It is, as was promised, wild, wet and windy outside. Thus, the fire is lit, the beagle is tucked up in front of it, and I’m sitting in front of a warm TV.
I did manage a reasonably quick 7km this morning before the worst of the weather arrived. And I also made sure that everything in the garden was prepared for the incoming storm.
And so I feel completely vindicated in hiding inside as the rain rattles down out there now. I might even open a bottle of red wine.
Fight me.
Indeed. And we had such high hopes of getting down to Agulhas ahead of what promises to be one of the biggest storms of the year hitting our little corner of Africa from Sunday afternoon. But it wasn’t to be, due mainly to reasons, but also, because of some circumstances.
These things happen.
And so we’re staying put, allowing for an extra riding lesson on Saturday afternoon and… well… that’s actually about all. But on the plus side, there will be a nice warm fire, some football and almost certainly some steaks on the braai* at some point to fill the gaps around the horsey stuff.
From the top, that’s day and time, wind speed and gusts in kph, wind direction and wave heights in m.
Anyway, I’m about to go and light that fire right now as it feels like the first tendrils of that cold front are just beginning to touch the Mother City…
* clearly not on Sunday
It’s been a busy day following last night’s sleepover (not me). Horse riding (not me), gym (me), breakfast out (not me) and then a hike at Silvermine (also not me).
While it might not seem like I did a lot, I did provide lifts to and from most of the above.
And suddenly Monday is looming. How close? Well, I have switched the football over from England to Spain: the sporting equivalent of the Carte Blanche theme music for telling you that your weekend is over.
I’m having a quick glass of red wine before I head to bed. Numerous things going in for repair this week. More of that as they happen.
Right now, though, I’m going to doze off in front of the fire like an old man.
It’s Curry Club this evening, so I’ll likely be enjoying a Jal Frezi rather than blogging in front of the fire. In the meantime, please enjoy some (or more) of these snippets which don’t quite deserve a blog post of their own, but equally don’t deserve to be completely ignored, either.
The last phone boxes
5 million phone calls are made each year from the UK’s remaining 20,000 phone boxes. I think that both those numbers seem ridiculously high. This is a lovely long read about phone boxes and their place in an ever-changing society.
Hike
The Boy Wonder is hiking the Lion’s Head tonight, with the promise of hot chocolate on the summit. It’s actually getting ridiculous how many Bootlegger coffee shops there are in Cape Town now. (Substitute Costa in the UK or your local ubiquitous high street coffee outlet in to make this “joke” work for your country.)
Ironically, there is usually a Vida e Cafe truck parked at the gate to the Lion’s Head hiking trail.
UCL Draw
Once again, Sheffield United have missed out on a place in the group stages. I might still pop over to the UEFA Youtube page to watch the draw for the 2022/23 competition live this evening though. 5pm BST = 6pm CAT.
With no apologies to Elvis…
…John Cooper Clarke’s (You Ain’t Nothing But A) Hedgehog
“You ain’t nothing but a hedgehog
Foragin’ all the time
You ain’t nothing but a hedgehog
Foragin’ all the time
You ain’t never pricked a predator
You ain’t no Porcupine”
“Hedgehogs! Leave some hedge for everyone else!”
And…
August is nearly over. So, in a mall near you:
It’s a very seasonal thing:
And, as you can see from this graph of interest in that song on Google, the interest in that song is very much waning. This is great news, but it’s also worth noting that even if people aren’t quite as bothered as they used to be, history shows that we are likely to see the annual uptick beginning in the next few weeks.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Spotted by someone on Geoguessr, and shared here because it’s local(ish) and also (I think) rather amusing, this sign:
Which I have discovered is just where the N9 becomes the N10 a few kms north of Middelburg, just south of the border between the Eastern and Northern Cape provinces:
That would earn me 5000 points on Geoguessr, but this is just a blog post, so I score nothing.
Not much that’s funny about that until you see how Google managed to mash up and stretch out said signpost:
…transforming De Aar into De Aar Aar (funny enough in itself), Middelberg into Middelburdelberg and – my favourite – Colesberg in Colesberolesberg. I’ve never been to this bit of SA – it’s actually a bit north, a bit west and a bit east of places I have been to – but Colesberolesberg and Middelburdelberg do make it sound rather fun.
Colesberolesberg don’t make road signs, but if they did…