty Lou's, kitchen gadgets at Boardmans, browsing books in the Long Street bookstores and visiting art galleries and theatres. Living out in the sticks for so long has almost made me forget the pleasures of a bustling city, although times have changed and a little more alertness is required on the streets. We should still be adventurous and curious.