Category: this is south africa

Another reason to buy in Zone 1

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City Centre living. It isn’t for everyone. And if Cape Town is anything to go by (and it is), it’s damn expensive too.

But other than the convenience of your office being right on the doorstep, what else is there to justify the massive price tag?

I’m sorry, did you say “immediate obliteration in the event of a nuclear strike”? – that sounds perfect!

Not that there’s likely to be a nuclear war, of course. The two guys controlling about 90% of the world’s nuclear missiles seem decent, sensible and reasonable, and not at all deranged.

Yeah. Maybe it’s worth that extra million quid to get that little place in Westminster. Far better than the prolonged agony of the daily commute (and then the protracted dying, should the worst actually happen) of the outlying areas.

How does this relate to Cape Town? It doesn’t really. Missiles can’t reach this far, and if they could, we still have a big mountain to hide behind, and the South Easter will take all the radiation away within a couple of minutes.

.

Graphic from here.

Not enough

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Bit knackered this evening. But I’ve worked out the reason why.

Getting back into the rhythm and routine of the school term shouldn’t really be a struggle, but it seems no-one has told my body that.

Can’t keep going on like that.

But…

On the plus side, I had a great drive around the peninsula today, with some great colours and occasional wildlife on show.

More of that another time though, as there’s a goodbye braai to enjoy this evening, as the sun descends on another smoky Cape Town afternoon.

Not sure which one(s) of these is making the sunset quite so orange this evening, but while it’s pretty, it’s never good news.

View from the weekend

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We went away and then we did very, very little.

Save, of course, from enjoying the views, the hot tub, the pool and the pizza oven.

On Saturday morning, I went out on a bit of run that then turned into a bit of a hike, and ended up climbing up onto the koppie 250m above our accommodation, leaving me with this view down the Breede Valley:

Not bad at all. New phone camera doing the business.
And I only nearly died a couple of times.

Right now, it’s back to reality: picking up kids from school and making dodgy salads for dinner.

But… it was a fun weekend.

A bit of a moan

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It hasn’t rained much in Cape Town over the last few weeks. Maybe even the last few months.

And there is a bit of “Day Zero” talk entering the chat, although to be fair, we’re a long way from that sort of scenario at the moment (but you never say never).

In fact, looking back, I can only really remember a few hours of rain over the last few months. Two of those hours were last Tuesday night, when we tried to watch the cricket. It didn’t rain all day – just for the few hours when we actually needed it to be dry, so that they could play cricket. And once the cricket (such as it was) was over (no pun intended), it stopped raining and was all hot and dry again.

And the other few hours are… well… now. Again, it’s been a scorcher of a day, but then this evening, it began to rain. Why? Well, that would be because our daughter went to an outdoor concert.

Not this morning (dry), not this afternoon (hot and dry), just this evening. And, much like the evening of the cricket, it looks like the rain will stop pretty much as the concert ends.

There will be no rain tomorrow evening, when there also won’t be a concert.

Perfect.

I once had an idea involving an iceberg, which would have solved Cape Town’s water issues forever.

I did a fair amount of maths and stuff for that, but actually, why bother with dragging a chunk of Antarctica all the way to South Africa and then filling the Franschhoek Valley with ice when I can clearly just make it rain by spending money on weather-sensitive evening activities?

If you need some rain, I’ll just buy expensive tickets for a theatre thing or some tennis (ok, not tennis), and we can all enjoy the precipitation and petrichor as the evening is ruined, the money wasted, but the dams filled up.

IN CASE YOU ARE WONDERING – and I don’t blame you for wanting to ask – no, I can’t see any more events in our diary which will be ruined by rainfall, just yet. So you’re free to go about your business safe in the knowledge that it’s not going to rain on your parade.

Only mine.

But of course, I’ll keep you informed.

Wargames

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I mentioned yesterday how hot it had been. It was also weirdly hot and massively foggy throughout last night as well. I know this because I was awake for most of the night and consequently, I am completely broken today.

Still. A quick wander along Muizenberg beach seemed like a good idea and we got to see the delightful sight of the IRIS Shahid Mahdavi (and friends) in False Bay for the laughably titled Will for Peace 2026 Naval Exercise.
Russia (still bombing Ukrainian civilians most nights), China (always a leading exponent of exemplary human rights), Iran (which has killed more than 500 of its own citizens this week) and South Africa playing with ships and guns.

Lovely.

Not that I am saying that any other foreign nation is any better. What I am saying is that there’s no real need for us to have naval exercises with anyone at all. No-one is coming down here to attack us. We’re far too far away and far too unimportant. Literally no-one cares.

But here we are inviting some shitty nations around to play anyway.

“You are not responsible for what your friends do, but you will be judged by the company you keep.”

And I think that anyone with an ounce of critical thinking could agree that our friends out in False Bay are not the greatest company to keep.

Nice walk, though.

Now all I have to do is stay awake and be sparkling company (as always) for our evening guests, before sleeping – possibly forever – this evening.

Bring it on.