Tag: cape winter

The muppet in the shop windows…

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Woke up to rain and darkness. Filthy. It’s wild, wet and windy out there today.

Deliciously wintery.

I spent at least some of my morning mocking the bedraggled appearance, then iffy pace and the decision making skills of the guy running along the Main Road in Kenilworth in the rain before I realised it was just my reflection in the shop windows. Damn.

So yes, I need a haircut. And it would be nice to be a bit faster. But it was a good run after a few days away from exercise, and as wet and cold as I got, I don’t regret a single thing about going out this morning.

Tomorrow might be another story.

This evening looks like it might be even wilder, wetter and windier, so with some assistance from Little Miss 6000, a delicious-smelling casserole is currently being cooked up and will, in a very short time, be popped into the Wonderbag ready to be enjoyed with some nice crusty bread this evening in front of the fire and the footy.

In the meantime, we have booked a family weekend away next month a couple of hours inland, and I’m already excited at the possibility of some night time photography, given that we’re at least several miles from any large conurbation, and the new moon is due while we’re there. I think I can cope with a maximum of 1.4% of lunar surface visible and it setting at half past six.

Perfect.

Now I just need the weather to play along.

Let’s face it, I’m not seeing any meteor showers or lunar eclipses tonight.
And the clouds out there look pretty run-of-the-mill to me.

Oh well. Like I mentioned, there still casserole, crusty bread, footy and fire.

It’s all good.

Winter is coming

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I think it’s a famous line from a series I never watched.
But that’s not important right now.

I’ve noticed that I have subconsciously been prepping the house for winter. Not subconscious as in I was unknowingly doing these things, but rather that I was just doing these things because they needed doing and I’ve now realised that they needed doing in preparation for winter.

Because winter is coming.

In the UK, the change of seasons is generally observed by the switching off and on of the central heating for a week in August. Here, the change is more subtle, because we don’t have central heating. But the idea is much the same. The pool chlorinator has been reduced to just a couple of hours a day. The wood order is neatly balanced 50:50 between braai wood (rooikrans and sekelbos) and firewood (bluegum and beef oak). The beagle’s extra blanket is at the ready. We’re considering putting the thicker duvet on the bed.

The trouble is that we’re still getting the odd day with the temperature into the 30s. That’s great for autumn, and softens the blow of the impending change of season, but does make timing the changes we’re making quite tricky. You don’t want 13.5 togs on you at night when the bedroom has been baking in the pseudo-Summer sun all day.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m ready for the change now. Bring the cold. Bring the wind and the storms. We all know that winter is coming. Let’s just get it over with now.