Warming up

Ah! Cape Town! This is why we live here. Two days ago, we were turning on the electric blanket and wearing fur-lined boots and puffy jackets. Today the windows are all wide open, shorts and a shirt and bare feet. The huge seas off Kommetjie are no doubt the remnants of the last cold front, and it may be my imagination, but it seems that the seabed may have been scoured like the beaches, as reefs are breaking all over, in places I've not seen before. Whatever the reason, it makes for spectacular scenery and daredevil surfing for the brave.
Back home, three loads of washing dried on the line and a leisurely lie on the couch with a good book was the order of the day. Each visit to the washline took me through the garden, where I could observe a number of things:
1. The bees have stopped coming to the sugar water bottle. They have reverted to collecting from the vygies and lavender, which is good news indeed. Even the birds still go for the aloes that are still opening in early Spring.
2. The carpenter bees that made a home in a dead tree some years back and disappeared as branches succumbed to wind and wear, have returned and are busily buzzing in and out of a multitude of perfectly round holes made by them as they tunnel into the soft wood. I have yet to investigate how they do it, but it certainly makes a heap of sawdust on the plants below.
3. A large section of clivias has not flowered and there is still no sign of buds. Those at the top end of the garden are making up for them, so perhaps it is the very deep shade and cold winter that has delayed their striking display.
4. The buddleia is also feeling the effects of the cold. By this time it should be a mass of fragrant purple plumes, but so far nothing. I hope it wakes up soon!

Dinner tonight is roast lamb and a hot pudding. Talk about getting it wrong. This is definitely the last for winter. Light meals and ice cream from now on. Right, she said.