Capewinter on The Singemonkey

July 04, 2024

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 14:58:19 +0000

Arum Lily 2: Lily masquerading as frozen exothermic reaction.

The lilies growing across the street seem to have come up early as I’ve seen none on the common while running where they grow in great profusion.

June 26, 2024

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:53:58 +0000

Took another crack at the sunbirds. There were so many. I took more decent pictures of them today than in my entire life up until. Trying to think how to post a few more without it being boring.

June 21, 2024

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 12:06:01 +0000

Arum Lilly. Past its best but still worthy of a photograph. This one’s for my dear friend @sophdex today.

June 20, 2024

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 09:24:38 +0000

I had a lovely experience with this little character. It’s a Cape Spurfowl - a common little ground bird that starts life as a fluffy golf ball on spindly legs. I was struggling to focus as it got nearer and nearer until it was right next to where I was lying on the grass - inspecting me at close range for signs of edibles. They’re lovely up close with their intricate patterns.

June 20, 2024

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:18:32 +0000

À propos first thing in the morning? The Cape Town Valkyrie, the Hadeda Ibis. I recently read that they have a sensitive organ in their long beaks that can detect the tiny vibrations of prey wriggling beneath the ground.

June 19, 2024

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 08:57:02 +0000

It started to drizzle now as I got back from my run and we got another spectacular rainbow.

Auto white balance let me down here in the camera and my phone’s warmth control couldn’t get it all back. This is also where I realised that the default Apple photo editor has no perspective controls - at least none that I can find.

Edit: doh! @ezlemoen pointed me to the perspective controls and I realised I’d seen them before.

June 16, 2024

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 10:14:40 +0000

Milestones: I managed to catch some of the cultists in this first pic (for those unfamiliar with my discussion of Rhodes Memorial cultists, I use the term in the anthropological sense of a niche religious society - not to refer to toxic cults). This one distinguished itself by blowing on huge corkscrew horns of the kudu antelope like a Southern African shofar.

I decided to take a pic at each kilometre of my walk. Of course Sod’s law meant there was an interesting picture just ten meters before or after I hit the mark. Still. Interesting to note where each of these markers is on my walk. The straight up climb between km 1 (at the memorial after walking up from the windmill) to 2 (just below the contour path) is where all the sweat and wheezing happens.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:37:46 +0000

Last one for a bit, I promise.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:25:31 +0000

Another from the rainy day in Newlands Forest. The D600 is just young enough to have live view for composing but old enough that it’s awful at it.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:18:05 +0000

More ferns. But this time from a walk in Newlands Forest a few weeks ago during the rains. I was having a great time out there until the eyepiece of the camera dislodged my hard contact lens - sending it tumbling to the endless complexity of the forest floor. It might as well have fallen through a wormhole into another dimension. An expensive mistake.

May 30, 2024

Thu, 30 May 2024 17:44:06 +0000

@withoutaleaf heading off to work the whole night through. Night shoots are pretty brutal.

We’re finally getting some rain and cold weather after our Indian summer. It was beautiful yesterday when I went to vote 30 years after my and South Africa’s first time voting in a democratic election. While we have many political problems, our electoral system isn’t one of them - it’s far more robust than those in many lauded democracies. Hopefully its strengths will eventually lead to better governance.

May 28, 2024

Tue, 28 May 2024 18:44:15 +0000

Another one. Can’t get over how sharp this Nikon 1.4x teleconverter is on the 200-500mm. This is a heavy crop (I didn’t get any stunners today) and I could have gone further because all the detail is there.

May 28, 2024

Tue, 28 May 2024 18:37:59 +0000

Today was another perfect winter’s day in Cape Town. The end of May had absolutely no business being this hot and sunny. My dad and I went to Kirstenbosch for lunch and lugged big lenses to photograph sunbirds because - to top it off - the aloes were flowering in blazing Technicolor, making a feast for the wee nectar suckers. It was simply too hot… in May… to stay long photographing them in the sun.

May 16, 2024

Thu, 16 May 2024 18:15:28 +0000

More jpeg experiments. I’ve loved “blue hour” since before I knew it was called that. But this is the first time I think I’ve ever photographed it. I just used to think of it as that time when the interior lights matched the intensity of the ambient light.

Per my previous post, I backed off the saturation on the “Vivid” Nikon picture control setting from 3 to 2 - although the full kazoo might have worked here. It’s really only on green foliage that I find it too lurid to stand.

August 06, 2023

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 12:07:45 +0000

I dropped @withoutaleaf off at the harbour to take the Hogwarts Express. Some of us work from home and see and do the same things everyday, and she has so many adventures she begins to find some a nuisance. It’s not long ago she was spending the working day watching lions eating a giraffe they’d killed.

August 06, 2023

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 11:59:32 +0000

It’s the first time I’ve done this walk since March. So much going on with the cat boi going missing and then getting injured. I decided to take my camera. I just can’t get good results with a phone although some people can. I’ve also changed laptops and still haven’t sorted out my photos again. So I edited these on my phone.

July 30, 2023

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 20:48:35 +0000

I meant to post this before our show. But my phone’s been missing wifi at home leading to unexpectedly depleted data. Fine times out of the winter funk in the warm interior of the Striped Horse on Surfers’ Corner. With @macawbandsa, @jason66c , and @joydemillar, Melissa, and a wonderful host of characters.

July 16, 2023

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 17:06:22 +0000

Boi has finished his eight weeks of isolation and is hanging out on the couch while I read Tintin. Bun’s in a sock drawer. There’s a fire.

August 27, 2022

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 12:51:01 +0000

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.

August 23, 2022

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 14:15:36 +0000

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.

August 10, 2022

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 21:21:43 +0000

Meant to post this Monday morning: work on the windmill progresses. These guys getting it done were in high spirits first thing in the morning. Fun folks.

August 09, 2022

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 08:59:52 +0000

Before and after our 15 min bird count this morning. A year and a half and we’re still recording more species. Jane identified a Karoo Prinia calling on the far bank.

July 29, 2022

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 09:18:48 +0000

To photograph birds, you need the longest lenses possible. Here’s a little example. This lovely Common Starling was just across the narrow, one-way road from my balcony. The longest autofocus lens I have at home is a 300mm. This gets you further on the slightly smaller sensor of a lot of cameras than on a traditional 35mm camera (you can imagine the smaller sensor as taking a piece out of the middle of what you’d see in 35mm).

July 26, 2022

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 11:59:11 +0000

This scene again. It was a three kingfisher day today - Pied (which we see most days), Malachite (we see these little jewels maybe every three counts or so), and Giant (seen more rarely - although this lady has a fave spot in the willow so maybe we’ll see her again next week). This in a place that shills for the developers love to pretend is a ruined, lifeless dump.

July 26, 2022

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 11:54:25 +0000

Terna as I found him soaking in the dawn by our river confluence bird count. In summer I really miss the late dawn that invites you to enjoy it without too much bother. This project is partly what inspired my newfound love for daybreak.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:40:15 +0000

This is from a few days ago when @withoutaleaf and I were up on Plum Pudding Hill. I just wanted to post this to remind myself of this handful of mature silver trees that survived the fire. The trunks were scorched but they came through unlike most.

I mentioned that silver trees are hard to photograph. It’s because the top side of the leaf has a gorgeous metallic shine thanks to a profusion of fine hairs. But the underside is a deep green. In photographs this usually gives the impression that they’re a kind of grey green tree. But up close and personal, they’re just spectacular.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 09:44:20 +0000

I’m heading out thaddaway this afternoon for a different bit of mountain. Pic 2: cork trees really demonstrating why that bark we find so useful evolved. The fire swept through them but all survived in their protective coats. These aren’t indigenous trees but I hope they preserve a couple of the big ones. Pic 3: to my delight, @withoutaleaf joined me on my mountain jaunt the other day. She pointed out the profusion of silver tree saplings that are coming up everywhere after the fire. I’d managed not to notice. Fire is, of course, part of the protea life cycle - hence the name. I can’t describe how beautiful silver trees are. And they’re hard to photograph for a number of reasons. But in real life they’re like something Tolkien and Doctor Seuss would come up with by the fireside after several glasses of wine.

July 19, 2022

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 20:56:26 +0000

Just after dawn at our bird count site on the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers. We’d just seen a Giant Kingfisher in the willow next to that date palm. The developers are flouting their court order to stop claiming they can just ignore it while they appeal. They seem confident that the courts will bow to their robber-baron capitalism destroying aboriginal heritage and sensitive environments. Let’s hope they’re wrong. People are getting pretty sick of these people ramping up their destruction just as we’re understanding how far it’s gone already.

July 16, 2022

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 13:29:52 +0000

A perfect winter’s day here in Africa.

Update on the cultists: I saw a few close up and they seem very nice. I’ve started to find them reassuring. I also encountered some coming down from above Rhodes Memorial (I inferred they weren’t hikers as one seldom hikes with a large black hardcover book in hand). If people are going to be religious, I think incorporating serious physical activity is a cracking idea in our sedentary society.

July 09, 2022

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 09:42:21 +0000

A bit of a gloomy morning. They’ve begun restoration of the windmill after last year’s fire.

Despite being a Saturday the cultists were out in fine form on the lower slopes, clapping erratically as if to banish devils. I find them rather comforting now.

July 07, 2022

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 08:48:18 +0000

We went for breakfast at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens yesterday. Wow. Winter in Cape Town sure is terrible.

We actually got to spot the elusive Sombre Bulbul a couple of times - the call of which has been obsessing me for a year.

July 04, 2022

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 08:53:10 +0000

Missed the mountain on the weekend thanks to weather. Got up long before dawn to get up there early. Was delayed by minibus taxis blocking the green light. Hurrah for private enterprise over public services! Got there though.

No cultists on a Monday. I found I somewhat missed them.

Thinking of my sibling who’s experiencing impaired vision due to COVID - a rare but not undocumented effect. Covid is real, it’s still here, and it’s still a serious disease. Holding thumbs.

June 20, 2022

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 17:31:08 +0000

Now with the correct month - I’m a dozy fool.

It’s been two and a half years! We’re a six piece band now and get to knock out some baller surf-guitar classics like the Hawaii Five-O theme tune.

The Striped Horse is a great place for it - just by Surfer’s Corner with an open fire and a thick list of craft beers.

June 19, 2022

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 10:45:05 +0000

I tried ascending past the blockhouse after a comment from @suhairsolomon until the scramble gave way to an alarming verticality and I thought I should check the route and come back next time.

Notes: the lower slopes are dotted with cults - usually with one person shouting excitedly. But the one I passed closest to were spread out about 4m from each other all saying different stuff rapid fire. As Buffy The Vampire Slayer put it: “Note to self: Religion… freaky.”

June 18, 2022

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 12:37:30 +0000

Newlands Forest was mighty damp after the huge amount of rain we had last week. To cross the streams with dry feet I had to do some tricky hops on slippery rocks. I amazed myself by managing to cross three of these rain gorged torrents without falling in.

A second mountain biker alerted me to their presence with a bike bell. That makes two… ever. It’s such a tiny, inexpensive object but it conveys so much respect to the other mountain users. Most of them though, are not well-loved by the rest of us. I have a bell on my bike just for getting myself around, let along tearing down narrow, twisting tracks. Sport riders in Cape Town need to be better.

June 11, 2022

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 10:18:49 +0000

The memorial to ruthless imperialism and capitalism. Even sharks respect power - it’s a really basic thing to revere. It’s much more appropriate to a sophisticated primate to revere kindness and cooperation.

Well, at least people can enjoy the free public space and every generation of kids can ride the scaled down imitations of the Trafalgar Square lions - none of them thinking for a moment about a dusty old Victorian narcissist.

June 11, 2022

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 10:10:53 +0000

Despite having some expensive sunglasses ruined by the wind ripping them off my shirt and skidding them - lenses down - for 50m across a tarred road, the irritation I woke up with couldnt stand up to Table Mountain Park at dawn. This has to be among the best city parks on Earth.

I’m not quite fit enough to run up the steep mountainside to the “King’s Blockhouse” (a grandiose name for a very tiny little fort) so, since I was scrambling anyway, I could take my camera. I was remembering how this seemed like quite a big hike even as a teenager. I was clearly very unfit then.

June 08, 2022

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 09:31:17 +0000

Last Sunday we went to the Paarl Arboretum. I’ve never been before. It’s a wonderful place - a huge park divided into continents for its collection of beautiful exotic and local trees. This is the lovely Cedar of Lebanon (celebrated on that nation’s flag). It looks like it’ll be a great place for lazing around reading and picnicking in summer. I was actually surprised how few people were there on a sunny day in winter. Wonderful birds too. We saw four African Hoopoes pottering about on the grass - a lovely, iconic bird that I don’t think I’ve ever seen this close to Cape Town before.

June 08, 2022

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 09:26:09 +0000

The date palm at the confluence stands on a tiny island. About the only thing on that bank spared destruction by the diggers and dozers. A good thing too as the willow beneath the palm seems to be a nesting site for Night Herons. Hopefully the cranes will be hauled away as they begin to rust.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 18:01:45 +0000

This ruined cottage was an irresistible moonlight attraction when we were teenagers. And the wall was a seat where we could climb up and pretend we were vampires.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:58:02 +0000

The pines have their own charms though. When you’re raised on European culture and JRR Tolkien - and our spectacular African scenery is just the backdrop to life - it was easy to romanticise this slightly exotic landscape. But it doesn’t really belong here and as such it lacks the intense diversity of our native biomes. The one upside though is that it provides a living for fungi from Europe which extrude bizarre fruits out of the ground and bark after rains.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:51:23 +0000

The native forests of Table Mountain. Dense and ringing with the calls of forest birds - unlike the bare alien pine forests that still linger on some slopes.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:47:18 +0000

My camera battery charger has been rediscovered. So I took it for a long walk in the woods on the mountainside this morning.

It’s really striking how many more birds you hear when you leave the alien pines and enter the indigenous forest. Now that I recognise the eerie, jaunty call of the Sombre Bulbul, I can hear that the forest is lousy with them.

I also spotted a Cape Batis.

August 14, 2021

Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:14:58 +0000

@withoutaleaf merrily teaches T to break the laws of God and men on our outing with @goflow42 and @jason66c to Kirstenbosch for a bit of apocalypse relief.

August 11, 2021

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:42:36 +0000

Having the house thoroughly cleaned is a deep joy for us but a nightmare for Trinket for whom the vacuum is a combination of the devil, Godzilla, and Voldemort. She’s fled the house for most of the day.

August 10, 2021

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:56:35 +0000

Kane pauses to punch some navigation data into the hyperdrive.

August 10, 2021

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:52:53 +0000

This wonderful chap took me out onto a sea of teal glass in which every denizen of the kelp gardens was clearly visible. We drifted past dozy seals on sea rocks otherwise speckled with cormorants, gulls, and oyster-catchers. Strange little barrel jellies hovered in space. Just one of the best outings I’ve ever been on.

July 31, 2021

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 10:23:16 +0000

We were in Walmer Estate yesterday to pick something up. It’s such an attractive neighbourhood - #notaninvitationtogentrifyit This hair-dresser, corner store is a reminder of the vanishing corner stores that used to be ubiquitous in Cape Town. We call them Cafés for some reason - although we often pronounce it ‘Kaif.’ I have no idea why. You couldn’t buy coffee in them usually when they were everywhere when I was a kid. This hairdresser has supplemented its advertising with a graffito of a very strangely proportioned young man.

July 31, 2021

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 10:16:51 +0000

@withoutaleaf enjoying some well-deserved time off after over a 100 days shooting long hours. Convenient being able to stay home during the SA third COVID surge too. We’re both half vaxxed now though.

July 25, 2021

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 17:46:46 +0000

Saw my dear friend Marcus with my own eyes for the first time in nearly a year and a half. Got filled in on his major plans and events - the way this COVID time seems to have swept everyone’s personal history along like it’s swept global history along.

I rode out to meet him in Keurboom Park and then we hung out on our old high school fields. When we were kids, the only thing we liked about that shitty old fashioned school were the vast, luxurious grounds.

July 24, 2021

Sat, 24 Jul 2021 15:17:36 +0000

In the queue at the Cape Town International Convention Centre for my first COVID shot yesterday. It’s a huge, well-managed, friendly operation. With the current dominant variant, it’s a long way from a guarantee that we won’t get the virus. But there’s a much better chance, and an even better chance that the virus will pass mildly and leave no long term effects. It’s not a castle. It’s a shield. But a critically important one that would be impossible without the dedicated efforts of thousands of independent, university-based scholars and masses of tax-payer funding globally.

July 21, 2021

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 19:54:48 +0000

Rainbow over the street.

One downside of this 50mm I realised… focuses past infinity. Not a major problem, but not ideal.

July 14, 2021

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 12:48:22 +0000

Another dawn by the Black River, looking to the confluence where the Liesbeek joins it. I’m still waiting for my new lenses because Fedex is a garbage company. Hopefully soon though. If I’d had the wide lens I could have included the full rainbow that went along with this scene.

July 03, 2021

Sat, 03 Jul 2021 16:39:15 +0000

A rare moment away from Obs and surrounds during COVID. @withoutaleaf needed to buy ice-cream in the dampest place in this damp city. I enjoyed shouting “Scofflaw!” at her when she crossed a foot to the right of the pedestrian crossing.

June 25, 2021

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 09:23:57 +0000

I didn’t see an otter today. I saw two.

June 22, 2021

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:55:26 +0000

You meet some extraordinary people out on the street in Observatory.

June 22, 2021

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:46:09 +0000

It’s a lovely day tomorrow…

Some proper Cape Town rain today. Skitten is taking every precaution to ensure coziness.

June 15, 2021

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:24:11 +0000

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

June 15, 2021

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 08:45:59 +0000

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.

August 13, 2020

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 17:03:24 +0000

Apparently I took this almost exactly ten years ago. August 7, 2010. A slightly gloomy winter’s day down at the good ol’ sewrage-works with my dad, @millar6300, relieved by the firework-brightness of these Greater Flamingos.

August 13, 2020

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 16:48:51 +0000

Yes. It’s possible I may never photograph anything besides cats again. @withoutaleaf made a little tent on the couch for them in this cold weather.

August 08, 2020

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 18:27:50 +0000

We’re having a late winter cold snap.

June 15, 2020

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 13:15:49 +0000

Sekrit boi. June gets surprisingly cold in winter in Cape Town because our houses aren’t heated. So though it’s not cold in the big sense, your house becomes really damn cold. But this boi knows how to deal with it.

March 12, 2020

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:16:57 +0000

@kanesnaps and me in 1997. I knew how to use the self-timer. Unfortunately I didn’t know how aperture and depth-of-field corresponded in those days. This was influenced - without the technical ability to pull it off - by the famous Mick Rock photoshoot of Syd Barrett (I was obsessed with Syd Barrett) with his purple and orange striped floorboards. I should be very clear that the weed smoking Bob Marley poster belonged to my flatmate thank-you-very-much. I, of course, had a Bill Brandt print up in my room #pretentious .

December 17, 2019

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 09:38:44 +0000

June 1996 was a funny time for me and @sad_ivan . Yessiree.

August 09, 2019

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:24:31 +0000

A different kitter. Trinket has a new game of trying to catch her tail under the banister.

August 06, 2019

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 14:28:30 +0000

Haven’t taken a minibus taxi in a couple years. Convenient though when I end up on Main Road. And a lot more comfortable than in the 90s.

August 06, 2019

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 11:43:44 +0000

The shuttered remnants of Gandalf’s - for about 20 years the main place for undergrads and other young people to go and enjoy cheap booze, crowds jacked up on youth hormones, and rock ’n roll music. Ian McKellan was once photographed hanging off the sign while shooting something in the area. I played a couple of good shows there though even when the place first opened I felt like a teacher chaperoning at a high school dance. Rock ’n roll is now on its last legs as a mass youth movement.

August 06, 2019

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 11:36:50 +0000

Off Lower Main Road Obz yesterday. Not much is holding out against gentrification now. The city is content for the few who weren’t already pushed off to distant wastelands by Apartheid to be pushed off to distant wastelands by rising rents and redevelopment. At top right is a mosque that I didn’t know existed. The daily call to prayer is emblematic for me of our diverse city and the history of that diversity in building it. Islam in SA began with Indonesian and Malaysian slaves being sent here by their Dutch colonists. Political prisoners too. The first book ever written in Afrikaans was the Qran, translated by a political prisoner from ‘Dutch Batavia’, Tuan Guru.

August 06, 2019

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 09:40:19 +0000

Cape Town is liquid again. But for how long? The city ignoring clear warnings in 2011, migration of desperate people to the city will only increase with the climate crisis that simultaneously will make the city drier.

August 01, 2019

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 13:31:04 +0000

Great times at the surprise party for my dear old mate @johnthevudio at Punjab restaurant. An eccentric fella with a heart of gold.

July 27, 2019

Sat, 27 Jul 2019 13:33:25 +0000

Trying out new jpeg settings on my little Fujifilm XE1. Never used a digital camera I liked this much. Straight out of camera jpegs can be tweaked to look so great.

July 27, 2019

Sat, 27 Jul 2019 09:53:38 +0000

It’s the end of the line for these magnificent sea bugs.

July 27, 2019

Sat, 27 Jul 2019 09:50:42 +0000

A lobster boat cruises to a halt in Kalk Bay Harbour yesterday.

July 27, 2019

Sat, 27 Jul 2019 09:48:02 +0000

Yesterday was a good winter day to dry off and catch some sun.

July 25, 2019

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:23:05 +0000

But the sun did come through over the mudflats and marshlands of West Coast National Park. And then the grey grasses and plants came with the showiness of Avataar. It’s a beautiful and complex landscape brimming with life - at least until capitalism washes it all away.

July 25, 2019

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:14:20 +0000

Another day, another bird hide. Loads of flamingos, avocets, three-banded plovers, Kilitz’s plovers, whimbrels, greenshanks, African oystercatchers, even in the Southern winter.

July 25, 2019

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:10:58 +0000

@withoutaleaf has some time off after her last job. So we went down to the gloomy West Coast National Park. Despite the weather, time well spent. Fascinating scenes on the mudflats.

July 22, 2019

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 10:25:35 +0000

Alarming how denial of Stalinist, Maoist, Cambodian etc.

July 16, 2019

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 17:02:01 +0000

Rush hour at the bird hide in the South African Astronomical Observatory.

July 11, 2019

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:11:45 +0000

One more from the hockey. Just because I like the mist.

July 11, 2019

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:05:37 +0000

At the hockey stadium. Not many walk-ins at this early, misty time. But the players, coaches, and parents were already fully getting into it. It’s an international tournament, apparently.

July 11, 2019

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:02:29 +0000

Misty morning in Observatory - looking down from our balcony onto the neighbourhood cult compound. Took the opportunity to take my #pentaxmx out in the mist, down to the international hockey tournament happening just a hundred meters away.

July 07, 2019

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 09:23:18 +0000

Japanese lunch at Obi followed by Japanese desert at some other place on Long Street. So great to hang out with @goflow42 and my dear friend Jason and their wonderful kids - even if T was feeling that adult time was getting very old.

June 27, 2019

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 12:24:30 +0000

It’s turning out a classic Cape June. And that means very chilly mornings - for which Mr Crumb has found ways of compensating.

June 27, 2019

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 12:22:01 +0000

Morning Trinket.

June 24, 2019

Mon, 24 Jun 2019 09:21:22 +0000

@withoutaleaf’s ma brought us these windchimes from India and I hung them on the balcony two days before a massive storm. Well, it turns out I’d hung them in the best/worst place. Almost totally unaffected by the wind that hurled tree branches onto gates and walls. While dawn is latish around the winter solstice this balcony is a great place for a cup of coffee and a read as the sun comes up.

June 24, 2019

Mon, 24 Jun 2019 09:17:12 +0000

Our boi visiting his new balcony for the first time. He was very nervous but realised he could watch a little dog pottering down the street without being noticed. I think he liked that.

June 11, 2019

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 11:51:52 +0000

I don’t know the name of this, but there’s a lot of it around near our new place. Sure looks good against the blue skies first thing in the morning.

June 09, 2019

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 11:45:29 +0000

Quick food run for Mr Crumb who is hangry AF and attacking my feet up and down the stairs. This is #capewinter for you.

June 06, 2019

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 17:47:12 +0000

This picture doesn’t convey just how weird these clouds were. We were sitting out on Monday night at a little after 8, long after dark, and these thick, ectoplasmic clouds were looming overhead. Like nothing I’ve seen before (note that the blurry effect was not from a long exposure - it actually looked like that). We’ll need to raise Mme Blavatsky in a séance to find out what was disturbing the ether…

June 06, 2019

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 17:36:01 +0000

More Obz Victoriana on the new street.

June 01, 2019

Sat, 01 Jun 2019 15:21:56 +0000

It’s a perfect day for moving house after twelve years.

May 30, 2019

Thu, 30 May 2019 10:52:58 +0000

Throwback to winter 2017, photographing @johnthevudio photographing me. We went to photograph a storm kicking foam and spray up against the Seapoint sea wall. Fun using my Mamiya C220. Maybe one day I’ll even develop the film.

August 23, 2018

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 14:47:58 +0000

Just the slightest hint of the coming spring on Station Road today.

August 22, 2018

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 17:31:07 +0000

Famous Skitten has gone to bed early on a cold August day.

August 20, 2018

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:37:06 +0000

Making tagliatelle the hard way.

August 17, 2018

Fri, 17 Aug 2018 16:05:50 +0000

Trinket got bigger in the last couple of months and is almost a full-size cat now. She’s still obsessed with playing and doing her little ‘social roll’ on the regular. .

August 17, 2018

Fri, 17 Aug 2018 16:05:25 +0000

Back to cat pics, I’m afraid. It came down in torrents last night. The dams are nearly at 60%. But the sun is shining beautifully for the liesured classes in Cape Town this afternoon. .

July 18, 2018

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 14:28:25 +0000

An observatory sunset heading home from a pint at The Wild Fig on Saturday with @sophdex and @ezlemoen .

July 10, 2018

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 12:37:55 +0000

And Famous Skitten (aka Fatty) is enjoying a relaxing time in her Gryffindor common room in Mogwarts Castle.

July 10, 2018

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 12:10:55 +0000

Little Trinket is soaking up some sun time during our Indian summer.

July 09, 2018

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:59:40 +0000

A fierce looking man with a heart of gold and a brain like a finely tuned machine. Saturday braai in our Indian Summer spent talking about braai things - tube amplifiers and convolutional neural networks.

July 09, 2018

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:55:12 +0000

The business of the morning done, these two settle in for a truly productive Monday.

July 09, 2018

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 09:45:06 +0000

The drought seems to be over, but we’re still getting our summer in July. It’s come to be a regular thing - the weather turns perfect for a fortnight in the middle of winter every year. Temperatures around 23 degrees (don’t know what that is in barbarian units) and glorious sunshine bathes our little cottage in Observatory.

July 05, 2018

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 18:09:55 +0000

Ah the freeze of winter. Perfect day for…

July 05, 2018

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 13:54:31 +0000

Beautiful sunny winter’s day chez moi.

July 02, 2018

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 16:42:35 +0000

A classic rain-drenched Cape Town winter is cold and inconvenient. But now we can really appreciate it as we read how the dam levels are rising all the time.

June 15, 2018

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 10:25:29 +0000

And now it’s belting again.