Tag: travel

How many times have you woken up and prayed for the rain?

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Many of you will recognise that line from The Stranglers’ 1986 hit Always The Sun. That also contains one of the most ridiculous lines ever written:

And who gets the job of pushing the knob?
That’s the sort of responsibility you draw straws for if you’re mad enough.

But that’s not relevant right now.

Yesterday was too hot for me. But today was meant to be cooler. And there was meant to be some rain. I was looking forward to a nice, cool run. And then we were going to go to the Bush Pub up the road. We popped in there yesterday to get some ice and it was rude not to try their Soup of the Day.

But:

How many times have the weathermen told you stories
That made you laugh?

It hasn’t started that way. It’s already rather warm and it’s only early morning. There is a bit of cloud, but there’s nothing even vaguely threatening at the moment.

I’m not sure I can face another stinkingly hot, humid day. I’ll have to resort to having some more of my matching beer.

Oh well.

Get the balance right

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Quite a few decisions are still to be made about the trip up North. And many of those decisions rest upon the quandary of balancing spending money and having fun. It seems pointless to spend a huge amount on flights and accommodation going overseas on a break and then have a crap time not doing stuff because you’re forever just watching the pennies. But then equally, it’s dangerous to overspend: something made far easier thanks to our weird government stance on Putin and Russia, and the scary amount of inflation in Europe.

And so we’ll do our best to have all our ducks lined up in advance, and then maybe adapt our decisions once we’re actually there on the ground and can see what things are really like.

One big decision is around the last Saturday of the trip, which was all organised in London, but now maybe a trip further North might be required. That would require sorting some accommodation, changing flights and making several (or more) train trips, none of which would likely be cheap, but then do you just choose to splash the cash and enjoy the experience on this one thing? I’m leaning towards a yes, but a final costing of that 24ish hour diversion might point me the other way.

Lots of calculations to do. Lots of decisions to make.
Must get the balance right.

Day 276 – On The Move

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We’ve been told to keep ourselves to ourselves this Christmas, and we’re taking that advice seriously.

As I mentioned before, this is no normal Christmas at the end of a very abnormal year.
Hopefully, we will be well back on track by this time next year. Hopefully.

But it doesn’t really matter to us (or to Covid) where we keep ourselves to ourselves, and so we’re going to head down to Agulhas for a few days. None of the excitement of the Struisbaai New Year fireworks to look forward to, sadly, but still the beach and the braai and the sunshine. With the beach hours extended to 6am-7pm, maybe some early morning exercise by the sea as well. And that’s worth a lot.

I don’t expect that we will have any interaction with anyone other than the odd shopkeeper, much as we would here in Cape Town, and so I’m at peace with the fact that we’re leaving one home for another for a few days. We’re not putting anyone in any danger, and we’re keeping ourselves safe as well.

Check out my Instagram for regular* updates.

 

* T&Cs apply

Day 257, part 2 – A quick note

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Hello again.
This morning, I was hiking in the fresh air amongst the incredible rock formations of the Cederberg:

This evening, I am doing parenting stuff in a warehouse in Claremont.

Swings, roundabouts.

We’re back in the land of the wifi though, at least, and so I was doing a quick catch up on the latest news from the Whatsapp groups when I saw this:

Cape Agulhas Municipal area has gone from 8 active Coronavirus cases to 107 in less than 3 weeks. By comparison, the top peak of our first wave was 43 cases mid July. The Coronavirus spreads through human contact. Therefore the spread & control is literally in our own hands!
Our health services & health personnel are under strain & the Festive Season hasn’t even begun yet. If our system is overwhelmed we, as healthcare workers, will be forced to turn away people who could ordinarily be saved. This is not a situation we ever want. We care deeply about our patients and community. We desperately need people to wear their face masks, observe social distancing & avoid unnecessary risks.
Keep yourself and your family safe. Help us to help those that need medical care.

That’s an increase of [counts on fingers] 1237.5%.

However could this have happened?

[roll eyes emoji]

As an aside: We were very glad to note the excellent precautions being followed at the place we were staying this weekend.

Day 113 – Go somewhere else

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This is literally a blog post telling you to go somewhere else on the internet – and somewhere else in the world.

It’s ok: if you’re reading this, you’ve already done enough to be counted as one of the literally 10s of readers that visit 6000 miles… each day.

Thanks for coming along. But I know that you really want to head off somewhere else now and there is not better way of doing that than having a look out of someone else’s window using WindowSwap*.

You can go to a park in Hamburg, overlook a highway in Bordeaux, see some guys waiting to cross a road in Mexico City or watch an urban farmer at work in Bangalore. And why?

Say the developers:

Let’s face it. We are all stuck indoors.
And it’s going to be a while till we travel again.
Window Swap is here to fill that deep void in our wanderlust hearts by allowing us to look through someone else’s window, somewhere in the world, for a while.
A place on the internet where all we travel hungry fools share our ‘window views’ to help each other feel a little bit better till we can (responsibly) explore our beautiful planet again.

I’ll be honest – it’s not quite the same as actually travelling the world, but it is a good deal cheaper and you’re actually able to do it right now.

I’m going to find time this weekend to record a bit of Cape Town and send it in. Maybe to go with my lockdown Flickr photo for a group with the same idea.

Right now though, a quick run around the block (to scout out possible views and angles).

 

 

* please type carefully – I found that “WidowSwap” offers an entirely different service. 😮