Beauty and the Quirky - a wander around Kalk Bay

Little fishing boats bobbing in Kalk Bay harbour

At the risk of causing you all to fall off your chairs in shock – yes, yes, it’s true, another blog post! The second in one week. Gasp! I know, it may yet snow at the equator! Stranger things have indeed happened.

It was a public holiday on Thursday and D decided to take Friday off as well – as did most of South Africa. Bah! sucks! humbug! to productivity, right? Given that it was a lovely day yesterday, though rain was threatened, we decided to wander down to Kalk Bay.

Harbour Lights - do you know your port from your starboard?

Fishing boats

The railway line runs from the city, through the suburbs and all the way down the coast

I suppose you might call it a village, but for us it’s just another suburb of Cape Town – quite far south and a bit out of the way, but a quirky little seaside place. The name means Lime Bay in English, though it’s never been called that - the name having been given to it by the early Dutch settlers. (Kalk means lime – and no, not limes as in citrus fruit, but as in the stuff you quarry.) The history of the place is quite interesting, it was variously a mini port for the Dutch East India Company and later became a small whaling station and then became home to a growing population of Filipinos. You can read more about the history and take a “tour” on the official Kalk Bay website.

The view from the harbour wall, looking across to Simonstown in the far distance

Mucking around in boats

For the past few years, it’s been quite a trendy, quirky spot, with lots of generally overpriced (yes, we know how to mug tourists in more ways than one) junk/bric-a-brac and antique shops and several decent restaurants. It’s very touristy in summer, and getting there and back in the high season can be a real nightmare. The narrow main road gets clogged with traffic moving at pace which would make a snail proud. I noticed though, as we wandered around yesterday, that a lot of the shops have closed down and new whacky boutiques have opened – sign of the times, or recession, who knows.

The "branding" at Quagga Trading

Kalk Bay Trading Post - all the junk you never knew you needed

Of course you always wanted a broken gumball machine. Of course you did!

And an old garden chair

And horns and horseshoes. Oh go on, admit it, you can't resist such a purchase!

I shouldn’t comment on the food, given I’ve nothing polite to say about it. Suffice it to say we opted for fish and chips down at the harbour – and have both been struck by very unhappy guts. There you go, another bad review for me to write (I’ve been making a habit of it of late…).

Filleting fish, fresh off the boats

Still, before the bug struck it was lovely wandering around in the mild spring sunshine, camera in hand, snapping the beauty and the quirky.

The wall of sweets at the general dealer/postal service/bait shop

The general dealer's sign, all things to all men - and women.

The local nursery, oozing colour

And because I just know you love to go "oooh" and "aw", some local residents...

Cape Fur Seals, only too happy to pose, in the hope you might throw them a fish!

Look at that, a blog post!

Yegods, look at this, a miracle... I'm finally getting my butt into gear and doing a blog post...

I can only say that I appear to have turned into an all-time lousy blogger. Not posting, not reading. I suspect a lot of the problem has to do with the fact that most of the things I want to write about are just thoroughly depressing and mostly centre around the current “climate” in South Africa. I’m appalled, for example, at the treatment of medal winning athlete Caster Semenye both by the local head of Athletics SA and the IAAF. And as much as I am appalled by that, I’m revolted by the media circus that has surrounded it and I’m horrified how the whole thing has been turned into a race issue, which is now bringing the race debate back to the fore - and with a vengeance. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and jellybeans, the Rainbow Nation has proved to be an utterly fallacious dream and is as dead as the poor old dodo. Racism is alive, well and thriving in sunny South Africa. If I start getting into this, I will be going down a road I’m not sure is appropriate for this blog. And since it’s been occupying my mind of late, there’s a good reason, I guess, for not blogging. And oh, this is just the tip of the iceberg... I could mention that crime stats are up, rape stats are up, South Africa's refusal to cut carbon emissions... But oh let's just not go there.

On a cheerier note, and another reason for not blogging - my pc finally started sounding its death knell with much grinding, snorting and coughing. For a hopeful moment I thought it might be hatching a dragon. No such luck. But I now have a new pc, custom built, super fast, frighteningly silent and super powerful. Cool. It means I can finish the book trailer I started making – it was looking quite good before everything crashed…

On a more important note, Blog Action Day is coming up and the topic, somewhat unsurprisingly is Climate Change. Blog Action day takes place this year on October 15th and more details can be found on the Blog Action Day website. The notification I received says:

To be a part of this year's event, all we ask is that you commit to writing one post, in your own voice, on October 15, on the topic of climate change.

More than a dozen top blogs, including Mashable, The Official Google Blog, TMZ,
Autoblog, and Daily Blog Tips, have already registered.

But this event won't be successful with big blogs alone. We want bloggers everywhere, of all types and sizes, involved in discussing the wide-ranging way in which climate change affects us all.

To register to participate, go to the Blog Action Day website.

By the way, has anyone noticed that you can no longer post images without giving Google a bunch of exclusive royalty-free rights? I was going to put up some pictures, but...

Come with me on a weekend away...

We want wandering off for a few days the weekend before last. As usual, I was over-zealous with the camera. You have no idea the job I had to thin down over 1500 photos to this little pile... Hope you enjoy them. I, meanwhile, am going to finish off the article I wrote whilst there about porcupines, and then I'm going to play at making a book trailer...

The Franschhoek Valley

The view from the hotel patio

A far flung corner of the Franschhoek valley

Signs of spring

Blossoming

The road through the mountains

No way through

Spring greens - and pinks and reds

Soaring peaks

The vineyards at Boekenhoutskloof winery

Spring is springing

Proteas

Village life

The orchards at Villiersdorp

Theewaterskloof dam

Country roads

Country art?

The farmer's road and the "main" road

Theewaterskloof dam

Orchards near Grabouw

Theewaterskloof dam

Trees before spring

The abandoned house

The heartbreakers and smilemakers

Sometimes it’s the tiniest things in life that just crack your heart in two and bring tears to your eyes – and a smile that you simply can’t stop.

I’ve had two such experiences in the last couple of days.

On Saturday morning I trotted off to buy yet more bags of birdseed and peanuts for the ravening hordes. The place I go to is a huge family-run warehouse affair where everyone knows everyone else and long-standing customers are greeted like old friends. There’s a guy who “works” the door. You know the one; the guy who’s not the brightest, the guy who’s got the job on a sort of “charity” basis, but who’s doing his job as though his life depended on it. I bounced in, flashed him a big smile, asked how he was doing and made my way to the counter.

On the way out, I have to give my till receipt to the “door” man. I gave him another huge smile and said, “Here you go.”

He looked up at me and beamed. “You know,” he said, “You have just the most lovely smile and thank you so much for your warmth.” He said it in the way of one who knows that people don’t usually notice him and see having to hand him their receipt as a chore.

“It costs me nothing,” I said, “and it’s such a cold day – it must be jolly chilly standing here in the doorway.”

“Yes,” he said, “It is. Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.”

“And I hope you have a wonderful weekend too,” I said.

And he beamed at me some more and my heart cracked and I thought, it’s so simple to brighten someone’s day. And it feels so good when you do so, so good that your soul grows wings, soars and sings.






And then there was the boy at the traffic light.

There are loads of street people and beggars in Cape Town (across South Africa, in fact) and every traffic light and intersection is a “picking spot”. One smart guy has recently been standing at the freeway intersection closest to where I live with a cardboard placard saying, “Kids gone to Hollywood, wife stolen Porsche, nothing left, please help. Have a nice day.” Another has been selling Arum lilies which after a wet winter, are blooming everywhere. Someone else is trying to sell small animals made from scrap metal. These people stand there next to the newspaper sellers and go from car to car. After a while you learn not to see them and you learn not to look in their eyes. There is, after all, just so much pain in the world that each of us can cope with and when it’s in your face everyday, you stop looking, you stop seeing, and I suppose some even stop feeling. But not everyone does.

Today, as I waited for the lights to change I saw a “newcomer” working the line of cars - a young boy of about sixteen. He was partially disabled, walking with a limp. He begged from car to car until he reached the small silver Hyundai in front of me. The woman in the car gave him a plastic bag, presumably with food in it. His face lit up. He couldn’t believe his luck. He smiled, he bowed, he thanked her and his smile brightened his face so that it shone - and I swear all the angels smiled with him. I was on my way back from gym and had nothing in car with me, not even a couple of rand. So when he reached me all I could offer him was a smile. God, he broke my heart with the smile he gave me in return. He waved, he bobbed and he grinned the biggest, brightest grin I’ve ever seen. His eyes sparkled and he blessed me far more than I could ever have blessed him.

You know that moment when your heart breaks and your eyes fill with tears and you can’t stop smiling. That was one of them.