Tag: Cape Town

So, are you still with us?

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What? Me?

Oh, after this?

Yes.

But it was very, very hot.

I got to the place early, and having heaved my car door open into the thick, still, Green Point atmosphere, decided that I would head for the sea (only a couple of hundred metres away) in search of some moving air.

A gentle warm-up (lol!) run along the Prom followed, and there was an occasional breath of air, but it didn’t do much to cool anything down. It certainly wasn’t the fresh, sea breeze that I was longing for. And it was 41oC in the shade: of which there is infamously none on Green Point Prom.

In fact, it was so hot that Garmin gave me a virtual badge for running in it. Although I’m not sure that they should be encouraging anyone to be getting out and about in that sort of heat.

I went for just a couple of kilometres, but the dense, heavy, hot conditions were definitely taking their toll, and there was still a football match to play, and so I headed back for the safety of the footy place, bravely ignoring the option of aircon in my car on the way back through the car park.

We played, and the match was a tight, hot, sweaty, well-contested affair.
Did we win? No. Not in scoreline terms, at least. But just surviving the game, getting to the car and being able to drive home without collapsing honestly felt like at least 3 points gained.

And those are the sort of victories that don’t show up on the league table, but do mean that you are able to show up at family breakfast the next morning.

It’s all about context.

Let’s do this again

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14 years on, and we haven’t learned a thing.

We’re supposed to be grown-ups. Adults. And yet, at 6pm this evening, we’ll head out onto the pitch for another potentially epic 5-a-side football game against some other supposed adults.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think – if you aren’t in Cape Town, that is, because if you are in Cape Town then you know very well that there’s something very wrong with it – because it’s rather warm out.

Really actually quite warm already.
Almost bordering on hot, one could argue.

And, as I alluded to above, there’s history here. And it really isn’t pretty.

It was horrible. One of the worst footballing experiences of my life. Within 2 minutes of running around, I was gasping, drenched through with sweat, and feeling dizzy and nauseous. These, even by Cape Town standards, were extreme conditions. The ball wasn’t even flying through the air properly. I felt truly awful.
Some sort of sense of self-preservation should probably have kicked in here. But it didn’t. And so, with a couple of breaks, we continued to toil for an hour. What utter, utter idiots.

We all (mostly) remember (some of) that day.
I think my therapist called it PTSD: Phenomenal Temperature, Stupid Decision.

And it’s already 6 degrees warmer today than it was back on that day in February 2012.

Common sense says that they call the games off this evening. At best, it’s going to be extremely unpleasant, at worst, it could actually be dangerous. But they probably won’t. And that being the case, common sense says that we should forfeit the game. But that’s absolutely not how we roll, and I grudgingly have to respect our determination. Even though we’re clearly being very daft here.

I really wouldn’t recommend such bravado though.
To coin Wilfred Owen:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro manus mori.

The game is still going ahead as I write this.

See you on the other side, I guess.
And yes, you can choose any meaning of that phrase that seems fit.

Tell me why…

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…I’m not particularly looking forward to this coming Monday.

With apologies to the Boomtown Rats.

One of the best bits about this blog (ok, ok: possibly the only good bit if you want to be like that) is the fact that I don’t have to stick to any one given topic. This isn’t a blog about music or football or politics. It’s a blog about whatever takes my fancy that particular day.

But I have been talking quite a lot about the weather recently.

That’s completely reasonable though, because the Cape Town weather has been bloody weird over the last few months. And after a week of horrific humidity, gloomy skies and even *gasp* occasional rain, next Monday looks… well…

…”warm”.

Ironically, this isn’t actually very unusual for February. We will have a few days each year here that get up towards 40oC and are generally rather uncomfortable. More surprising is the fact that this will be the first one of the year.

That said, even if we’re used to it, it would probably be wise to take things a bit easy that day and to drink plenty of water. Also, find and hug an air conditioner.

I’m full of great advice.

Just a quickie, Southern Suburbs people.

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I had cause to phone for an ambulance for one of the residents in our neighbourhood yesterday. It was a serious situation. Literally life and death stuff.

The first number I tried was Netcare911. They are arguably the best known private ambulance company in SA, and theirs is the number that you have etched onto the front of your brain at times like these.

I don’t want to go too deeply into this, but while they repeatedly promised that they were sending a vehicle – nothing ever turned up. And calling them back became something of a farce as they asked repeatedly for the medical aid details (company, number, dependents etc etc) of the patient, when the patient was very, very much not in a condition to tell them.

Then as we called again, (because there was still no sign of an ambulance), using the reference number they had given us, they thought that we were in Gqeberha. That’s a city about 1000km east of here (there’s actually very little 1000km west of here).

That’s when we gave up on them and called ER24 on 084 124. Fifteen minutes later, the medical team arrived, stabilised the patient and headed off to hospital.

We’ve chatted about this to a few people since and there have been a lot of remarks that Cape Town, and Southern Suburbs especially, are now rather poorly covered by Netcare. So, what I’m saying here is to put the number 084 124 into your phone now, in case you ever need medical help in a hurry.

Not an ad. Just a heads up that just because you know the company name, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to turn up and do the job. And while sometimes that can be annoying, sometimes it could literally be fatal.

Much like the Wilderness Search And Rescue number, this is one to put into your phone NOW.

And – of course – hope that you never have to use it.