not much happening

... and I'm not going to write much due to my Glenmorangie Traditional - induced hangover. Rach and I had Dive Action's Sarah and her chums Sharni and Steve over last night for a braii. After steaks, sausages and soul searching conversations, I broke open the whisky, and next thing we knew we had two passouts and I was drunkenly cleaning up (like the morning after my 30th).

Other than that we're just chilling for the last few days and trying not to spend much more money. This may be the last entry until later next week when I promise I will get some photos up. Believe it or not, we're both really looking forward to coming home now - we're missing family, friends and cats, and we're wanting to get our brains back into gear after this (much needed) fallow period.


PS - quick petwatch - I was sorry to hear that one of my sister's cats has an infection and is in kitty hospital with a tube up his willy. OUCH!

Busy days...

Greetings all. I'm sure no-one will feel sorry for us, but we've only got five more days here. Argh!

The last few days have been very busy and fun.



On Tuesday, we went out to Franschoek and Stellenbosch for wine tasting. We started the day at the Cabriere Estate, a small winery. Hilda, the wife of the main wine guy Achim von Arnim, led us in tasting all their normal and sparkling wines, including a very nice pinot noir - chardonnay blend which they made by accident. We missed Achim's party trick of uncorking a bottle of bubbly with a sabre sadly.

Lunch was a picnic in the gardens of the Boschendal estate, followed by more wine tasting there (Cabernet Sauvignon bought) and at Delaire (poncey and unfriendly).



After a walk around leafy, sleepy, Africaaner town of Stellenbosch, we went for our treehouse dinner at the Moya restaurant at the Spier estate, which was absolutely amazing.

We were there in the evening, so it didn't really look like this - the whole place lit up by lanterns, water features in the trees made for nice ambient sounds... and we stuffed our faces from the buffet which I can't even begin to describe except to say that if it was remotely African, and you wanted to eat it, it was available.

Rach got a bit confused, asking whether the waitress's offer of face painting meant she would look like a tiger - british fun fair-esque. The waitress was painted herself with simple traditional African patterns, which I thought gave a bit of a clue...



Yesterday, more wine tasting at Fairview, famous for its goat tower - hence the excellently named Goats Do Roam wine range... This was followed by spit roasted lamb at the Backsberg estate with William's friend Ivan.

In the evening we went with Sarah from Dive Action to the Drum Cafe, where we drank beer and smacked the hell out of rented drums for an evening. Highly cathartic, great rhythms, sore hands!

Finally, the last of the week's many highlights was this morning's township tour, courtesy of Walter of Grassroute Tours. We were both a bit worried that we'd be looking through a goldfish bowl, that we would feel patronising... instead it was an affirming and humbling experience, which demystified township life.

We first drove around what used to be District 6, and had another visit to the museum, which was enhanced Walter's local knowledge - he walked through it every day on the way to high school and work, and knew many residents.

We then visited a school in the township of Langa, run by volunteers - the schoolrooms for the 600 kids are either wooden shacks or converted shipping containers. We went into various classes, where the kids all were mad keen to show us their school books, talk to us, tell us stories about their families. We were then treated to the choir singing songs, which I can tell you would have melted the coldest and darkest of hearts!



After a bit more driving, we ended up in Khayelitsha, a township housing 1.3 million people, with homes varying between breezeblock-built new homes, down to the most basic and small shack. In fact, on the streets were shacks for sale - which could be pulled apart, loaded into a pickup (or Bakkie as called here), and re-assembled where there is space.

We visited a soup kitchen (where the lollies I brought out on Sarah's advice were handed out), the famous Vicky's B&B, and had a beer for 40p in a Shebeen - a local unlicenced pub.

I'd recommend anyone visiting Cape Town to go on a tour like this. The companies are run by township-folk, so the money goes straight where it should. We were welcomed, waved to, and thanked for visiting by everyone we met and saw, and by God did it remind us how lucky we are to be living the way we do. (It also did no favours towards my feelings towards the shoplifting, vandalising pikey communities back home... they don't know they're born!).

Anyway, long entry over, we're planning to do nothing very much for the rest of the holiday, and let's hope England whip the French on Saturday evening. I fear this unlikely.

Byeeeeeeeeeeee!

Jane Evans pooch watch

Rach's friend Jane was feeling aggrieved that our animal updates solely covered our cats, so here's some news about her enormous dog, Rebel: apparently his bowel movements have been normal - he ate all Jane's leftover US dollars after she returned from a recent trip, along with half a carelessly discarded sock. This is normal behaviour apparently...

I think I'll stick with our toilet bowl drinking mogs...

10 days to go, but no more diving for us...

Howzit!

So it's Sunday, and we're flying back a week on Tuesday. No idea where the last week disappeared to, but it was fun. On Friday we had a day to and around Cape Point (map here). This is romantically thought of as the bottom tip of Africa, and the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. In fact, it's neither - (it's an apparently dull place called Cape Agulhas), but it's the tip of the peninsula and is really quite an amazing place, with that end of the world feeling.



The day started with breakfast at the excellently named Simon's Town, followed by some serious penguin watching at boulders beach. These were really cute, and although you were on walkways above the beach in the reserve area, if you go to the bathing beach there are penguins hanging about everywhere. They were fairly wary of us, but we got a good close look at some.



Less scared were the baboons on the road, one of which took a walk over the car as we were looking at them. The cape baboons are so used to humans that it is becoming a bit of a problem - they can open car doors, boots, will jump in any open window they see and shit all over the car... and more ecologically important is that they are getting used to being fed by humans and not sorting themselves out. Which apparently is bad, so the leaflets tell us.

We had a good old walk with lots of tourists at the Point itself. We then went to an ostrich farm, where Leon the tour guide (who had fled from the war in the Congo) showed us eggs, babies (which we held), teenage and fully grown ostriches. All of which are incredibly cute beyond words. The world's most posh English people were also on the tour, after which they spent thousands of rand on ostrich leather products.

Yesterday - picked up Rachel's new wetsuit, chilled out in the sun, watched 6 nations rugby (well done England and Wales for one of the best 6 nations matches I've seen for years), and had Mr Delivery in front of a dodgy Arnie movie.

Today, we're just back in from diving in False Bay. The wreck dive (SAS Transvaal, one of five wrecks scuttled in the 70s to form an artificial reef) was amazing - once we'd got down - I had some mask problems and Rach had some equalising problems. It turned out that Rach perforated her eardrum while down there, so we had to go to the local A&E (which was very good, clean and friendly) to get her checked out. Fortunately it was a very minor injury, which will heal itself in a few days with the help of some antibiotics to ward off any infections. Sadly though, it means no more diving for us this holiday, as she'll need at least a month before putting herself in the way of any pressure squeezes. This is something which can happen to any diver at any time. Just a bugger the new suit will not get more use this time round...

Coming up this week: wine tasting, dinner in a tree house, african drumming lessons and a township tour.

Mr Delivery (and not much happening)

We've not been doing very much since last post - the sea mist has set in over Cape Town, so we've been relaxing around the flat, reading, listening to music, watching a bit of TV, and, very excitingly, getting takeaway from E-Bytes, (previously called Mr Delivery).

There's one menu, You ring one number, get to choose from all the local takeaways, and it's all delivered by one person. Last night, Rach had Italian and I had Mexican. Brilliant!

jimmy update

Photo in from Jim - I thought I'd trained him better than this...

Cape Town report 4

Hello again,

Saturday: no diving, too windy (so said Barry, but I think he couldn't be arsed). So we had a pre-breakfast walk up table mountain instead via Patteklip Gorge. Rach moaned almost the whole way up (granted it was very steep - 2.5 hours of pure conduit road on foot-high steps), but we were both very happy when we got to the top as the views were pretty spectacular (see above), as was the greasy fry up. My desq leaving present watch gave us regular altitude updates, which I have to say was extremely useful, knowing that we were heading for 1000 m above sea level from 400. "Stop complaining, only 200m to go love...".

That evening we went to the Rugby to watch the Cape Town stormers beat the Aussie Waratahs. Absolutely fantastic. Great ground, great crowd, great entertainment. We didn't get to sample the pies this time as we had access to an executive box for free beers and posh nibbles at half time via William's extremely nice and generous friend Ivan Svart. We're thinking about going again on Sat to see the Brumbies, I'll get a pie-cam shot then.

Rach has been suffering with a bad shoulder, which got really bad yesterday, so we went to the doctors to get industrial strength pain killers and anti inflammatories. She seems much better today. After that we went to find a beach in a nature reserve William recommended. It was great - the most remote place i think I've been to in my life - 25 km away from a main road, competely deserted while we were there, warm water, lovely. Tortoises and ostriches were around, all very cute. Then a delicious Thai dinner for just over a tenner, incl. wine. Bargain!



Today we've been into the mad bustling centre of Cape Town, for a bit of sightseeing and shopping. We visited the District six museum, a document of one of apartheid's not-so-finest moments to say the least. District 6 is an area of central Cape Town, inhabited for a long time by a large part of the coloured population. in the 60's, the local council deemed it a 'white only' area, forced the locals to move out of their homes to townships on the outskirts, and then bulldozed the whole place. Never re-built, it is now a patch of wasteland, with a few churches dotted around which escaped the destruction.

The musuem has a large map of the area on the floor, on which the inhabitants have filled in their names in the appropriate places. It also has all the old street signs, which one of the demolishers secretly kept. It seems incredible that this happened in such recent history, and that the demolishing was only completed in the 80s. Definitely worth visiting.

We've also been around lots of markets, record shops, and have been successsfully shopping for an engagement ring.

Plans for the week: day trips wine tasting and to Cape Point.

kitty update from scunthorpe

News in from Rachel's dad, Jim:


"Both cats are fine!!!

To start the day, Ermintrude (not that you'd be interested) and Maggie
are always in the Utility room when I get up and Jimmy is always
outside. Maggie rushes into the house and begins carpet/furniture
demolishment with a vengeance. Ermintrude (not that you'd be
interested) stays put for ages as she takes a long time to wake up (I
guess she won't need to practise waking up soon). Jimmy used to wait
outside the Dining Room patio door, miaowing to be let in, but has
discovered that he gets better value by doing the same from the flower
box underneath the kitchen window, as he is at eye height when I walk
into the kitchen and I can't ignore him. Since he is perfectly aware
that he can let himself into the Utility Room at will, through the
brand new cat flap that he made necessary. I don't know why he does
this. I think it may be to do with attention seeking, since he has
certainly bonded to me now and seeks strokes and cuddles. Once he's had
a stroke he's quite happy

Having got in and been stroked, Jimmy is happy to be put out when I go
to work (or, for that matter when I put him out late at night). Maggie
does not like being put out, but doesn't mind the Utility Room.

If I'm in in the evening, Jimmy has to be where I am. Currently, he's
sitting in the 4th bedroom as I type. When I go down to the lounge he
will wake up and come to try to sit on my knee. I wish he didn't moult
so badly! Its quite strange how he miaows so plaintively until he's had
a cursory stroke, whereupon he quietens down straight away. Pathetic!!!
Incidentally, he hasn't had an 'inpection' yet and isn't likely to get
one until you return.

On Wednesday night, I heard a banging noise in the downstairs loo.
Irena had been that day and left the lid down. I think the banging was
Jimmy, trying to get the lid up. By the time I got in there, he'd peed
on the carpet. Surely he can't have been trying to pee in the loo!
There is pepper down there now, as some feline had previously left a
large pile there, twice. I hope the offender gets a jolly good sneeze.
What do they think I got that enormous crap tray for? Its a good job my
wife doesn't know about all this. She'd go haywire.

Maggie is, of course, more mischievous. I'm disappointed that the
scratching pole is completely ignored. Apparently. carpets and
furniture are much more appropriate. She usually goes slightly mad when
let in, but calms down quite quickly. She can sense when I'm looking
for her, to put her out, and tries to escape. She seems genuinely
affectionate, however, on the whole, and we're actually really good
friends.

The dynamics are interesting. Ermie is sometimes involved in a bit of
hissing, but most of this involves just Jimmy and Maggie. They seem
quite wary of one another at times. This goes to show what a superior
cat Ermintrude really is. She obviously doesn't often descend to the
level of these common street cats.

You may have guessed that my lovely wife is away, and unaware of issues
to do with uncultivated and badly brought up mogs. Actually, she's in
Elgin, working, and, no doubt, having a lovely time. I find it best, on
the whole, to clean up and not say too much about it. The other night,
as soon as I got in from work, she said I should clean out the litter
tray, as there was poo in it. I said it could wait until morning, as
usual, but, apparently, this meant they would be walking around with
poo on their paws!!! I only got out of this by suggesting that she
empty the litter tray, which worked, and I emptied it, as usual, the
next morning. To think that I used to think that cats never excreted
anything (I'll swear that Ermie never did until recently - certainly
she was never seen)."



Thanks Jim!

Cape Town report 3

We've not been up to a massive amount since the last post, so I won't ramble.

Diving in the aquarium was great, apparently our eyes were like saucers a few times when the raggies got a bit close. We also had some hands on quality time with a very cute turtle. Wednesday and today we've done nothing, and yesterday we spent the afternoon walking, chilling, picnic-ing and snoozing in the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens which was very pleasant indeed.

Tomorrow we're diving with Barry again (wind permitting), then we're off to Newlands to see the Super 12 rugby match between the Stormers and Waratahs. It cost less than 8 quid, to see half of the SA and Australian rugby teams. Sheffield Wednesday costs 21. How does that work? Maybe they don't have top quality chicken balti pies pushing the overhead up.

I've found out how to upload photos, so I'll be doing that in a few days.

Jimmy / Maggie updates

I hear from Chris that Tibbles was ill last week, but is much better now.

"I think she had injured herself trying to get into the airing cupboard . She hates the fact that she hasn't explored in there yet and comes up with nightly schemes to break in.... She had a confrontation
with another cat last night. She stood her ground, good girl."

We would love to hear from Chateau Hollingworth, Scunthorpe that all is well with Maggie and Jimmy, and that there have been no further great escape attempts...