Monthly Archives: May 2014

A disapproving dog

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A disapproving dog
She had been lying quite peacefully in the shop window-front the entire time I was inside. When I left I bent to take a photo, and as I did she launched at me, barking as though she were the most vicious beast the world had ever seen.

It seems she did not approve. :-/

Photoplay December 1953, Marilyn Monroe

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Photoplay Photoplay December 1953, Marilyn Monroe
Photoplay was the largest-selling movie magazine of the Marilyn Monroe era. I found this cover of the December 1953 issue hanging in a little clothing shop in Long Street. Quite a different cover-style to today's magazines, wouldn't you say?

Highlands Road Estate and the Elgin Valley wine festival

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Highlands Road Estate and the Elgin Valley wine festival
In my previous post I mentioned our trip to Elgin and the Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival on Saturday.

After tripping through a few estates, sampling the fruit of their vines, we ended up at Highlands Road Estate for lunch. The staff kindly set up a table for Dominique and I right next to the dam's edge before decorating it with a variety of gourmet pizzalings (which are pizzas, only smaller ;) paired with five glasses of their very best wine - two white, one rosé, and two red. I'm no food or wine connoisseur, but the little bit of sophistication that my taste-buds had was extremely pleasantly surprised with how well the pizza worked with the wine.

We spent the next hour or two sitting in the shade, listening to a solo singer with his friend on acoustic guitar sharing a few covers (one of which was Chasing Cars, by the legendary Snow Patrol). The combination of food and wine, alongside the quite water's edge, with soft background music was really pretty awesome.

Visit Highlands Road Estate for a relaxing lunch. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

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Wine in progress at lovely Belfield

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Wine in progress at lovely Belfield
A wine-loving friend and I hopped into the car early yesterday morning and traveled the 70km through Cape Town's mist, and over Sir Lowry's mountain pass to the Elgin Valley's Elgin Cool Wine and Country Festival. We picked up our festival passes at the well-known-well-loved Peregrine Farm Stall just outside of the town of Grabouw and headed off to visit as many of the participating wine estates as we could manage.

Our first stop was at Belfield, a lovely boutique wine estate just around the corner from the Peregrine Farm Stall. The main photo in this post shows the contents of one of about 6 large plastic tubs filled with cabernet sauvignon grapes; the makings of the estate's award winning wine. Since we were the first to arrive at his estate, Mike Kreft (owner and wine maker) spent a few minutes explaining the mechanics around the grapes in the tubs.

What's interesting (and not the obvious from just looking at the tubs) is that the pressed husks, floating on top of of a 100-200mm layer of wine-to-be, are constantly releasing carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. The carbon dioxide hovers in a layer just above the husks and (besides for keeping the wine free from oxygen) effectively serves to wards off insects and other contaminating creatures from indulging in the fruits of Mike's labour.

Click on the thumbnails above to see a few more photos that I took on the wine farm's grounds.

Street posters and the changeling

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Street posters and the changeling
In my previous post I wrote about posters and by-laws governing their display. Here's another example of such posters, but let's leave that topic alone for now. :)

Pegasus is a mythological white winged stallion, and a changeling is the son or daughter of a troll, elf, fairy or some other creature of folklore that's been switched with a human child. Doesn't talk of Death Pegasus and Changelings make you really curious bout what goes on at The Pit? Well, I suppose perhaps moderately terrified would be more appropriate than curious.

Old street posters and the Pit Pong Championship

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Old street posters and the Pit Pong Championship
After hosting events, and once everyone's been paid, it's easy to forget (or rather, attach little importance to) removing advertising posters. While [I find] they often have similar aesthetic appeal to graffiti, for the sake of keeping the city tidy it's important to remove old advertising posters once events have finished.

By-laws governing the city allow the municipality to recover costs for the removal of posters from the individuals or organisations hosting the advertised event - but even though this is the case, I have my doubts that this is often enforced (probably because there's so many other things to take care of). Regulations regarding posters can be found in Section 11 of the December 2001 Western Cape government gazette. It's probably a good idea to review the document if you're in the event industry. ;)

Cocktails and pineapples

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Cocktails and pineapples
I normally don't enjoy cocktails because most tend to be fairly sweet and I generally don't enjoy overly-sweet drinks. Kerry-Anne and I ventured into Cubana in Green Point a few days ago and I ordered this piña colada - which, as it turns out has now become my go-to cocktail for when I don't feel like beer, wine or whiskey. It's not too sweet, contains pineapple, and isn't pink. ;)