Sunday morning glamour

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I was up foolishly early for a Sunday, ready to answer the usual deluge of inquisitive emails and social media posts as to what glamourous activities I’ll be getting up to today and for the week, in my position as one of the top bloggers in South Africa.

But sometimes, the organisation isn’t always as good as it could be, and I’m still wondering if I’ll be running the kids to school and extra-murals or heading off on an all expenses paid trip to the Maldives this week. I mean, the latter has never happened before in 20+ years of blogging, but you live in hope and you never say never.

The tough choices have started early today, with decisions to be made as to whether to head off to the gym across the garden in the rain, or do a “proper clean” of the coffee machine.

Anyway, suffice to say the Nespresso machine…

Shush.

…is now gleaming, and I think that one day, we’ll be able to look back with some pride on holding the esteemed title of “Most Recently Descaled Kettle in Cape Town”, for at least a brief period.

But what now? It’s still miserable out, Carlton vs St Kilda (9-5-59 to 10-8-68 at ¾ time) on the TV is deliciously scrappy, but not really that engaging*, the garden is as ready as it’s ever going to be for the upcoming stormy days, the fireplace is primed for use this afternoon, and I can’t go into one end of the kitchen without sunglasses.

And still no flight or accommodation details for the Seychelles.

Or anywhere else.

I’m running out of excuses to not get on the static bike…

Damn.

* UPDATE: It got good. Last kick of the game win for St Kilda. Unbelievabeagle scenes.

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.

Running tired and cold and late

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After an unexpectedly late night last night, and an unexpectedly cold day today, I find myself running late for football.

And once I get there and do the football, I’m definitely going to want to come home and sleep.

So let’s put this here, just in case I forget to do anything else on the blog this evening.

Which seems likely, given my mental state today.

Tomorrow? Another day. And we will go again.