A family divided…

…by choice.

It’s been ages since we’ve been down to Agulhas, and the cottage probably needs a good clean and check-up, and certainly deserves some more electricity. But this weekend looks very cold and wet, and Mrs 6000 likes warm and dry, so she will be staying home with the Boy Wonder and I will be taking our daughter down to the stormy seaside for a couple of days.

The beagle will be bedding down, sloth-like, here in Cape Town.

The first thing to be packed in the car was a big bag of fresh firewood, and burning that is something that I’m very much looking forward to. The second thing to be packed was a couple of bottles of decent red wine, and drinking that is also something that I’m very much looking forward to.
As is dodging between the showers and getting some South Atlantic sea air and exercise on the beach.

The drive down might be less pleasant, but it’s a means to an end, and the end will hopefully be quite fun.

More from there tomorrow.

Day 20 – Recovery

I hope recovery, anyway.

Yesterday was very busy. Coming off the back of a night filled with delicious insomnia. A lot of schoolwork, which needed parental input: multiplication, science, moments and fulcra. Mr P would be so proud of me. An early morning cheese delivery. A million cups of tea lovingly made and delivered to Mrs 6000 who Zoomed all day. A quick chat with my Dad in Sheffield, but more about a computing issue than passing the time of day. Some extra schoolwork for me, relaying information about upcoming classes from the school to parents, and suggestions from parents to the school. Singing and piano practice. Working out the apps required for online singing and piano lessons, which begin this week. Some significant landscaping in the garden to make running around it safer. Homemade pizza from a flour and water start.

I’m really not sure how I kept going.

Ah yes. That’ll be it.

And so, with the kids tucked safely away in bed, I headed to Youtube to catch up on photography videos and watch Alphaville do Sounds Like A Melody live.

The memories.

I fully expect to do it all again today as well.
Fortunately, there’s still plenty of red wine to go around.

RedWine

Last night was the first proper log fire and red wine evening of the Cape Town autumn. Fortunately, I had both logs and wine ready to go.

The logs were Blue Gum.
The wine was this:

Ja. I can like to go exotic every now and again, especially as:

Every increase a glass of wine a month reduced about 2% of the risk

Yep – you heard it here first. And there’s more:

Red wine
Red wine, general is short for red wine. Brewed wine, grape skins and grape flesh is also squeezing, red wine contains red pigment, is a time when the skin by crushing grapes release. Just because of this, all the colour and lustre of wine is red.
Red wine and beauty

I felt educated. I mean, who knew?

As for the wine, it was bloody awful. But it was red…

Photos and Weather

We were braced for the wet weather yesterday. One of the (many) nice things about living on the bottom corner of a big lump of land is that it’s fairly easy to see the iffy weather coming from quite a long way off. Thus, plans were made for an afternoon and evening in, with a roaring fire, some (or more) red wine, and a potjie dinner. The soundtrack was provided by Tony Christie, Snow Patrol and the Smashing Pumpkins, amongst others. Add a bit of Minecraft, some colouring books and a magazine or two, and you have a the best of a bad day – sorted.

Of course, the rain is no bad thing – we’re still ridiculously short of water in the Western Cape. But the cold, dry, still conditions associated with the high pressure that has been keeping the rain away are an absolute godsend for flying my Mavic. Yesterday – the evening in particular – was probably the best weather I have ever had the chance to fly in: the light, the wind, the temperature, the clarity: all near perfect. So… I flew. And I used the opportunity to take the Mavic about 750m out over the Atlantic – good prep for looking for whales 10kms up the road at Struisbaai in the near future (albeit that it’s a whole different ocean there, of course).

I’ll upload some photos when I get back to Cape Town, but as ever, if you can’t wait, then there’s always my Instagram which is, like, Instant.

Better weather today means that we’re off to my favourite restaurant down here, and the drive there through the Agulhas National Park usually yields some great photo opportunities (but no flying, obviously), so there’s even more for you to look forward to.

You lucky buggers.