I've been mentioning for some time that it's been fairly cold in Cape Town lately. We arrived home this evening only to be greeted by a torrential downpour followed by a pounding of hail.

Now hail in Cape Town isn't quite comparable to the golfball-sized hail experienced north of the Western Cape. Our hail is far more delicate, never bigger than a pebble. Hail, for Capetonians, is merely a strange phenomenon that most people gather at windows to watch, as if in some kind of trance.

After two or three minutes the hail has ceased and is quickly forgotten.