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It’s a lovely day tomorrow… Some proper Cape Town rain today. Skitten is taking every precaution to ensure coziness.

The tourist’s eye view of Cape Town. A shining jewel between two great oceans. True but also not.

Huge day for me. First time I’ve ever seen a wild otter. And it was here, fifteen minutes’ walk from my house where the city thinks it’s ok to bulldoze everything to put up offices for Amazon. The Cape Clawless Otter is thriving in this little bit of urban paradise.

An aspirational piece of preindustrial #cottagecore, West Coast style. Now an information centre describing people’s comings and going’s over the last 100,000 plus years (lol at Europe “having so much history”).

My main visitor during COVID times. His name is vlad. He helps himself to food and says cry in a silly little voice before leaving without a word of thanks. I still let him in though.

Imam Rashied of Claremont Main Road mosque (thanks @suhairsolomon) tries to explain to a metro cop - probably surprised to find himself facing off against a series of the Cape’s religious leaders (including anti-apartheid hero, Allan Boesak - over whose shoulder the imam is pointing) that the activity is around a celebration of the sacrifices made by Khoi pastoralists who were the first to shed blood against colonial raiders, and who were the first to have their land usurped right here in Observatory. ...

Skitten making use of its little tower chamber again.

This joint has never been more important. One of the few live music venues left in Observatory. Closed during COVID but then reopened under new management. Ever since the first juke box and then the first disco back in the 50s, the eons old practice of live music recitals has effectively been rendered obsolete. But by making a big show out of it, that death has been postponed. But it’s often quite a hard sell against the very flamboyant and immersive forms of entertainment it now has to compete with. But for those of us who love it and do it, there’s no real substitute. ...

Astonishingly, some suburban houses in Cape Town have retained their original low walls without their inhabitants being murdered nightly, presumably. Though I also know it’s a relief when people don’t regularly hop into your yard. Cape Town is a cruel city. And being “middle class” here (actually being in the top 5% nationally) puts you in a weird place in terms of how to react to the countless people struggling at the margins. There’s a lot of ignoring, pretence, occasional sympathy, and the ever-popular blaming-the-poor-for-their-poverty. ...

Nataraja dances in the dawn light coming in our bedroom window.