Category: this is south africa

It’s that time again

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As the clocks in the UK and Europe “Spring” forward, we here in SA are reminded of our upcoming winter. No surprises that it rained overnight here then, and the day – while sunny – has been chilly. In fact, the whole week looks like it’s going to be much cooler than we’ve been used to.

That said, we’re back into the 30’s by Friday, so maybe I shouldn’t be quite so dismissive of the end of summer. But there is a chill in the air, and so I’m doing my best to ward it off with some brandy.

For me, the benefit of the clocks changing is that European football matches finish at a vaguely acceptable time. When you’re doing the school run early each morning, that extra hour in bed helps.

Last night’s braai (on SA time) went well, thank you very much for asking. And the beagle did get some nice little schnacks. She’s obviously not very mobile at the moment, but there’s nothing lacking in her cunning. No need to move far from the braai dish: that’s where the good stuff is at. So that’s where I’ll hang out.

And I’ll give everyone the puppy-dog eyes. And they can see me limp a bit.

Winning hearts and minds. Not stupid.

A quick post on a rainy day

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Yes, seriously: a rainy day.

We don’t get many of them in Cape Town at this time of the year.

Anyway, two things to cover today. The main one being the widespread outrage* at the lack of a beagle update in yesterday’s post. I won’t be making that mistake again.

The beagle is doing fine, thank you very much. A first check-up with the vet this morning was passed with flying colours and we are now moving on towards bandage removal next week. Stitches and staples will come out the week after that, and then there’s this crazy plan to get her into a swimming pool for some hydrotherapy.

Good luck with that.

The other thing is to do a control image for yesterday’s Heathrow picture. Because how do you know that it isn’t always that quiet (although, you do).

So here’s that one for you. Some catch-up going on.

On that note, we’ve got a quiet day overhead today, with all the local planes taking off to the North, and not bothering this side of the peninsular at all.

Like how I tied that all together at the end?
Mmm. Me too.

* I got a whole email

Thrill me

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A bit late to the party with this one, but maybe some Joburg readers might be interested – and if you’re at a loose end in Cape Town tonight or tomorrow, they’re still at Theatre on the Bay until then.

Who are they? They are this:

And then they’re up at Montecasino from the 21st.

But anyway, we went along with very little info on the show, and very few pre-conceptions. It was just going to be a night out.

What we enjoyed was a beautifully produced, well-acted, deeply compelling 80 minutes or so. Super simple: no set changes, no costume changes. Just an amazingly professional performance from both actors – John Conrad & Gianluca Gironi – and the sadly somewhat overlooked pianist, Jaco Griessel.

Powerful stuff, exploring love, infatuation, narcissism and emotional manipulation.

Thoroughly unexpectedly, we were a bit blown away.

I absolutely recommend that you try to make a plan to find a seat or two before this one ends.

Wind up

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Here’s the YELLOW LEVEL 4 WARNING for wind over the next few days.

And it’s already blowing like a fat bloke cycling up a mountain, so I can completely believe that there’s more to come.

Looks like I’m going to have to cancel those hang-gliding plans.

Again.

It also says that disruption to beachfront activities is likely, but surely that’s only if you want to sunbathe without being sandblasted. These sort of conditions are absolutely the best time to do other stuff on the beach, like walking, watching the waves or going for an exciting swim.

The more detailed warning (I’ll spare you the whole thing)…

…does contain the line:

…individuals should avoid standing under trees or near buildings with unstable structures during the windy Public Document IBF v1.0.

And that’s sensible, because those Public Documents can be proper bastards – much like anything related to any branch of the SA Government – when it comes to blowy conditions.

Honestly though, the only real dangers here are for small boats out at sea (easily avoided if you just don’t got out to sea in a small boat), and wildfires (less easily avoided thanks to the number of arsonists out there).

Dan Mace’s unfortunate missing ‘with’…

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I like Dan Mace. Local lad. Nice guy, by all accounts. And pretty prolific at age 35, too:

Dan Mace is a creative and visionary Filmmaker, Youtuber, CCO (Chief Creative Officer) for Beast Philanthropy and the founder of JOE films and CCO & product owner at House of Macadamias, BRU BAR.

He’s worked extensively with Casey Neistat, he works extensively with Mr Beast, and he’s clearly very good at what he does.

But we all make mistakes when we’re tired, and it was when he was on his way back home to his family last night, that Dan accidently missed a ‘with’. Not necessarily a huge thing, but it does depend on context, and the context was this:

Oops.

Thankfully, on the other end of the flight, apparently having being warned by several (or more) people (not me), he was happy to have found his ‘with’.

Yeah. That’s better. The Freudian slip corrected, and Dan back home with his son.

Who – at the time of writing – is still ‘with’ us.