This and that

Cape Town continues to wow us with warm, windless June days. Summer clothes have been hauled back out of storage and beach goers have ventured into the water. Here on the rocks of the bay in Kommetjie, a shore break has crashed through the night, an indication of a cold front passing to the south. Another front is set to make landfall in a day or so - weather predictions have become famous for being unpredictable and so it is best to just look out of the window from time to time - and we are hoping for more of the kind of rainfall we had last week.
I see many interesting things through the last remaining gap between roofs and milkwood trees, and the latest was a large dorsal fin. Orcas have been close inshore all around the coast here, just behind the surf line, and sightings have been confirmed by surfers who appear to be unperturbed. I think it would keep me out of the water 𝒶 la Jaws. The fin rose and fell and definitely had the appearance of an orca's, but the sunlight on the water made it difficult to confirm. However, if you are planning on being in or on the water here, be aware of their presence. It's exciting to have these beautiful creatures close by, and not just on the Discovery channel, even if the reason is for feeding on the abundant seals and dolphins that play in our waters.
Last week's rain followed by warm days has fooled the garden into thinking Spring is in the air, and new green leaves are sprouting forth, while unseasonal vygies are blooming. There are many reports of flowers blooming that have never been seen at this time of year, and it's even stranger to see that oak trees and other leaf losers have not yet shed their leaves. Perhaps the whole season thing is in turmoil! As the weather bureau says, we are expecting heavy rainfall; alternatively it will be sunny. That lets them off the hook!

Spectacular autumn day on Lion's Head

I never get tired of autumn in Cape Town, or rather, what I call typical June weather - windless, cloudless, crystal clear air, perfect temperature - it's a paradise, and particularly up on the slopes of Lion's Head where we hiked today.

I've done this walk a few times now, and this was definitely the best in terms of conditions, fitness and general enjoyment. Summer is too hot, and a comparison of last year's photos and today's indicate that discomfort levels have improved vastly. Fat has turned to muscle and clothes are beginning to bag - hooray! Slightly on the downside, the knee tendons are needing attention to rectify too much reliance on single muscles and I walked with tapes holding them in place - oh, the pains of growing older. 

All along the route, sugarbushes complete with sugarbirds displayed their beauty in shades of pink and pale green, while bearded proteas were also in abundance, including a very interesting green variety. A very early babiana bloomed at the side of the track, which I regret not taking a photo of. There are other unusual botanical happenings at the moment - at least they seem so to me - a mountain dahlia is in full bloom on Ou Kaapse Weg, quite unseasonal.

Before we know it, after our brief winter months it will be spring again and the mountains will be covered in the most beautiful specimens from our Cape Floral Kingdom, the most abundant in the world and free for viewing by all who love to hike in these mountains. It can be very exciting to spot a flower that only exists on the southern slope of a particular mountain, or only in a ravine with a waterfall. So much to see and learn!

Camps Bay

Twelve Apostles

Benches above Clifton for our coffee break

Replenishing electrolytes!

Flash flood

Yesterday a river ran through my garden. When we first moved here 36 years ago, there were only a few houses on the hillside behind us and mountain streams meandered seaward all along the road, one of them keeping the verge at the top of the property bog-like, where only restios grew. Good winter rains would bring a flood gushing down the side roads and downhill through the garden, and we often had brief moments when all the topsoil and compost I had invested in would simply be swept away into the neighbouring plot, leaving me with infertile beach sand to start all over again. One year the flooding was so bad the council dug a trench to divert the water.
However, a huge gum tree nearby has sucked up all the water over the years and trebled in size, while the surrounding area has almost become a desert and the restios have died off. Development of the vacant plots has diverted the water courses and changing weather patterns have reduced the rainfall. Until yesterday. A late afternoon cloudburst filled us with excitement at the prospect of relief from the drought and trepidation at the thought of all our tanks overflowing, as we haven't been able to use much of the 8000 litres currently stored! We soon noticed a rivulet flowing down the garden, then looked out of the window towards the road. The entire front area was under water and it was being dammed up against the garage doors - I rushed downstairs to open the side gate and it was like opening a floodgate on a dam wall. Within minutes the back garden was a torrent heading for the neighbour's plot again, but this time we had put up a wooden fence with tiny gaps and the water had nowhere to go except upwards. It spread across the lawn, pushing a line of leaves, sticks and general debris before it, while we rushed around taking videos in chaotic excitement. Funny how something out of the ordinary can galvanise us into frantic action.
In 15 minutes it was all over - 17mm of rain and no need to water the garden for a while. It will take a good day in the garden to clean up the mess, and large sections of soil have again been washed away, but this time it is still inside the property and can be returned to the flowerbeds. The water table rose by a good 15cm and the cloud made off for the catchment area on the other side of False Bay. The garage only flooded a little due to my gate opening strategy, and today was the most beautiful sunny autumn day to dry up the residue. But we will still have to dig a trench.

Driveway replaced by a river and bricked area now a dam

You can see the waterline on the gate that eventually extended right through the garden

Kalk Bay cameo

On the last day of May, we had our traditional May storm, and trees blew over, a few hurricane force gusts were recorded and a lot of rain fell in most of the right places. Not here in Kommetjie, though, and barely a leaf fell from the trees, with 12mm of rain in the gauge this morning.  Our hike along the top of the mountains was unfortunately cancelled, it being cold and windy up there, and I ended up at Kalk Bay harbour on a sunshiny, cool day, with waves splashing as high as the roof of Harbour House (looking very dilapidated) and seals sunning themselves on the breakwater around us.
Fish and chips from Lucky Fish is mandatory - fresh as can be, with enough to share with a flock of gulls. The harbour was almost deserted, with no tourist activity and nothing happening in the fish cleaning area. A couple of hawkers displayed their wares to an audience of nobody, and it must have been quite disheartening, unless things perked up later in the day. Even the fishing boats were silent, with no signs of maintenance or even life on board.
As always, the view across towards Simon's Town was irresistible, and I added a few more photos to my already vast collection of seascapes! One day when I have left this Earth, I will have left tens of thousands of photographs in a cloud computer somewhere - who knows what will happen to them or if they even really exist?

When you can't see for looking

The other day a friend and I nipped over the mountain to the rolling hills of the Constantia vineyards for a walk back in history at Groot Constantia. After partaking in a leisurely luncheon, the time came to pay the bill and I reached into my bag for my wallet. This bag has many compartments and is multi-zipped for additional security. The wallet also has many pockets and places for cards. I had stopped earlier at a supermarket for some essentials and had used my debit card, but as is our way, paying is an automatic response procedure where you take the card, put it in your bag, sign the slip, put that in the bag, then leave.

My friend can vouch that I searched every pocket of that bag, every compartment of the wallet, zipped and unzipped everything that had a zip, searched through everything again and again. I searched through diaries, notebooks, piles of receipts, folded up tissues, my jeans pockets, the wallet again - to no avail. And try as I might, I couldn't remember if the cashier had handed the card back. I break out into a little sweat when a card goes missing, not because I fear that someone will hack into my account and withdraw thousands of Rands (no chance of that! - they would be sorely disappointed), but because I fear I have lost my mind as I cannot find it or remember the chain of events. Alzheimer's looms large on the horizon.

My friend sent her husband to the supermarket to find out if they had found the card while we drove back to Noordhoek to sort it out at the bank. When we pulled into the vast parking lot, by an amazing coincidence we turned into the exact same parking space as I had been in earlier, so I scouted the area and asked the car guard if he had seen it, but of course he had no idea what I was talking about. A discussion with the manager at the supermarket revealed nothing and by that time the bank was closed, so as soon as I got home, I phoned to cancel the card.

I have just emptied the bag and thrown out all unnecessary items. I opened my wallet and removed every single thing from each compartment and threw more unnecessary scraps of paper, business cards, appointment cards, shopping lists, a TV licence and two paperclips into the bin. I then shook it upside down just to clean out the crumbs that seem to gather in the darkest recesses - and the debit card fell out.

The mind just boggles.

I have to say that I once lost my credit card and two weeks later found it in my handbag, which I had also searched with the same thoroughness. I am now going to whittle down the things I carry with me to a wallet with one line of cards, one zip compartment for coins, and one pocket for notes. The bag will have one pocket for lipstick, mirror and comb, and the big space will be for the wallet. But then where will I put the diary, notebook, pen, tissues, cellphone, pocket knife, small screwdriver, toothpicks, waterless handcleaner, fold-up shopping bag... I have tried a bag organiser, but I need a bag organiser for the bag organiser.

If anyone has the solution, please let me know. Otherwise I will have to come back as a man in my next life and just keep it in my pockets.

Read every label!

As a  conscious consumer, I am daily horrified by the ingredients I read on the labels of the food we buy in our supermarkets. The latest discovery is bleach in sausage. It's bad enough that our toilet paper, tissues and roller towels are bleached (do we really need everything white?), but to find it in your sausage is enough to banish them from your braai! On the paper note, have you smelled the roller towels that we are supposed to use for soaking up excess oil from fried foods (another no no, but it's still a long road)? Would you want to eat that?
The thing that really peeves is that there doesn't appear to be an alternative, unbleached product, without chemicals. Or that it isn't labelled as smelling gross. We are not given the choice to live the way we want to. Practically everything we put on our food in the way of sauces has genetically modified products such as maize and soy added to it. The fresh food we eat has sometimes been sprayed with pesticides without our general knowledge, so that even this is not what we think it is.
If you try to eat only free range meats and eggs, chances are the animal or fowl has been fed on genetically modified grains, as our government appears to be enamoured of such a policy, despite the rest of the world becoming more and more vociferous against it.
Of great sadness is the sight of shopping trolleys filled with non-foods such as processed cereals, chips, pies, sweetened dairy products, cat and dog food with rainbow colours - and not a piece of fruit or bunch of carrots to provide some nutrition - being pushed by women with small children already showing signs of the weight problems that will be the precursor to ill health later in life.
While I appreciate that my point of view regarding nutrition and health need not be adopted by anyone else on the planet, surely it doesn't make sense that we should accept the poisons that are being dished up to us?

A 90th birthday celebration

Feeling in need of a bolstering of the spirit today, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join old family friends at the celebration of a 90th birthday. It was like having an outing with Mom and Dad again, as it was at their mutually favourite place, Kirstenbosch, in the company of friends I was at school with, and it was an absolutely delightful day.
As usual in Cape Town, the weather is very local, and it poured with rain over Kirstenbosch, catching many unawares as they strolled in the gardens, and soon the tea room/restaurant was filled with damp patrons drying off under the welcoming heaters! Of course, after the rain had cleared, the mountains were magical, with mist drifting among the ravines and waterfalls cascading groundwards. The streams running through the gardens babbled as they rushed over the rocks and under the bridges, a sound so welcome to the ears of drought-stricken bucket luggers. The earthy scents of wet undergrowth brought a sense of calm and quiet over this normally busy botanical garden and it was lovely to stand alone at the family bench for a while, undisturbed by chatter.
More rain is expected tomorrow, but this time accompanied by near gale-force winds at times, and so the gentle calm of today will be replaced by traditional winter weather. Gratitude for today and tomorrow.