Category: this is south africa

Safe for a dip

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Spotted online. This:

This is really good news: it’s been a hot, sunny day, and I desperately need a dip. I had legitimate concerns about the safety of swimming here, given the local wildlife, but if they don’t swim here, well then I surely (and safely) can. Fantastic. What a result.

Punctuation is important, hey?

But while we joke, as mentioned here, these things can be a real danger. Not where I came from, and (mostly) not where I live right now, but definitely in this country.

I took this while I was up in Hoedspruit earlier in the year. And while I feel that this one (next to the water feature outside the packhouse office), was perhaps a little tongue in cheek, there were plenty of real life places with these real life dangers from which I chose to stay away.

And no. Just for outright clarity, that first paragraph below the top image was merely for artistic impression and comedic value. It’s finally sunny here, which is great, but it’s also absolutely bloody freezing.

It’s no wonder the wildlife all heads up north.

Two videos

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Opposite ends of the planet, but both mildly relevant to me.

First off, Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder. All of United’s press conferences used to be recorded, edited and shared. But this season – for the first time ever – they’re live streamed.

See if you can notice when Wilder realises this in the video below.

Press conference errors aside though, it’s so good to see this guy smiling again after last seasons travails.

And then, this:

The weather in Cape Town continues to be pretty bloody awful, and – had it been a bit better – I was going down to the glamourous Access Park today to explore their sports shoe shops. Thankfully, because it was so nasty out, I didn’t. (But then, I suppose, if it had been a bit better, then the big thing wouldn’t have fallen down.)

As anyone familiar with this delightful place will surely attest, it’s all rather shabby. But you would have thought that they could have used some decent metalwork in the big sign at the gate, at least.

On the plus side, after this nastiness is done with (feels like -4, WTF?!?):

Check out the rest of the week:

21o isn’t going to break any records, but I’m loving those big yellow balls. (Careful now.)

And we might (for the first time in a long while) have a Spring-like Spring Day.

New feature

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Generally, when I want to insert an image into a blog post on here, I have a few options. Upload it from my phone, upload it from my laptop, share it from a URL or select it from my media library. That last one assumes that I’ve already uploaded it into the library the first place, of course.

But now there’s a new option:

Do I need this? Probably not, but:

It’s starting to feel a little like AI everything, everywhere, all at once.

And yep, it’s there and it’s free, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Here’s what I asked it to do:

Imagine the most South African image you can. Lots of different African wildlife wearing Green and gold shirts. They are at a braai at sunset time. Table Mountain is in the background.

And here’s what it gave me:

I’m actually quite impressed. Yes, there are tigers. Yes, there’s a huge Eland/Kudu/Alien beast on the left, and a terrifying “thing” next to the central tiger, and the lion’s legs on the right don’t join up with the rest of the lion, but otherwise… not bad.

Is this now my image, or does it belong to WordPress? Or some third-party AI provider?

I doubt that anyone will want to steal it, anyway.

I can make two of these images, apparently. I’m still not quite sure if it’s two per post, two per day, two per month or two: ever. I’m also not sure what I will ever use it for.

But you’ve got to have a bit of AI in your stuff these days – it’s the rules – and here’s mine.

Like a kipper

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What a morning. The sun was out. The solar was PUMPING. Really breezy, but it felt… Summery.

But this afternoon, I’ve been done up like a kipper.

It’s riding Friday (not me), and after the incredibly warm, sunny – but really windy weather over our side of the mountain – I asked the riding instructor what the weather was like over on the her side.

It’s lovely out. Slight warm breeze.

Shorts will be comfortable, I reckon.

And so I went with it.

Yeah. But Cape Town doesn’t play.

Four seasons in one day is nothing. Because I genuinely believe that the instructor was telling the truth – we’ve all been so desperate for some sunshine – but in the 20 minutes that it took to get over here…

THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

The wind has picked up, the cloud has rolled in, the sun has gone.

I’m sheltering behind the henhouse (not a euphemism), but it’s still rather chilly. Especially around the leg areas. I mean, I’ll definitely survive, but – for the record – shorts were not comfortable.

I’ve been done up like a kipper.

Who knew? (Whale spotting edition)

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Big news from EWN this week:

Yep. Same as every year:

Southern Right Whales have come to visit Cape Town shores to give birth or to find a mate – this is done every year between June and December. 

But while these are indeed magnificent creatures to see, and while they are here each and every year, some locals might not know where to look. It’s ok. EWN has got you covered, with a list of places that you can spot a whale “in Cape Town”. They’ve listed 22 different places that you can see whales.

From Doringbaai up the West Cooat (marked in red, top left) through to Nature’s Valley on the Garden Route (blue, bottom right).

Eagle-eyed readers (who will also be best at spotting whales) might notice that that’s basically the entire coastline of the Western Cape. And anyone clicking through on that link above will see that, yes, all of the 22 locations on the list are located on the coast.

So it seems to me that if you want to see whales… you probably just need to go anywhere in the Western Cape and look out to sea.

Who knew?

It’s actually rather unhelpful that they don’t also mention that you should probably do it during the day to increase your spotting success rate. Or to use binoculars to make the whales look closer.