Heading down to my favourite place for a quick winter weekend visit, we made a wholly unplanned and wholly unpleasant stop just north of Napier.
Parents will understand.
The silver lining to this vomitty visit was this photo, the perfectly still water of a farm dam a tranquil juxtaposition to the harrowing events continuing behind me as I pressed the shutter.
She’s fine now. She was fine almost immediately anyway. Better out then in, hey?
As a powerful cold front with gale force northwesterly winds hits Cape Town again, here’s a flashback to 50 years ago when the same thing happened and the 156m long, 8100 tonne SS Seafarer, en route from Glasgow to Beira, ran aground at Mouille Point in Cape Town.
Yes, just like that.
Seafarer was carrying a cargo of highly dangerous tetra-ethyl-lead and 12 passengers. She was advised to stay outside but decided to enter Cape Town Harbour in rough weather and ran aground off Green Point.
“Oops”
Fortunately, all the crew and passengers were rescued by helicopter after attempts to get a rocket line from the shore failed.
She broke her back and became a constructive total loss. She was broken up in situ.
As I have previously mentioned, my mother-in-law, living in Mouille Point at the time, was one of the crowd which gathered to watch the developments and is likely one of the people you can see in the photo above.
History, hey? It’s closer than you think.
I like it when local businesses do well. I especially like when they do well because they offer really good service.
Getwine springs immediately to mind. I ordered from them again today, as it happens, and I have enthused about them before on here several times.
And now, step forward The Fireman:
Superior quality DRY firewood and braaiwood delivery in Cape Town.
They were very good when I ordered from them pre-winter, and now I find myself requiring a refill, they’ve been very good again. Here’s the email I got this morning:
Dear 6000
Thank you for your order.We have been so incredibly busy that demand is currently exceeding supply and despite working around the clock, our farmers are struggling to keep up at the moment. We have the dry wood stock at the farms so supply will not be a problem, and have just mobilised two more camps of staff to increase our logging production levels. We hope we will have caught up to have a surplus stock level at the depot by early next week. At the moment, every single bag of the stock that arrives has already been allocated by previously booked appointments so goes straight out to someone’s house! We thought we had projected a sufficient chopped supply for this season but we think because of our commitment to only providing dry wood, on time and with a smile, we have been a lot busier than expected.
We can offer you a delivery on [date] at [time] if this is convenient for you?
It turns out that [date] and [time] is very convenient for me, and – despite their apparent struggles – is really not ever so far away. What’s more, I’m confident that they will turn up when they say they will, with a truckload of dry wood and a smile. Delivery is included and they’ll stack the wood for free.
So, if you are after firewood in Cape Town, please go to their site and support them some more.
Note: This is not a sponsored post. Remember, I tell you about sponsored posts:
Occasionally, people get in touch wanting paid links or sponsored posts. I can choose to be very selective with these, because I know that the blog isn’t my source of income, and I’ll always tell you if I am endorsing a product in exchange for cold, hard cash of course.
So when I say something is good, you’ll know that you can believe what I am saying.
And, looking around at other Cape Town blogs, doesn’t that make a refreshing change?
Worrying times here at Chez 6000. I took Colin to the vet yesterday evening, and when I got back into the car at the surgery, we were (Colin was) so busy chatting about how good it was to be out of the vet with everything apparently still intact that I quite forgot to restart the soothing music which had accompanied our journey there. And then when we got back to the house, we were (Colin was) so excited to be back home with all four legs and a tail that I quite forgot to take my iPod out of my car.
This morning, when I came to play some music on the way to work, I no longer had an iPod.
I had a Dead Pod. RIP SnoopyToo.
My first thought was that I had left it playing through the extensive collection of tunes and that the battery had given up. I have done that before, but it usually saves just enough battery power to tell me that it has no battery power. This time it was completely dead.
My second thought was that I was going to have to listen to 5fm.
I shed a tear, which immediately froze on my cheek. I may have mentioned that the current climatic conditions in Cape Town are somewhat chilly.
“Hmm,” I thought. “I wonder if that has something to do with it?”
Once at work, I plugged the iPod in, but there was still no sign of life. And so, while I left it plugged in, I did some extensive research (I googled), and apparently, chilly iPod problems are a thing:
When I got in my car on Saturday morning there was still ice all over my car and the iPod was dead, as if the battery was zilch. I put it near a heater vent to warm up while I drove, and still nothing when hooked up to the charger adapter.
I should point out here that my iPod was in a car, in a garage, on a night that only really got down to about 4.5ºC, so we were some distance off the “ice all over my car” scenario. But the symptoms were exactly the same.
Apple says that the operating temperature range of its iPod Classic is -20°C to 45°C. At no point is Cape Town going to trouble the lower end of that scale, although summer will easily top the high end. However, last night did neither.
The good news is that my iPod now seems to be fine. It wasn’t a battery issue (it’s come back to life with a near full battery), so I’m guessing that it was temperature related, despite Apple’s claims.
There’s some good advice on that thread I linked to:
Think back to those warnings you used to see on the back of 5.25″ floppy disks. “If it’s comfortable enough for you, then it’s good enough for your disk,” or something like that. Your iPod just needs to warm up, most likely.
And no. I wouldn’t have wanted to have spent last night in my car.
Welcome back, Snoopy Too.
NUUSFLITS/NEWSFLASH! It’s winter in the Cape and here comes another big cold front to remind us of that fact:
An intense cold front is expected to affect the Western Cape from Thursday night into Friday. The public and small stock farmers are advised that very cold conditions, gale force coastal winds and strong interior winds, heavy rain leading to localised flooding and very rough sea conditions can be expected.
Sounds like fun.
Windguru is predicting swells of up to 9.1m for both Cape Town and Cape Agulhas. Might be time to batten down your beagle, make sure you’ve got enough firewood in and charge up those camera batteries in anticipation. Stormchasing.co.za describes it as:
a powerful cold front… there has never been any doubt that it would be a significant weather event.
And hints at the chance of a light dusting of snow on Table Mountain early on Friday morning.
And I think we can all remember what happened here the last time that happened!