Appropriate for a Sunday.
I’m not religious. I don’t go to church.
But I could live in one. If it was this one.
At £995,000, it’s a little out of my price range right now, but it is gorgeous.
Apparently, it featured on Grand Designs. I’m a fan of the show, but I haven’t seen this one yet. I’m sure I’d remember.
I’m not sure how long that link above will last, but maybe I’ll be able to find the listing on a archived website once it’s gone. <- NOTE TO FUTURE SELF.
Or…
Look, let me preface this by saying that I won’t be going along to this anyway. But as a 90s raver and a long(ish)-time resident of Oxford, I might give it a go if I was still there.
Because it could be amazing.
The words “Tribute to” could be doing an awful lot of heavy lifting here. But they seem to have lined the best tribute acts up for the four weekend shows this summer, and if it wasn’t terrible, and if you were in the right frame of mind for some potentially iffy music and some fun, AND you had nothing else on that weekend – well, I’d probably give it a go.
I mean, how bad could it be? OK. It could be very bad.
But equally, it could be amazing.
Kevin and Perry is a bit of an odd inclusion, as is “Special Guest – Gladiators Jet”:
Jet from Gladiators to host a millennium barn dance at Yeovil Aerodrome.
Properly policed. It must not, repeat, not turn into an all-night rave.
IYKYK.
Jet will be 56 years old when this event happens. It’s 30 years since her run on Gladiators ended. That’s over half her life. She’s a fully-qualified pyschotherapist now. It won’t be the same.
But the whole thing? Overall? It could be amazing.
Get a few friends together. £40 gets you 18 hours of entertainment with full weekend access, and… well… it could be amazing.
That was a nice day out.
A drive to Stellenbosch, and then out into the Jonkershoek Valley, where we stopped off at the Oude Nektar Gardens and had a wander in the peace and quiet, taking in the fresh air and the amazing trees, flowers, lawns and birds. Which included plenty (or more) Black Saw-Wings (Psalidoprocne pristoptera) overhead, and at least a couple of flycatchers nearer the ground:
That’s the Fiscal Flycatcher (Sigelus silens) on the left, and the African Dusky Flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta) on the right. The size is a bit off, because the Dusky Flycatcher is small, but the Fiscal Flycatcher is Far Away.
But they are always nice to see, anyway. Whatever size and wherever they were.
Then next door to Stark-Condé for some wine tasting and lunch.
Both were really good, but certainly not cheap:
When did R60 per wine for a tasting become a thing? Could we not organise some sort of locals rate, please?
That said, we did particularly enjoy their Cabernet Sauvignon and their – wait for it – Oude Nektar Red Blend. We tried the 2022 vintage of the latter, and you could definitely taste the potential. It really just needed a few more years.
And (of course), they’ll do that cellaring for you, but (of course) you’ll pay a pretty penny. The 2015 vintage comes in at a cool R1950 a bottle. I can imagine that it would be rather amazing, but that’s a lot for a bottle of wine, when you’re (mostly) just a happy quaffer.
And so we enjoyed some really good Eastern Cape fillet with the 2022 version of their CabSav, had a leisurely walk around the beautiful lake:
…and headed home happy.
Well, more like “Rand Rand banknoot, almal”, but still.
Inflation being what it is, and the economy being what it is, people are always on the lookout for ways to earn a bit of extra cash. Especially in South Africa.
Thankfully, I’ve seen a couple of adverts for sure-fire money-making schemes, firstly in Cape Town:
Where son of iconic British TV character, Claude Jeremiah Greengrass…
…is clearly raking it in.
And then in local economic powerhouse Johannesbeagle:
…which you can tell is the place with all the money because they apparently have R2200 bank notes up there. With a disapproving Celtic spinster from the 1910s on them.
They’re such trendsetters in Gauteng.
Having clicked through (only on the Cape Town one, obviously – I’m not about to fall for a dodgy image like the Joburg one clearly is), I can say that the initiation of the process of “earning this way” has been flawless so far.
All I’ve had to do is send off R1500 to an unknown bank account, and they’ll get back to me with all the details. Then I sit back in my car, put on about – checks image again – about 50kg (or maybe more) and grow a grey beard, and Bob is my rich uncle.
I’ll keep you informed of how things are going – probably from my yacht or something.
This is about Nelson Mandela Bay (Gqeberha), but there’s no shortage of poachers around Cape Agulhas and Cape Town. Robben Island is a huge hotspot.
They are very well funded, and treat the coastline and the law with complete impunity. And, because of SA’s issues with poverty, even when a poacher pops his clogs and joins the choir invisible – which they do on a fairly regular basis: this isn’t a low risk occupation – there are many, many others ready to step in and take their place.
No quick fix?
More like no fix at all for this right now.