Old

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“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”

Yeah, I get it, Mark Twain, but wow, I’d be so much happier if my left calf muscle didn’t shred like a wet tissue at the first sign of any vaguely rapid movement.

That never used to happen when I was younger.

And yet… guess what?

So it’s back to walking and weights, avoiding any strain on the calf, because obviously, a week (which would have been fine to have fixed it a few years back) clearly wasn’t enough to fix it this time around. Nothing major, just grumpy and a bit painful. (The calf muscle, not me.) (Although…)

And I know I’m getting on a bit now because 6Music put out an ad for a series of shows they’re doing on Friday to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of OK Computer.
“Twenty-fifth”, indeed! I think you’ll find that OK Computer was actually released in 1997, and that was only… oh… oh my dear god…

A quarter of a century. Wow.

Living in Oxford at the time, and Radiohead coming from Oxford (pre-OKC, you’d regularly see Thom Yorke wandering down St Aldates, but I guess things went a bit mainstream celebrity after that), we stayed up ever so late on that Tuesday (I think?) evening and went into town for the special midnight release at the HMV on Cornmarket Street. Free poster, free sticker, a whole pound off the CD.

And it’s fair to say that, despite all the hype – even the local hype – the album was (and still is) something very special. I wonder how you deal with anything and everything you produce after something like that being measured against it and always falling short.

I’m sure the massive royalties help with the continual disappointment.

Unedited Falcon

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It’s been an amazing weekend away with my girl – some great father and daughter time – but we’re back now and we’re knackered.

I haven’t got the time or energy to work through 600+ photos at the moment, so here’s a quick shot from camera to phone to blog of a Rock Kestrel or Kransvalk that we spotted on our way back from this morning’s wander in Suiderstrand.

So… more to come at some point soon.

A great day marred by football

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Up properly early – lobbed some bacon in some baps for the car – and off to De Mond Nature Reserve up along the coast. Away so early that the sun wasn’t up and the owls were still hunting from the poles along the Suiderstrand road.

Deliciously cool and with some lovely light, I was actually a bit disappointed with some of the photos I got. Seemed like they should have been better, but I wasn’t on my A-game today. Still, loads to see on our 6km walk, including three new birds for me. I’m no prolific birder, but I’ve seen a lot in the Western Cape, so three new species in a single morning is pretty good going.

And then, after yesterday’s Secretary Birds, a Denham’s Bustard (var Stanleyi) (obviously, down here!!) on the way home. Nice, albeit at a bit of a distance.

The early start permitted a phat afternoon nap, which was duly accepted, and while the playoff semi-final first leg didn’t go too well, the fire is lit, the braai is on the go and with loadshedding at 8, we’re hunkering down for an evening of atmosphere, brandy and battery-powered LED lighting.

It’s been a (generally) good day.

Cyclists: why are they hiding?

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Autumn has well and truly set in to Cape Town now. Leaves everywhere, that chilly breeze around every corner and sunset before 6pm each evening (5:56pm today, and it’ll only ever get as early as 5:44pm).

So why, oh why, oh why are the local cyclists doing their level best to blend into the roads and surrounds? Seriously, what has to be going through your mind to pop out for a ride along Rhodes Drive – the notoriously narrow and twisty road up the side of the mountain – wearing dark green and black lycra?

Yeah, I do understand that black is supposed to be slimming, but there’s only so much that it can do in the face of those 6 Castle Lites you down each evening. A bridge too far for Monsieur DuPont, I’m afraid.

Rhodes Drive is a very popular cycle route. And with good reason: it’s a good test for the legs, it’s recently resurfaced, and it’s just up the road from the posher suburbs of the city. The only thing it’s missing is any traffic lights to ignore, but otherwise, as far as cyclists go, it’s got the lot. But it also runs along the eastern side of the mountain, and so it loses the sun even earlier, and much of it is tree-lined, so it loses even more light, more quickly. And yet you MAMILs think it’s a good idea to try and camouflage yourself and see how many motorists you can pick off on a culpable homicide charge.

Is there maybe a thing on Strava for that?

Note that I am in no way suggesting that cyclists should be knocked off their bikes: of course not. But there has to be some sort of natural selection in this world, and you, puffing and sweating your way up towards Constantia Nek after sunset, in your freebie, khaki Nedbank Private Wealth cycling top you got from that golf day, is pretty much lining you up for – at the very least – a glancing blow.

Being a cyclist is unfairly dangerous enough without you trying to make it worse for yourselves. It’s not like there aren’t things like bright, reflective attire and – and please hear me out here – “lights” [crowd gasps] that you could adorn yourself and your two-wheeled machine with, in order to make yourselves a little more visible. And it’s not like the money isn’t there. You forked out (no pun intended) close on six figures for your bike, but you can’t afford a set of lights to stop you being killed while you’re using it?

Priorities? Skewed, mate.

Lights and shiny clothes would be a good thing at any time and in any place. But when heading out onto an twisting unlit, tree-lined road at dusk, they would almost seem completely sensible.

But, no. None of them choose to do it. Which says a lot about cyclists, I suppose.

So yes, while I absolutely recognise that all road users must share the road, it looks like us drivers will have to continue to share it with idiots. And pretty much invisible ones at that.