Made it down

Posted on

Down in Agulhas for New Year, our plans having been delayed by a few days because of that thing with the beagle.

And it will be a weird New Year: no trip to Struisbaai beach this year for the first time in many years, because there will be no fireworks there. The fun sponges are reveling in delight that their darling cats and dogs will spared the ignominy of a whole 15 minutes of noise this whole year, whilst also lamenting that the local economy could do with a few more visitors. But there’s no Sea Shack, there’s no fairground and there’s no firework display. Shooting themselves in the foot, bit by bit.
This year, it still seems to be doing ok, but when you remove all the attractions and add in that wind, which has made the beach thoroughly unusable for the past week, well, who will be coming back this time next year?

Still, this year, it is doing ok. Sure, we arrived at lunchtime on New Years Eve, but everywhere is full and on one occasion, I had to wait behind two other cars at a stop street. This is very unusual. I had almost forgotten that it was holiday season: I go into something of an autopilot when I’m driving down here and the traffic really wasn’t bad at all until we got into Struisbaai.

And I’m very much struggling for cell connection. The cell towers are made for the other 50 weeks of the year, and with Gauteng (quite reasonably) emptying into the Western Cape, Vodacom just can’t keep up. This post marks the start of my 13th year of daily blogging (Eish!), but it’s going to be a struggle to upload it. It’s already been a struggle to even write it. And that with a fancy new laptop too. I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations and that means 4,384 consecutive days of blogging. Assuming you are reading this.

Happy New Year to you and yours and thanks for for your support. See you in 2024 (that’s tomorrow) for more fun and games.
Terms & Conditions apply.

An emergency post

Posted on

There are internet problems in Agulhas. It’s always slow at this time of year, but right now, it’s not working at all.

So here’s a brief post to maintain that record of blogging every day since forever, just in case I can’t upload anything else (like the post I had written).

If you’re reading this, it worked.

Happy New Year!

Back home

Posted on

Thanks for all the messages about the beagle. We picked her up from the hospital this morning and she’s happily dozing – smashed off her face on painkillers – in her favourite basket.

Lots of hard work to come with recovery and rehabilitation, but we’ll do our best with her.

Also got permission from the team to head down to Agulhas: she might as well recover there as anywhere else, and we could all do with a few days away after a busy and stressful week.

Bit of a moan – Pt.1

Posted on

Part 2 may follow tomorrow. It may not.

But I’m fully aware that this is a moan. It even says so in the title. I’m not expecting anything to happen about this moan, although it would be nice (and really weird) if anything did.
Sometimes you just need to have a bit of a moan. Get things off your chest. This is one of those times.

Tourism. The lifeblood of the summer economy in Cape Town. Love them or hate them, tourists are plentiful and vital to keeping this country going.
This isn’t the first time I have lived in a tourist heavy city. I was in Oxford for almost a decade and that gets ridiculous numbers thanks to its proximity to London (and the whole of Europe). It’s also about 30 times smaller than Cape Town, so things can get very chaotic very quickly there.

Locally, comparative statistics are a bit difficult to gauge at the moment given the effects of the recent pandemic, but it does seem like the numbers of visitors this year will break all the previous records for people arriving to enjoy all that the Mother City has to offer.

I absolutely recognise the need for tourism as a valuable contributor to our economy.
But that doesn’t mean that I have to like it.

Still, as with any touristy place, if you avoid the touristy areas, you can avoid the tourists.

Just about…

There are two particular tourist “attractions” here that are seemingly unavoidable, incredibly intrusive and make life all a bit crap for the local residents.

The first is the Red Bus. Yep. I know you get them everywhere and they are a lot of fun. I’ve even done a couple of tours with the kids myself. But wow. Things have exploded recently. I mean, not literally, but…
Our roads are made for getting people from one place to another. When those roads are populated by any number of big red buses going around their two routes – here’s a shot from their “live bus tracker”:

Ah Jesus…

And of course they are deliberately driving at 20kph to give the visitors a nice leisurely view of the city and surrounds: on our suburban roads with 60 or 80kph limits. It causes a lot of congestion and a lot of frustration. Hugely disproportionate to the number of tourists actually using the service.

But that’s really nothing compared to the helicopter tours. Sure, they don’t cause traffic jams or delays, but could there be a more invasive, less eco-friendly way to annoy the local population? When the weather is good, there are no fires and the tourist season is on, we can get one every few minutes, coming over our back garden at (at best) a couple of hundred metres.

I’m not sure at what point the repeated noise, irritation, disturbance and greenhouse gas emissions:

would constitute a “hazard” as in (2)(a) there per se, but wow, if you not only want to have a look at the mountain, but also piss off everyone in the Southern Suburbs while you’re at it, then a helicopter flight is absolutely the way to do it.

Ironically, there’s one going over the house right now as I type, but then, that’s not very unusual.

There is even the double whammy, whereby you can book both these excursions on one single site.
A veritable synergy of local infuriation, at a discount price.
Who wouldn’t go for it?
No, I’m not providing a link.

So. Moan over. Did it turn into more of a rant? Does it even matter? Will it make any difference?

I’m off for a nap. If I can keep the noise out.

So far, so good

Posted on

We were all a bit totes emosh taking the beagle out to Paarl this morning for her op. But the news is good: things went well and she’s come around safely after her procedure. Some minor complications therein, but nothing huge, so it’s looking positive for just a couple of nights away from home.

What does that mean for our New Year plans? Well, let’s see. But more on that tomorrow.

So while we wait, life goes on here.

One child is off partying in the Waterfront: in December, nogal. There were only a couple of positives about this: I used Admyt and got a freebie, and we took the opportunity (since we were in town dropping said child off, anyway) to knock out a gentle 8km along the Prom.
Very busy. Very hot. Very sunny. Would not advise.

Safely back and straight into the pool, and now the only thing I still need to do this evening is to go into town and do a fetch and carry from the Waterfront. Hopefully all of the traffics will have gone by then, and I can just enjoy a nice drive into the sunset.

And back.