Cape Town Cameos #1

I just got back from 3 days R&R in Capetown. Believe it or not, this was my first trip alone with a friend (Apart from day trips of course!) Max and I are so in tune when travelling, so I was not sure what to expect from 3 days with a friend whose holidays usually take quite a different form to ours. Max and I have travelled in the past with friends who whip through, notching up experiences like some sort of scoreboard, "ok seen that, move on." It is very frustrating. Luckily Julie and I have similar tastes and interests, and she turns out to be a traveller who also takes time to look around and soak up the vibe and the visual impressions (and is very patient while I go mad taking photos every five minutes!) We are also familiar with quite different parts of Capetown and so we were able to take it in turns to introduce each other to some of our favourite spots, and explore new ones too.

The only appointments we had were a booking at the exceptional Moyo Restaurant, the first night, and Tickets for dinner and theatre on the second. The rest of the time was a fluid "go with the flow" time of exploring new areas, shopping a little, going to lots of galleries, and sitting on sidewalk cafes letting the magic of Capetown flow over us, while street musicians entertained us.

The B&B we stayed in was in De Waterkant on the slopes of Signal Hill, in what has become a very trendy district of restored Cape Malay houses. It is central to the seaboard, waterfront and City centre. The place we stayed in was on the highest street, and like its neighbours, was a 3 story narrow building scrambling up the hillside.

It has a roof deck with 360 degree views of the City, Table Mountain and waterfront.

On the first day we arrived quite early in the morning and went straight to the B&B to settle in and have a quick breakfast at a sidewalk cafe. (I am far from being a fussy eater, but really, the lead-like roll offered on the plane with a nondescript bit of cold meat glued to it with some sort of mayonnaise, and who-knows-how-long-in-the-fridge was guarenteed to cause drama with the digestion, so by the time we landed we were ravenous!)

Then we headed off for Franschhoek in the mountainous winelands to the North East of the city. We soaked up the scenic surroundings on the road into the village, farmlands making the most of the rich soil at the base of soaring mountains.

On the way we stopped at an antique shop with a difference. If you looked at this old warehouse exterior, with old enamel basins and farming gear, would you guess that inside you would find some amazing pieces of elaborately carved French Gothic furniture, and simply amazing crystal chandeliers? It was one of those magical places that holds a surprise around every corner, an ecclectic mix of rugged farmstyle and highly sophisticated, simple and ornate, bargain and priceless, so that a walk around it was a feast for the senses.

I had driven through Franschhoek before, with Max, but we must have been on a bypass route, because we didn't see a fraction of this delightful little village. It has one of the most picturesque main streets you will find anywhere, with historic cottages converted into wonderful galleries, boutiques and restaurants.

After a simply delicious meal at the French Connection, where subtle blends of flavour left one in a comatose state of bliss, we set off to explore the street.

Reluctantly leaving Franschhoek behind us as the sun began to set and the shops closed, we headed across the mountains to Stellenbosch, and the Spier Wine Estate, home of the legendary Moyo Restaurant. This is not a place you go just to eat. It is designed, from the moment you enter, to engage all your senses in an experience of what makes Africa the unique continent it is.

You enter a vast marquee through a shop of African arts and crafts and music cds.

This leads you back out into a wonderful garden, where you are greeted, and have traditional painting done on your face, before you are shown to your table.

This could either be in a series of little Moroccan style tents are dotted in clusters around the garden, or back in the main tent, which also houses the enormous buffet.

This is composed of combined flavours and favourites from the length of Africa, from Morocco in the North, via Kenya, to South Africa.

The genius of Moyo is that it is completely geared to tourists, introducing them to the African Experience, yet it is authentic enough that locals, who would normally avoid places full of tourist tat like the plague, love it too.

African rugs are thrown over the back of each chair, so that as you enjoy your meal in the little open tents, you can bundle up against the night time cold mountain air. There is a passing parade of African musicians, at one point a Xhosa man and his wives arrive to sing accappella and they are followed a while later by drummers and dancers in a nearby clearing. in the tent a jazz guitarist strolls around, and water tumbles from a nearby treehouse fountain, which houses another table on top of the deck, for those who don't mind running the gauntlet of the stairs to fetch more food from the buffet.

Our waiter, innocent, made sure we were well looked after, and a long relaxed evening unfolded.

On the way back to town, we saw that the side of the Mountain was ablaze, in the vicinity of Rhodes Memorial. ................ but that is another story for another day.

your one stop blog.....

Well it seems like, whether you are interested in nature, politics, art, people, family news, or all of the above you will find it all here, and often all in the same post... I'm afraid today is no exception!

I dare not get onto the subject of Zimbabwe, for your sake and that of my keyboard, I will just post this cartoon from the paper earlier this week, it pretty much says it all!

GRRRRRRRRRRR....

But I will just say that I am impressed with the stand being taken by COSATU (the trades unions), who are capable of some pretty insane and inane opinions, but in this particular case, in the continued absence of any leadership from our President and his cronies, they are standing up and taking the moral high ground. They have done a great job in ensuring that the Chinese ship full of weapons destined for Zimbabwe does not offload on our coast, and hopefully not in Angola either. So a bouquet to them!

A few overflow photos from interesting items on the PE Daily Photo:

I was so glad to have an opportunity to see the latest sculpture done by Graham Jones, who is, apart from being a brilliant artist, also the brother of a friend of mine. You know you have arrived at an eccentric artist's house when you find a giant fly made from a gas cylinder on the veranda!

He was commissioned by the Sunday Times to do the next in a series of monuments they are putting up around the country, to celebrate the achievements of prominent South Africans. In this case, it is for Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, at one time curator at East London's small museum, who is credited with discovering the fascinating coelacanth, a pre-historic fish which even pre-dates dinousaurs.

Graham made it out of cast iron, so it has a wonderful surface texture that suits the subject perfectly. He has added all sorts of fascinating bits and pieces, and the mouth is stuffed with fishing gut, a silent protest against the wicked exploitation of this hugely endangered species.

Here he explains his passion to raise awareness about these amazing fish.

This is the stainless steel cutout which will eventually surround the base when the 4 and a half ton fish has been mounted at its permanent home at the museum in East London.

A while ago I was doing a series called "now and then" in which I featured historic buildings, as they look now, and also vintage photos of how they looked in the early years of Port Elizabeth history. The first one I featured was a little cottage on the brow of Richmond Hill, which overlooks the bay. Well sadly, it burned out last week.

According to Graham, who lives in the same street, it was inhabited by Nigerian Drug dealers. Such a shame!

And finally, Max's sister popped in from Durban for an overnight visit, and took us out to dinner. Simultaneously, winter arrived with a bang!

It has been so dry lately that the question of where to go in foul weather hasn't arisen. This weekend it did ! Where do you go where you can park undercover and enter the place without walking miles to the car and drowning or freezing to death on the way? And where do you take a bunch of people ranging from 3 to 58, with an assortment of food allergies, and in particular one who has had a bypass recently and is FANATICAL about eating heart friendly food? We found the perfect solution... Carolina Spur at Greenacres. The 3 year old (you know who!) was so well cared for in the play area that we couldn't even prize him away to eat chips, and that is VERY unusual for this particular little gannet!

The gluten/dairy intolerant ones had a ball at the salad valley, and the heart patient was ecstatic to see little heart foundation logos on many of the items on the menu. We had a great evening, and will definitely be back there soon! There was even good food for the "normal" ones in the group (MOI!!! LOL)

After dropping them off at the airport the next evening, we went for a stroll on the beach and ended the weekend on a lovely note!

Cheers for now.

I'm back

Hi, wow, after a spell of mad activity, I have so much to catch up on! (Thanks for the concern shown about my absence, as you will see, I have been fine!)
I was laughing with my daughter K as we went through some of the vast quantity of photos taken in the last two weeks, seems that Max and I count our lives in Gigabytes! Hopefully I can resume more regular blogging and visiting now that the latest exhibition is hanging (opening was last /night.)

So to do a quick catchup:

The building operations for my new studio have proceeded well, just a couple of final touches from the builder, and then I have to get in there to clean, paint, seal the floor, build cupboards and shelves etc. I can't wait to move my art stuff in there.

While we were at it with the bashing and messing, we got the builder to put a window into the kitchen above the top counters, to bring in more light from the East. We went through that hideous "what was I thinking" stage.......

........but it has made a great difference, and while we were at it we added some cupboards to the top to keep all the clutter, and gave the colour a bit more va va voom!

It will be wonderful when I can paint out there and our dining room, living room and study can stop looking like this!!

Amidst all the hectic activity, we have made a point of continuing our morning walks and getting some R&R..........

Last week there was a wonderful sunrise, witnessed by us and this cat on the chimney of a neighbouring house...... no it's not real but a ceranic sculpture! It was a great walk, wonderful moody skies, and as we were nearly home a summer cloudburst with warm fat raindrops, we got home soaking and refreshed, it was FUN!

One evening we went to the Spur restaurant at the beachfont. They made their name as a steakhouse serving lots of meat, burgers, and a famous "salad valley" where you can load your plate with an assortment of imaginative salads. What deeply impressed Max was the fact that the menus have little heart foundation emblems on them to show which dishes are heart friendly.

We also had a meal at a place overlooking the bay,

the Jazz Cafe at Brooks Pavillion. Sadly the only decent thing about it was the view. It was grubby, run down, and the food was appalling and overpriced. We will NOT be back!

One of our regular visitors to our Port Elizabeth Daily Photo blog, who used to live here years ago and is now in the States, asked us to feature St George's Park. Well, sadly, strolling around the park is not as safe as it used to be, and stories of muggers abound. So we decided to walk there at sunrise one morning, but we made sure that we were accompanied by Harry.

Harry is short for Dirty Harry, and he is Max's very evil looking paint ball gun, which is loaded with pepper spray pellets. It is insane that this is what peace loving people are reduced to in order to stay safe, but it is our daily reality and we have to deal with it as best we can. One thing we are determined about is that we will not allow the criminals to turn us into prisoners in our own home, too afraid to enjoy the beauty around us!!!!

One of the things we went to see was a sculpture a friend told us about. It is a tribute to well known local playwrite, Athol Fugard. There is a line in one of his plays about a kite.

This weekend I felt that I had enough art ready for the exhibition, and was too tired to do more, so we went off to St Francis for a break. Felicity cat is still too little to stay home alone so she accompanied us, and turned out to be a most delightful travel companion.

On the way there she curled up on my shoulder like a parrot, and purred as she watched the world go by.

In the suite, she settled in and took over, here she is keeping Max company as he blogs.

Both mornings had spectacular sunrises to greet the perfect days.

On Saturday morning we strolled down to Otters landing, the area to the south of the port, and had a great time rambling along the hiking trail, amongst the indigenous bushes, snapping away like mad!

The morning was not without excitement.... on our way back for breakfast we spotted two high powered rubber ducks with long range fuel tanks leaving the port. We had seen them on our last visit and we knew that they are Perlemoen (abalone) poachers, setting out for a raid on our shores. A little yellow boat followed them but came right back. We didn't know if he was one of them, (turned out he was a good guy!) so we went back to get a phone, stopping on the way to photograph the cars with trailers which brought the rubber ducks to the port, and catch the registration numbers.

Then I contacted the NSRI (National Sea Rescue Institute) and they reported it to the police task force. Apparently they had been after the same group the previous day, with helicopters etc, but the poachers just run out to sea and with their long range tanks and got away again. They are completely brazen! And unless they are actually caught red handed, there is nothing the authorities can do .........grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It seems that every time we have made it to the Port in the past year, the weather has been cloudy and miserable. It was quite nice to see blue skies for a change, even though I also love the bad weather.

After breakfast we went to the Bay and village to photograph different aspects for our St Francis Daily Photo blog, and the sea was a wonderful colour.

this beach is one of my favourite places on the planet at any time, but particularly at sunrise, the huge expanse of unspoilt sand, the waves rolling in and the sun painting it in all shades from pastel to wild, it is just amazing to be there and soak it in!

As soon as there was enough light, I settled onto the beach and did a little painting of the lighthouse, while Max strolled along the beach and then back to the lighthouse, and took a whole bunch of photos (including this one!)

Back home, Fergussen finally decided to let Felicity cat snuggle close, hopefully they will be friends soon.

And then on Monday, I did another painting...... inspired by one of our daughter-in-law's photos of Sudanese refugees.

And I hung the exhibition, which opened last night.

Here is the gallery owner Tossie, a delightful person, lurking in the doorway.

And here I am explaining the inspiration behind the refugee paintings to a journalist from one of the local newspapers.

Pete Parrott very kindly gave me permission to use one of his photos as inspiration for a picture, here is the result. Thanks Pete!

And that brings us back to today, where I have spent hours editing photos and compiling this mammoth post, so there we are, all caught up on my news, and tomorrow I will start to catch up on visits and see what you guys have been up to!