Capespring

Boi’s official spring portrait We did some wild gardening today helping Nicola in her mad dash to empty out her Gran’s house of 30 years before the bulldozers come for it - rescuing a few lucky plants.

When we were approaching the end of the Heks River Valley it looked like the Cape Peninsula was being held in perpetual winter by the power of some dark sorcerer - to judge by the vortex of black clouds over the land like a bad 1980s special effect.

Our host, Jean, was a character out of a story-book from the 1950s. A Belgian who took to the sea at fourteen to work as a ship’s cook and saw many things - including over-eager young Poles cutting their fingers off and the preparation of seagull in secret to offset a meat shortage. He was a restauranteur for a spell and then a cooking teacher. He just so happened to teach me how to make an easy chicken stock. ...

Leucodendrons, @kanesnaps tells me. A very pretty and delicate protea that looked quite spectacular in spring profusion, painting the entire mountainside yellow.

@kanesnaps and I went heroically up the mountain by a new route (for me) and found that rock that looks like a camel from certain angles. It was lovely up there, where the traffic noise suddenly disappears and you’re in this magic park in the sky filled with the astonishing diversity of plants in the fynbos botanical region. Kane almost got bitten by a very unfortunate young puff adder that had been run over (almost certainly by accident since it was so well camouflaged on the road - such that Kane nearly didn’t see it too). Luckily some guys working up there arrived in a truck and ended it’s suffering with a sharp spade since it was way too injured to possibly survive. ...

Hail Eos, goddess of dawn (that feeling when you realise you’re the cultist 😂). I got to see a pair of lovely Boubou shrikes right by the path and said, “Hey Boo.

The cultists apparently don’t come out if there’s a danger of rain. Instead of their shouting and wailing there was a choir of frogs. About as loud but less chaotic. I did encounter a pleasant old Zionist on the way down. But since that’s the biggest religious denomination in South Africa - if I recall correctly - he couldn’t be called a cultist.

A walk in the clouds. I had a cold for a couple of weeks so this is the first time I’ve been up in a good while. It’s spring in Cape Town and the evidence was everywhere. In the last pic you can see that work on the windmill is progressing nicely. I was pleased to hear the old familiar hollering and moaning of the cultists.

I feel like Observatory’s going through a bit of renaissance as covid winds down. @withoutaleaf got ice-cream from @_tapi_tapi - and it’s really good. Lots of African ingredients are used. It seems like not long ago tourists would struggle to find anything African to eat that was accessible to them in Cape Town. But now there’s a lot on offer. Can definitely recommend this place. Great, unique ice-cream and super friendly, informative people working there.

Doing some technical reading on the balcony with this chonky chap. It’s the first warm weather in a good long while and he’s here for it. 27 degrees according to the weather app. No doubt there’ll be plenty more cold weather ahead. But this is a nice break. I’ve had a nasty cold for a week. Did a great show on Friday @noongunbrewery in Muizenberg. Thank goodness we do a lot of instrumentals because I couldn’t croak a note.