I attended the funeral of a friend's father today, and, as these things do, it made me stop and think once again about what's really important. Those who've been following our blog for a while will know that my own brother passed away at the beginning of the year. Here is part of a post I wrote for a forum at the time:
If you have family far away, call them and email them often. Your clients can wait. Your family can't. I often thought of phoning my brother to chat, but was always too busy on other people's urgent work - I would give anything now to have those hours and minutes back just to laugh with him and share the day-to-day trivialities of our lives.
We lose perspective very easily, as we get busy with work and deadlines and shopping and cutting the lawn and blogging and making food and watching TV and so on and so on.
So make some time for the important stuff today, okay?
We spotted this colourful gate in the farmlands outside Durbanville. There didn't seem to be an obvious reason for its existence (on either side the fence just stretched on for hundreds of metres), and so we guessed it to be a memorial of some sort - there are flowers on the tree and in the pots behind the gate as well. I imagine that someone must have lost their life on this lonely stretch of road - a sad thought, but what a beautiful and unusual way to celebrate the life of a loved one.
This must be the car dealership with the best view in Cape Town. I know that being a second-hand-car salesman is not the most glamorous job in the world, but I think I could sell a couple of cars now and then if it meant I could have this view every day. That's Devil's Peak in the background, by the way, and the rest of Table Mountain is off to the left.
If you look closely at this picture, you'll notice some things hanging from the tree in the left foreground. Some bags, to be precise.
These bags belong to the people selling the Big Issue magazine at the traffic lights. They spend hours at a time at the side of the road, peddling their publication, and this is the most convenient spot for them to store their belongings, I guess.
I rather liked the idea of capturing the evidence of their presence, without actually taking a photo of the people themselves.
I spotted this stone in the wall of a building on Buitengracht Street, and just had time to snap a photo through the window before the traffic light turned green and I had to pull away again.
I did a little bit of sleuthing, and have deduced that the inscription must refer to the Mission School that was attached to St Paul's Church back in the 19th century. According to the website of St Paul's Anglican Church, the foundation stone of the Mission School was indeed laid in 1899. If anyone knows any more about the school, please leave us a comment.
Today's post is dedicated to all our American readers (who, if Google Analytics is to be believed, make up roughly half of the visitors to our blog).
We are watching the unfolding of your elections with keen interest - the outcome will certainly impact us, and the rest of the world too. Our wish is that today would herald a new era, and a change that we can believe in. ;-)
So if you haven't already, do go and cast your vote, and help make a little bit of history.
I usually suffer from fairly severe hayfever in springtime, but for some reason this year I've barely been affected at all. A few sneezes here and there, but nothing like in the past. The strange thing is that apparently it's quite a bad hayfever season this year, and I've heard plenty of people complaining of pretty severe symptoms.
Of course, ducking down among these grasses to take a photo was not a good idea, particularly in Cape Town's November wind; and I spent the rest of our drive around Durbanville trying to rub my very itchy eyes without destroying my contact lenses. In fact, my eyes are getting itchy right now just thinking about it. I'm sure other hayfever sufferers can relate.
We took a drive out along the Malanshoogte Road from Durbanville late this afternoon, and stopped every so often along the way to take photos. The farms surrounding Durbanville are home to a fair number of sheep and cows, and even a few ostriches; and the lands are filled primarily with wheat and vines. It's an astonishingly rural area, given that it's just a few minutes away from the centre of the town.
Remember my post about the garagistes last week? Well, this is one of our very first bunches of grapes. Who's coming to help us squish them when they're ripe, so that we can make wine?
The lights you can see in the left half of this photo are the lights of the Hartleyvale Stadium in Observatory, which is used for hockey and soccer matches. In the foreground you can see part of the Liesbeeck River, and in the background Devil's Peak.
Neither of us has actually ever climbed Devil's Peak - I believe it's quite a hike and you need to be pretty fit to complete it. "Fit" is not a state I'm often in, so this is one activity that's been put off quite a few times. :-)
This is the last shot we'll be posting of the kite festival, and also the one I love the most. It makes me think of the poetry of e.e. cummings, particularly "in Just-spring", which has always been one of my favourite poems.
What do you think of when you look at this picture?
The Currie Cup is a rugby union tournament held each year in South Africa. The final of this year's tournament was played yesterday, and the team from KwaZulu-Natal, the Natal Sharks, beat the Pretoria-based Blue Bulls by 14 points to 9. Even though Western Province (that's Cape Town's home team) weren't playing in the final, televisions and radios everywhere were tuned in and turned up yesterday afternoon - rugby is a big deal here. :-)
By the way, Western Province (most often referred to just as "Province") last won the trophy in 2001.
We joined a couple of friends for a picnic at the Cape Town International Kite Festival today. As you can see from the photo, the clear blue sky over Zandvlei was filled with colourful kites and giant inflatables.
There were food stalls and craft stalls, and of course a host of vendors selling all kinds of kites and wind-propelled toys. Although we don't have kids ourselves, it certainly appeared to be a super way for a whole family to spend some quality time together, outdoors, and away from the TV.
This is the biggest international Kite Festival in Africa, attracting around 25 000 visitors each year.
If overheard snippets of conversation and an explosion of new wine-making courses are anything to go by, garagiste wine-making has become hugely popular in the Western Cape of late. In case you don't know, a garagiste is essentially someone who engages in the art of home-based wine-making - or garage wine-making.
This vine is growing over the patio in our back garden; I imagine we'll need a few more vines if we want to become garagistes. Apparently 100kg of grapes will give you around 80 or 90 bottles of wine. I estimate we could get about 300g of grapes from our vine later in the season - if we look really, really hard. ;-)
This is the inside of a very popular restaurant and lounge bar in Kloof Street, called Asoka. And yes, that is a tree growing right inside the building - a very old olive tree, to be precise.
Asoka tends to be fairly quiet in the early evening (making it a good spot for a relaxing post-work drink), but often fills up quite dramatically later on, particularly on jazz nights.
The weather has begun to warm up beautifully now - we've even had our first swim of the season in our swimming pool! We had lunch at the open-air Willowbridge Mall in Durbanville, where this little boy (watched over and helped up from time to time by his father) was having a fabulous time splashing around in the fountain.
It goes without saying that poverty is a large and ongoing problem right across Africa. A government report released recently indicated that poverty was on the decline in South Africa - this is good news, for sure, but it's quite telling when you examine exactly what is meant by "poverty", and when you realise just how many people in our nation are still living in these circumstances.
The percentage of households living below the poverty line decreased from 53% in 1995 to 48% in 2005. The poverty line is set at R322 per person per month. That's the cost of a restaurant meal for two here in South Africa. Read that again. Almost HALF of the people in our country have to cover ALL their living expenses out of LESS than the amount we spend on a single dinner. Sobering, isn't it?
(For our overseas readers, R322 is roughly equivalent to $34, £19 or €25.)
So, what can we do? Well, for starters, how about taking the money you would have spent on a meal at a restaurant and donating it to Breadline Africa instead? They are involved in a number of projects across the continent, including converting old shipping containers into much-needed classrooms and soup kitchens.
To have an impact on an ongoing basis, support job creation initiatives like The Big Issue and Men on the Side of the Road, give to a local homeless shelter, buy beadwork and paintings from roadside traders, and provide casual employment where you can. If you live overseas, but would like to help beat poverty in Africa, set up a debit order to donate money to an organisation like Breadline Africa each month. If you have any other suggestions, please leave a comment and tell us about them.
Today's photo is of Kayamandi, a poor community on the outskirts of Stellenbosch. Overseas visitors are often shocked to find out what being poor means here - while in the USA it might mean living in a small run-down apartment or a trailer park, here it means living in a corrugated iron shack the size of a bathroom, or sleeping on a flattened cardboard box underneath a bridge.
Well, we're still wading our way through all the photos we took at Saturday's Lente Lawaai concert in Stellenbosch - we're up to 97 photos processed, and counting...
In the photo above you can see Jeremy, lead singer of the very popular Cape Town band The Dirty Skirts. Have a look at the band's pages on Facebook and MySpace, and if you don't know their music, have a listen while you're there.
The Dirty Skirts are making a name for themselves all over the world, having performed at SXSW in Austin, Texas earlier this year, and in London last month. Saturday was the first time I'd seen them perform live, and I have to say, it was a brilliant show. (Also, it doesn't hurt that their lead singer is decidedly hot. ;-) )
Onward and upward: refurbishment of Cape Town’s port
Cape Town has South Africa’s second-busiest container port, after Durban. The Port of Cape Town handles a range of commodities, from fresh fruit and fish to petroleum products and steel. Cruise ships, oil tankers and fishing vessels all call in here from time to time, and the port is a hive of activity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
An upgrade project to the container terminal was started in January; the project, expected to cost around R4.2-billion, is due for completion at the end of 2012 and will nearly double the capacity of the terminal. Part of the project involves deepening the Ben Schoeman Basin from 10m to 15.5m; in addition to this, new cranes are being installed, old buildings are being demolished, and modern specialised equipment is being brought in. All of this refurbishment means that bigger vessels will be able to enter the port, which should be yet another boost to Cape Town's economy.
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Table Bay today on a courtesy visit, amidst some controversy. Both Earthlife Africa and The Anti-War Coalition had said they intended to stage protests at the V&A Waterfront today to express their concern about the arrival of the ship. This is the first time a nuclear-powered vessel has visited Cape Town since the German cargo ship the Otto Hahn docked here in the 1970s.
The Big Stick, as the vessel is known, is 332m long and carries over 5,000 crew members. Read more about this mind-boggling beast here and here, and see a Google Maps image of it here. There is apparently a 2-nautical-mile No Fly zone around the ship, by the way; and I figure it's probably a good idea to heed that. ;-)
You can see a few more shots of the USS Theodore Roosevelt on Cape Town Daily Photo Extras. The ship is docked far out in the bay, for security reasons, so bear in mind that we had to zoom in quite a bit...
We took this shot at Darling a few weeks ago. Over roughly the past 30 years, railway lines around the country have been refurbished, and timber sleepers (apparently known to our American readers as "ties") have been replaced with concrete or steel ones. These wooden sleepers have been retrieved, and are used to make sleeperwood furniture.
There are 164 blogs taking part in today's theme day. See how the theme has been interpreted around the world, by clicking here to view thumbnails of all the participating city daily photo blogs.
Crème brûlée may not seem like a very South African dish, but you might be surprised to discover just how many Cape Town restaurants feature this dessert on their menu. It's almost a standard offering, in fact. Be warned, of course: not all crème brûlées are created equal, and if you're as picky about them as I am, you'd do well to interrogate the waiter about the quality of their particular dish before placing your order... I've had some sublime specimens around Cape Town, as well as some rather less-than-delicious ones.
This shot was taken not at a restaurant, but at a friend's 30th birthday party on Saturday evening.
Oh, and in case anyone wants to send me gifts, yes indeed, crème brûlée IS my favourite dessert. ;-)
A little bit of tranquility in the wake of Thabo Mbeki’s resignation
We've had a tumultuous few days here in South Africa. For those overseas readers who haven't heard the news yet, President Thabo Mbeki announced his resignation on Sunday evening, after being asked to vacate his post by the ANC executive.
Today the news broke that fourteen members of President Mbeki's cabinet had handed in their resignation, including everybody's favourite Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel. And so there is a degree of uncertainty hanging in the air, although it seems that at least some of this will be resolved on Thursday, when Parliament votes to elect an interim president. (Also, six of the fourteen, including Trevor Manuel, have agreed to make themselves available for service in the new cabinet.)
We're a hardy nation though, and it takes a lot more than being president-less to get us down. Nevertheless, I thought everyone could do with a little tranquility this evening, and so I'm posting a photo of two peaceful cows munching some grass in a field near Darling. :-) The photo was taken on Sunday, when we went up the West Coast to catch a glimpse of the last of the spring flowers.
Scary looking beast, isn't it? This is the MI24 attack helicopter, which made its appearance at the Cape Town Air Show in what was apparently a world first: the MI24 took to the skies alongside South Africa's own Rooivalk - it was the first time they've been seen flying together anywhere in the world.
If you live in Cape Town and didn't make it to the air show this year, make sure you get there next year. The aerobatic displays alone make the day immensely worthwhile. And a little tip, specially for our readers: there were significantly fewer visitors on Sunday afternoon than on Saturday, so if you'd prefer to avoid the crowds, that's the time to go. ;-)
Have a look at the rest of our photos of the air show on the Cape Town Daily Photo Extras blog.
Whenever we drive into the city at dusk, we comment on how absolutely beautiful the skyline is, particularly when the sky is mostly clear with just a few wispy clouds dotted around on the horizon.
To me, the lights shining from these office windows give the city a sense of warmth and a feeling of life. I've always found city lights oddly comforting.
It's rainy and wintry and FREEZING cold in Cape Town this week, so instead of heading out in the stormy weather, we've gone hunting through the archives for some shots that we haven't posted yet. Forgive us for not being brave little soldiers, but this really is duvet and DVD weather. :-)
I spent the afternoon with my mother and two friends at the annualO Magazine Tea Party. This year the tea party was sponsored by Huletts (one of our biggest sugar producers), and so the entrance to the venue was decorated with a display of the most fantastic sugar art, part of which you can see in this photo.
We had an afternoon of absolute decadence: sparkling pink cocktails on arrival; a scrumptious selection of cakes, pastries and savouries to enjoy with our tea; a stunning array of prizes; and energetic entertainment provided by the incredibly talented Coda. And of course no event that bears Oprah Winfrey's name would be complete without each guest receiving an extremely generous goodie bag to take home. :-)
I spotted these pretty light fittings at Wembley Square, when I went to Sinn's Restaurant for a friend's birthday. Something about the combination of colours really appealed to me, and I was intrigued by the fact that so many lights in such a concentrated area could still produce a pleasant degree of light, without any harshness. I think I might consider an arrangement like this for our dining-room, when we eventually get around to renovating...
Cape Town storm: it’s not quite Gustav, but still pretty impressive
We weren't quite as brave as the New Orleans residents who stayed behind to face Gustav: instead of heading out to storm-ravaged Kalk Bay ourselves today, we asked the crew from Zoopy to bring back a photo or two for us, since they're far more intrepid than we are. :-)
This is not an indoor pool, no. It's the interior of Polana, a restaurant at Kalk Bay harbour, after huge waves struck the area earlier today. Windows broke, tables floated out into the harbour, and as you can see, the restaurant was completely flooded.
There are more photos here and here. The Zoopy crew apparently took plenty of video footage, so we'll let you know as soon as that's been loaded onto their site.
You can read reports of the storm damage throughout the Western Cape here and here.
Kerry-Anne and I popped in at Col'cacchio Pizzeria at Tyger Valley's Willowbridge Mall this afternoon. Col'cacchio probably serves the closest thing that you'll get to real Italian pizza this side of the equator.
Instead of ordering one of the pizzas from the menu, today we opted to select ingredients and compose our own pizza. After a bit of deliberation we decided to share a bacon, black mushroom and avocado pizza.
Now I did intimate above that the pizzas at Col'cacchio are very, very good - but to be honest the one we had today wasn't that great. The lesson we learned was that if you deviate from the menu and select your own toppings for a pizza, beware, you may regret it (or, of course, you may devise the most wonderful, awesome, divine pizza known to mankind).
Don't you just love the cardboard envelope in which the bill was presented?
