Kommetjie festival and other socialising

It's that time of year when holidays are upon us, for those at school, and expats come home for Christmas. Then it is the endless round of brunches, lunches, braais and coffee shop meetings. It's the time of falling off the wagon of healthy eating and nibbling on all those things you know will make you suffer later. But it will be over soon enough and a new year full of new resolutions will begin.

Robert's brief holiday is almost over, with one final family gathering before he jets out again to winter in the northern hemisphere and we prepare ourselves for the long, hot summer. It is the Kommetjie Festival today, in this fairly sleepy village and the roads and parking areas have been filled to capacity as people flock to spend a day strolling the streets, browsing at the craft stalls that have sprung up under every tree and on every pavement, and enjoying a day on the lawns with live bands, food stalls and plenty of friends. On the whole, the weather has been kinder than last year, with the southeaster being more fresh than gale-force as it was yesterday, but as the evening draws in the trees are starting to bend and darkening skies are moving in from the north east, promising thunder showers tonight or tomorrow.

The music sounds good from where I am sitting on the couch, possibly because it is a few blocks away at the Kom lawns, and if I weren't feeling tired from all the socialising today, I would be down there with the rest of them. But hey ho! someone has to make sure dinner is waiting when the family return after a long, long day!

Madiba

I am not a political animal. I lean neither left nor right and I seldom go straight up the middle. Although I have admiration for many people, I don't necessarily read their life stories or slavishly follow their utterances.

And so it is with Nelson Mandela. I was 9 or 10, I think, when he was imprisoned and the South Africa I grew up in didn't allow its people to know anything about him or his political affiliations. I had never even seen a picture of him. When he was released 27 years later, I was eager to see what the man behind the name actually looked like.

He looked happy, smiling, triumphant to be free at last - and already old - a wasted life. But there was no sign of anger or bitterness on his face - only hope for the future of his country.

Due to my apolitical stance, I cannot claim to know anything about him except for the few brief glances I may have taken at media appearances or quotes from his speeches. His time as a leader of our country came too late for him to entrench his values with those who have followed.

Now it is up to the young people of South Africa to walk the talk of Madiba, to adopt his humble, generous and forgiving outlook on his fellow man as their own, and bring this country back to the place he envisioned for it, through quality education of all its people, a spirit of ubuntu and most of all, service to others without self-aggrandisement or self-enrichment at the expense of the common good.

I can only hope that age and infirmity served to shield him from the insult to his sacrificed years of freedom which is the current state of his beloved country.

The long walk to freedom is at last over for him and surely heaven awaits.

His soul now rests in peace.

Fierce wind and a fearsome curry!

The southeaster is back in full force, tossing the sacred ibis flock into a disorderly mass as they struggle homeward. Out to sea, a huge piece of black plastic is on its way to South America - it looks like the cover of a large piece of equipment, perhaps the windsurfer that is out there - the wind must have whipped it up and out onto the water, and it seems to have buoyancy so is not sinking. Let's hope no marine life is unfortunate enough to become involved with it. I have observed it thoroughly and there is definitely no person clinging to it, so I won't be calling the National Sea Rescue. The pictures below give a small idea of the intensity of the wind as it blows spray off the crests of the breakers at the Outer Kom.

The beaches are not a desirable place to be right now, with wind stinging legs and blowing into eyes and mouths, hair tangling into hopeless knots and skirts blowing up like Marilyn's.

To match the wind, I have made a fearsomely hot lamb curry at Robert's request. I didn't stint on the Durban chilli mix and it is truly eye-watering stuff! He's going to love it! Excuse me while I fetch the tissues...

Two Oceans Toastmasters

What a great Toastmasters meeting we had tonight! There was music and dancing, speeches and evaluations of high standard - it is always a pleasure to go and learn from so many masters across diverse subjects. The leadership in our club is personified by vitality and exuberance, yet tempered with a measure of constructive advice on self-improvement in the public speaking sphere, which is the purpose of being a member. The degree of talent among the members, not only in speech making, but in their personal and public lives as well, is inspirational and I never fail to go away feeling somewhat of an underachiever, but soon recover my equilibrium once I am removed from the euphoria!

We are very fortunate to be regarded as one of the most spirited clubs, and long may it last! I was initially apprehensive about the 'formality' of the proceedings at Toastmasters, but the way in which new members are welcomed and encouraged to participate soon taught me that there were many people involved who had a great deal to teach me, so I'm more than happy with my decision to undertake what is more than just a course in public speaking.

Visitors are always most welcome, so be my guest!

Chilling out in Kommetjie

Relaxing in Kommetjie for a few days with Robert. No need to leave, as you can get all the peace and beauty you need to chill out right here. Living in London, there is no yearning for city life! We had a really good lunch at Espresso Dotkom, a delightful and welcoming coffee shop/restaurant in Kommetjie, where the owners are hands-on and eager to please. The caesar salad was, I would say, one of the best I have had anywhere. After lunch, we strolled down to the beachfront, where the lack of wind was today's greatest pleasure! The sea was mirror-smooth and clear as glass.

A stroll along the pathway along the bayside took us past the rocks where the infamous 5ft cobra resides - the one that nearly bit my friend the other day. Here is a picture of it, duly confirmed as a chilled-out, healthy specimen of cobra!

We approached the area with extreme caution, but were, I suppose, lucky enough not to see it. An attempt has been made to catch it, as evidenced by the removal of many rocks, which is rather a shame because they have been in that position for who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years. In a way, it will be a pity if they chase it away, but being a popular walking area, it is a great danger to the unaware. And of course there is also the danger of some fool trying to kill it. So perhaps it will be better if it does slither off to a safer area for all concerned.

Tomorrow we will be out and about visiting Rabbit's friends and relations (oh, sorry, that's Winnie-the-Pooh) - Robert's friends and relations, so looking forward to catching up. In no time, it will all be back to normal here and on with the daily grind!

Looking at labels

One of the things in life that I'm really passionate about is keeping an eye out for the consumer. In the past, I have had many run-ins with major supermarket chains regarding the modus operandi of their shelf pricing and advertising, and I am pleased to say that in each instance, I have been proven correct in my assertion.

Nothing raises my hackles quicker than false advertising, whether it takes the form of meat packaged with the fat hidden underneath, or the bony side of the chop out of sight. And don't let me get started on pre-packed vegetables!

But today took the cake! At the meat counter of the largest retailer in SA, I was sorting through the lamb neck for the best cuts for the lamb curry I'm going to make. One of the packs was marked Free Range, but priced by hand and the others just had the store label. As usual, I checked thr kilo price and was pleasantly surprised to see that they were the same. Obviously a mistake, but I took it because I never point out underpricing - after all, they are supposed to be looking after the consumer. I glanced at the price of another pack, which couldn't have weighed more than 300g and was amazed to see that it was R231.46! I checked the name - lamb neck - then the kilo weight - 3kg! I hotfooted that back to the butchery department and asked that they relabel it before someone with a trolley worth R2 000 didn't notice. I was impressed that they came to me afterwards to thank me.

Consumers beware - this is a common mislabelling error, although perhaps not always on quite so impressive a scale. Always read your labels.

An extremely tiring day

What a day! It started off at 12.30 in the middle of the night, when I woke up in a fright to find HWCFA opening the bedroom windows because he said it was too hot. It was a rude awakening out of a deep sleep, and after that I stayed awake the whole night until 5.00am when, as I started to doze, the first birds chirped in the branches outside the now open windows! In no time, the sky was brightening and the first rays of sunlight were tingeing the Back Table - it was time to get up and take my now expected early morning picture. I have to mention that this is not going to happen in winter! The whole point is that it will be a greeting of the dawn, so fortunately I will be able to lie in a bit in the middle of the year.

After a sleepless night, I was looking forward to a quiet braai followed by a snooze on the mattress under the trees, but this was not to be. No sooner had we cleared the plates than friends arrived with 5 lively children under the age of 8 in tow and the braai was started all over again. Not being used to small children in the home, or any type of children really, it became quite stressful as they ran all over the garden - I have lots of dangerous, spiky plants - and up and down the stairs which have a large gap between the treads and I had visions of them all falling through. In the end, it was the largest child who fell, so no harm was done except to my nerves!

They fished a dead mole out of the disused fish pond, another item not suitable for small children, and proudly brought it to show us. The last thing I wanted to see was a rotting corpse, so I told the child to swat it over into the neighbour's spare plot, which he did with glee. That disposed of that. The next game was to tie one of the smaller boys to various trees and posts around the garden, which he was quite willing to allow, but caused a bit of stress as I'm not used to having my plants abused. In the end I decided it was best to just let them get on with it and let the plants take their chances.

While they amused themselves, things deteriorated slightly at the adult end of the garden and eventually there was snoozing all round! I continued to feed and water the children and ensure that they remained in one piece before being returned home. I think that I am now going to have to put them all in my car and take the whole lot home. And it's Monday tomorrow.

I still haven't had more than 2 hours sleep since yesterday morning, and Robert wants to play Scrabble when I get home from my trip across the Peninsula. I hope I make it.