The Obamas hit town!

I doubt whether Fish Hoek has ever had so much excitement going on. It seems as though the South Peninsula is the place to be. First there was the practice run with the helicopters landing on the sportsfields, then the endless speculation about when they would arrive and where they were going. For me, the biggest excitement was the helicopters. I still go outside to look at any plane that goes past, even Boeings (and Airbuses, Linden).

Although it's pretty sleepy down this neck of the woods, quite a few people turned out to see them arrive and wave at the side of the road. Not me, I was up a ladder painting window frames. There aren't many people I would line the side of the road to see. Hmm...nope, can't think of any offhand. I prefer to observe celebrity from the comfort of my couch. I think its because I dislike the hype that robs them of their privacy and by leaving them to their own devices, let them try and lead a normal life.

I was fascinated to hear from various friends along the way who observed the cavalcade from their homes on the hillsides, that Michelle and the girls went to see the penguins while poor Dad had to do the official duties. Mind you, having smelled the penguins, I think he may have got the better end of the deal.

It's great that the weather was good, as we Capetonians love to show off our city, and I sincerely hope that their memories of the Mother City will only be good ones. They didn't come to my house for tea, but c'est la vie!

Testing social networking media

Sorry to use this for self-promotion, but that's what social networking is about, isn't it? Denied mainstream advertising by traditional publishing, the ordinary folk of this world (and sometimes not so ordinary) have discovered that their voices can be heard through modern technology which obviates the need for chopping down trees to make paper and enables you to be read on hand-held devices. Science can be marvellous!

To keep all you dear people who read this blog informed of an achievement of which I am really proud, I have published my first (non-fiction, niche market) book on Amazon through their amazingly (or is that Amazonly?) user-friendly service of publishing straight onto Kindle. You don't have to have a Kindle to buy the books, the software is freely available to download to phone or computer as I have done. An author page which is like a mini website is also provided and is another example of Amazon's fast and efficient service.

The book is called An Invitation to Think, and is just that. That is all I want you to do.

Budget meals

Sorting through the bookshelves today, I came across some stories I wrote back in the early 80s. One in particular caught my fancy and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

The neighbour put out the pets' polony to thaw for their supper later that day. When she went to slice it some hours later, she couldn't find it anywhere. She asked her two teenage daughters, who had been in the kitchen making an afternoon snack after school, whether they had seen the polony, and they said, yes, they had eaten it all because it was so delicious. It had not occurred to them that it was pet food, as that wasn't their department in the household! She laughed till she cried, but they were less than amused, particularly when they found out that the main ingredient was pig's gullet!

Moral of the story (and it still applies today in particular): read the label of everything before you eat it!

And while we are discussing 'budget' meals, the other night I gave He Who Can Fix Anything baked beans on toast for supper. If you know him, you will realise that this is unheard of. I have always produced meat and 4 veg for dinner and a pudding - cold in summer and hot in winter, for the last 34 years, because that is what he likes. I can only say he must have mellowed in his old age, because he pronounced himself perfectly happy with the meal, and had milo for dessert. Looks like I'm being let out early for good behaviour! You can see from the picture that steam is rising from the beans, so it's not as if I didn't cook!

Dithering Daniel

The gardener came to work yesterday. He seemed to be in good shape, so I let him in and gave him his breakfast to get him off to a good start.  The weather was perfect and sunny so I told him to cut the lawns and rake up the leaves on the bricks, but to leave the flower beds as I wanted the mulch to gather again. An hour later I went outside to see what he was up to and he was again on his knees in the flowerbed, scraping out the leaves. "Daniel, what are you doing?" "I'm picking up the leaves, but they keep falling off the tree!" We eventually established that that is what trees do and he should abandon that task as he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I think his short-term memory has gone!

I had to go out for a few hours and when I returned, I went to look for him - he had dug a massive hole against the back wall - I thought he was digging a grave for a horse - and had dumped all the leaves that he had raked up into this hole. "Daniel, what are you doing?" "I couldn't find any bags for the leaves, so I'm burying them!" I couldn't even begin to think what to say about that. Anyway, by the end of the day, the lawn was mown and all looked spic and span, so something had been achieved.

I then told him I didn't have his full wage, but he could come back the next day for the balance. That was fine, he said, then he wouldn't spend it all at once (at the off-sales). Today he was back to collect his money. Nothing wrong with his short-term memory today!

Wimbledon woes

It's a sunny winter's day in Cape Town and now a rainy summer's day in London for Wimbledon. Not an unusual situation! We almost feel embarrassed by good weather down here, but it changes so quickly we never get to put away the summer clothes in winter or the winter clothes in summer. It snowed on top of Table Mountain one Christmas Day many years ago and people still talk about it!

Wimbledon has already become a damp squib for me, with the departure of Nadal. There is no one else I really enjoy watching (you may have noticed!) but the worst part is that Darcis is already out with an injury, so that was all for nothing. Sharapova is gone, and Federer and doubtless a few other top seeds in an event that must have the organisers scratching their heads on how to rearrange all the matches. Certainly nothing going the way they expected, I would imagine!

Here's a beautiful sunset from yesterday to cheer us all up!

Toasters and tomatoes

My toaster popped its last piece of toast the other day, and despite He Who Can Fix Anything's most valiant efforts, it was declared  beyond salvation, particularly as a new one only costs R129. I scratched around in the pot drawer, where I knew we had one of those toasters you use on the gas, and we used that for a few days, but the time it took and the amount of gas used made the exercise fairly pointless.

So I hied me off to Clicks and bought a lovely new toaster, which came with a 3-page manual on how to use it - admittedly most of it was the usual warnings on not to use it in the bath or pull the plug out by the cord, but please, can there really be anybody in the world who needs instructions on a toaster? I can only imagine this is to cover themselves again lawsuits from the relatives of people who have electrocuted themselves.

While I was at the mall, I decided to have an early lunch of scrambled egg and rye, which came with cherry tomatoes. You will be familiar with the difficulty involved in piercing the skin of a tomato with anything less than a surgeon's scalpel, and I stabbed ineffectually at one with the prongs of a fork. Of course, the pressure caused the slightly cooked tomato to explode and send a projectile of juice and seeds a considerable distance. I managed to mop up the mess on the bench seat next to me, but couldn't bring myself to lean over and wipe the sleeve of the old lady at the table next door. I was barely able to control my laughter as she mopped at the splatter on the table in front of her, seemingly unaware of what it was or where it came from. The reason she seemed a bit out of it was because her companion, a woman somewhat younger than her, had not stopped talking since they sat down, and it was all about tigers. She had read somewhere that a man had kept a tiger in his flat for 5 years without anyone knowing and she said: "Now tell me that nobody heard the tiger roar?" Have you ever heard a tiger roar? I was already sniggering into my scrambled eggs, so the tomato juice story just made everything worse. By then I had had enough of the tiger saga and her droning, so I paid the bill and scuttled off before anything else untoward happened.

I'm pleased to say I successfully made 3 slices of toast without any incident!

A camping toaster

Eating out again!?

Another sublime Kerula Prawn Curry at the Pickled Fish at Imhoff Farm. A friend who shares my passion for this particular dish is leaving on a cycling holiday in the Netherlands tomorrow and didn't feel like cooking tonight, so had the bright idea to go out for dinner on a sometimes wet and windy evening. Despite two extremely short (perhaps 30 seconds) and very heavy rain showers on the way, the evening air was surprisingly mild and some stars and a couple of planets shone down on us as we strolled through the farm courtyard. We weren't the only patrons who had the prawn curry - apparently a very popular dish.

As usual, I left my bag (open - I never zip it up) on the floor next to me, and some time during the evening I looked down and saw one of the biggest cats I have ever seen neatly curled up inside the bag. Not quite the cat in the hat! It looked so happy there I didn't bother to turf it out, and when I eventually dug both hands in underneath it, it kind of rolled like a large bean bag onto the cold concrete floor, glared at me and immediately dived back into the bag!

I suspect it was hoping for a spare prawn, but I'm afraid the dining was too sumptuous to share with a cat - we almost licked the plates!

For dessert, which we really didn't need, we shared the Cape Brandy Pudding. It was a pleasingly modest-sized portion of moist sponge which may have been steamed (it had such a good texture) with generous dates and nuts added in the traditional manner. Well worth the extra exercise that will be needed.

Don't hold back if you are looking for a really excellent dining experience - this is the place to go!