Another Vineyard Visit

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When we went wandering through the vineyards last weekend, I remarked – more than once – that I wished that I had my long lens with me. Not because the Nifty Fifty isn’t fun: it’s a lot of fun. More that there were a million canaries, sunbirds, frogs and even some baboons that I would have loved to have ‘togged.

The Father’s Day weather was great this morning, so we went back, and I took that long lens.
Jokingly, I suggested that because I had brought it along, we wouldn’t see anything worth shooting. Lol.

And then we saw nothing worth shooting.

And I was reduced to grabbing a shot of the set up for a Heineken activation thing on the lawns.

It seemed that they were going to have a lot more fun than we were.

Until…
Suddenly…

Baboons. Loads of them. Like, 30-odd. Scattered across the Shiraz vines on the side of the hill.

Starting a way away from us, then then actually walking so close that the 50mm would actually have been a far better option.

And, juniors at play, as well.

We watched them for almost an hour before they headed off further down the hill, and we headed off for a coffee, and then home for a bit – ok, a LOT – of photo editing.

It was a really nice family morning out.

And for us, too.

R20 off your parking

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I mentioned somewhere – ah, here it is – about Admyt…

…the still quite new, super-duper parking service in South Africa.
And since then, literally several people have used my code:

TRE162273

to earn R10 off their first parking experience with Admyt.

Now, in an incredible offer, if you sign up for Admyt anytime in June – you can get the app on Apple here, or Google here – and use that code, you’ll get twenty whole bucks credited to your balance.

R20 might not seem so much, but next time you’re standing in the queue to pay for your parking in the cold and the rain at the V&A Waterfront, Constantia Uitsig or any of these other Admyt locations – you’ll surely be kicking yourself as you watch me drive up to the barrier – warm and dry – and automatically whizz straight through, as you fumble for change – ironically exactly twenty rands worth – in your pockets.

It’s free to sign up, and there’s no obligation and no payment to be made until you use the service – and, if your first parking session costs less than R20 – no payment to be made there either. Amazing.

You literally have nothing to lose.

Onions

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A busy day, including (but not limited to): a gym session, an attempting to mend a car session, some lifts, some much needed food shopping and then, before a horseriding session (not me), I made some onion stuff. 

This was ostensibly a quick and easy recipe which I had seen on the internet, but with my dearth of culinary skills, nothing in the kitchen is ever particularly straightforward.

Still, I approached it with all the bravado of a Suzuki Jimny driver heading towards a medium-sized puddle, and it seemed to go ok.

It’s a sort of chutney that allegedly “goes with anything”, but before I can test that out, it needs to sit in the fridge overnight. Tomorrow’s burgers on the braai should be the ideal opportunity to give it a go.

If it’s good, I’ll stick the recipe on here.

If it’s not, let us never speak of this again.

And that’s why I do it…

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Well, it’s one reason, anyway.

I regularly refer back to a post from 2008 on this blog. This one.

Brian Micklethwait’s words originally, but something that I live… er… blog by, every day.

And, if you can’t be bothered to click through, then you probably just need to know that despite commenting on everything from news to sport to weather to politics to whatever this falls under and everything else, this still remains – from time to time – a personal blog. And because this is a personal blog, I do occasionally put personal stuff on it. And then when I look back on it, I can be reminded of exactly how I felt about something back then. Whenever that was.

Like this post from last August:

And it’s a really good thing that I can be reminded of good stuff like that, because last night I played football and it was shit. Really shit.

Sore arse, 40km round trip through the traffic, some floodlights not working, ball with an egg in it, a whole 15 minutes game time, I was rubbish, our whole team was rubbish, the referee was a complete [censored] clown from start to finish and yes, we lost, but to be honest it would only have been very mildly better if we had won, such was the general attitude on display and overall crapness of the whole evening.

Worst game of football (that I was playing in – there have been a few United performances that would still beat it) that I can remember. I broke my rib in two places and tore ankle ligaments in one of them, and it was still better when you consider last night’s bollocks.

I came home and went to bed. At least that went ok.

So maybe I’ll look back on this post in years to come and think: “hey, things have gone better today than I thought”, because I’ll helpfully have the memory of yesterday evening with which to compare it.

Wednesday ephemera

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Several bits of small stuff to share, so here it all is.
Knock yourselves out*.

Things are going all right

After yesterday’s post, this:

That’s quite a movement, ironically suddenly making illegal “small boat” immigration across the English Channel a whole lot harder.

Home Affairs is a mixed bag

Two tweets, just a few pixels apart on my laptop screen:

and:

And yes, I’ve experienced both ends of this spectrum.
Delightfully astonishing at the one end, but oh so frustrating at the other.

SA Mpox outbreak causes first death

Indeed:

Nothing to panic about here, but certainly one just to keep an eye on…

Explore your adventurous side

A recent advert on the web:

Ah yes. The silver self-defence spike. A true Camping and Outdoor Essential. And… does it really say “Thank you for choosing [manufacturer]” on the lanyard? That’s amazing.

I despair

A local page I follow on Facebook got hacked and started posting all sorts of weird stuff, including (but not limited to) a lot of AI generated content resembling American cities. In fact, the only local thing it posted was this range of images depicting (allegedly, at least) Cape Town, some lions in the Kruger, and some KhoiSan rock art in an ancient cave.

The worst bit was the comments though, with people from Cape Town fawning over the picture of their city. And this, despite all those new mountains, the sun setting on the wrong side, and that frankly weird extension bit coming out of Green Point.
Compare and contrast…

Also, while we’re on the subject, that is clearly not KhoiSan rock art, and WTF has happened to those lions? Our jobs are safe from AI for a while yet. But whether our lives are safe from idiot commenters on Facebook… well… that’s another story.

Winter in the vineyards

In more genuine pictures of Cape Town…
We took a walk around Groot Constantia a few days ago, and it was lovely.

Go and see more of the yellowing vines and lush, green grass on Instagram. And drop a follow if you haven’t already. Thanks.

* simply a turn of phrase, not an instruction.