Author: Rudy

The first part of today’s journal is all about golf. If you want to skip to the ‘visitor’ part, click here.

We used our final ‘discount coupon’ (we’d purchased a 10-pack when we first arrived) at the Metropolitan Golf Course this morning. We were a wee bit early and not at all surprised to see that the course was not nearly as busy as it was earlier in the summer (next Monday is the first day of Fall here). We registered at the pro shop and asked if we might start early and go as a “2-ball” (just the two of us). No problem, said the nice young man behind the desk. Just inform the starter. So we did. And the starter said okay. I teed up my ball and was about to blast a shot straight and far and down the middle of the fairway when another golfer came up to us, pulling her golf cart. “What time is your tee time?” she asked. When we told her we were starting a bit early she was indignant. “You can’t do that! WHO told you you could do that?” Etc, etc, etc. Well, the poor starter got an earful and the lady was adamant that the guy inside and even the management would certainly hear from her. “What if someone has requested this tee time so that they could have a friendly competition and SOCIALIZE with others? No one wants to golf alone. This is not right.” Well, she had a point. I guess we were a bit scared of ending up with a couple like those Russians we golfed with a week ago — NO socializing there. The starter looked at me, asked if we would mind golfing together with Terri (we had made introductions by this time). No problem! Join us. As Terri headed for the red tees the starter quietly says to me: she is VERY particular and can be a bit difficult. We’d been warned.

Well, poor Terri had got herself so worked up she blew her drive. And her second and third and fourth shots. And her first two putts. And in between there was a LOT of muttering about the incompetence of the people working the pro shop. And then it got worse!

We were halfway down the second fairway when the starter comes zipping up in his golf cart — he’s delivering Anne, the lady who was to be our fourth. Now Anne (from Ireland) got into it. How dare they start without her! She’d been only 1 minute late and was told we’d already teed off. So now Terri had a (much more) sympathetic ear for all her bitching and complaining. And we two poor Canadians (who had caused all the disruption) were caught in the middle of a confrontation that was only getting worse, and all we wanted was for everyone to be happy!

And so we golfed. And every time Terri missed a shot she cursed that guy in the pro shop. And every time we went BY the pro shop (3 more passes because of the layout of the course) she stomped into there looking for that guy so she could give him another piece of her mind. And when at one point A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT pro shop person came by on a golf cart she gave HIM a what-for — and of course he’s all innocent and finally yells back that he doesn’t even know what she’s talking about! So, says Terri, not only is he an incompetent, but now he’s a LIAR too!

Well, for all the talk of how she valued the SOCIAL aspect of the game, she sure didn’t socialize with us. Anne and Sue visited as they walked the fairways; Terri marched directly to her ball without a comment or question. She insisted that none of us step on the green until ALL of our balls (most importantly, HER ball) were on. She seemed to be a very unhappy person. (By now I wasn’t completely surprised that she didn’t want to golf alone — she probably had trouble finding people who would play with her! Sue asked if she was married! No. We were not surprised.)

Now I don’t have a problem with abiding by the rules, but this round was not at all competitive and not much of a ‘social’ event either! When at the 18th green it was time to shake hands, the only nice thing I could think of to say to her was ‘you golf very well’.

We left our clubs at the clubhouse, since we won’t use them again before next Monday morning. We headed home, had lunch, and cleaned up the apartment — getting ready for our guest. Sue went to get a haircut. I Facetimed with Max and Alex. The Flight-tracker told us that the flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town would be delayed by about 15 minutes, so that meant we should be at the airport by 4:15.

We got to the airport in the nick of time. We met Jessica as she was coming through customs. After a little kerfuffle trying to get out of the parking lot — I was 2 minutes over the ‘free 30 minute parking’ and had to circle back and pay a dollar — we were on the road back to our apartment. We showed Jessica to her room and then sat outside on the balcony and had happy hour. We discussed options for what we will do for the next 4 days. There are many things on the list — but Jessica seems flexible and relaxed and easy to please. She is two months into a 6-month stint volunteering at the Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives, a credit union in Lilongwe, Malawi. We hope to hear more about her experiences there in the days to come.

We walked to the V&A to get a few important things out of the way. Jessica needed to (1) get cash, (2) get a phone card, (3) buy some runners, and (4) eat supper — well, we ALL needed to eat supper. We managed to get all four things done at the mall. We ended up at San Marcos, at a table outside, where we ate and visited for the next hour or more.

When we got home we had a dish of ice cream and watched (yesterday’s) CBC National. Nothing new. We’d already read about all the US primary results earlier in the day (Rubio is out, Trump keeps on winning). Apparently I fell asleep sitting on the couch while the girls tried to figure out how to switch on the light and the fan in Jessica’s bedroom. Went to bed at eleven. Tomorrow we plan to go on a little road trip, ending up in Hermanus for an overnight.

After breakfast we went on a road trip. A few weeks ago we were visiting with a couple who we’d just golfed with and they raved about the west coast north of Cape Town. They urged us to take a drive and they even recommended a couple of restaurants that they thought we should stop at. One was “The Noisy Oyster Restaurant” in the small town of Yzerfontein, and the other was “The Beach Restaurant” up in Paternoster a little farther up the coast. Today was the day for that.

I guess we should have done a bit more research before heading out. We were expecting to drive along the coast — to see beaches and rugged coastline and ocean waves, etc. Instead we were a few miles inland and only saw the water a couple of times. What we DID see was a lot of road construction. That meant ‘stop-and-gos’ — where we waited in for minutes at a time in one lane while the oncoming traffic was let through, and then we could continue. Still, we were near Yzerfontein, which was supposed to be our lunch stop, but it was only 10:30. Okay, we’ll just continue and make Paternoster our lunch stop.

We got there at around 12:30. Just about the perfect time for lunch! Paternoster is a small beach town. The restaurant we were looking for was called The Beach Restaurant. We can find this without the GPS — we’ll just drive along the beach…

Cute little town — it reminded us of Greece, Santorini in particular. All the cottages were white with blue trim and blue roofs. Yeah, but no “Beach Restaurant”. Okay, I’m hungry. I’ll just pull over and type ‘restaurants’ into Google Maps and SURELY it will be just down the beach from where we are. But when I typed in ‘restaurants’ the first one on the list was “The Noisy Oyster Restaurant” — hmm… I thought that was supposed to be in Yzerfontein. So we had our towns mixed up! We followed Google’s directions to the Noisy Oyster restaurant. What?? Closed? Open hours are WEDNESDAY to Saturday, 12-3. But today was Tuesday. We drove 150 kms of road construction for this?

I drove past the closed restaurant and continued up the hill. Spectacular views! And a few more restaurants, most of which were open. We parked behind the “Blikkie Pizzeria” and got a table out front, with a view of the miles of white-sand beach along the coast. Very nice. And the wood smoke from the pizza oven helped us to decide what to order — a bacon and banana wood-fired pizza.

After lunch we chose a different route back to Cape Town. We were hoping to avoid construction. I guess the government’s road improvement program was going strong — lots of construction on the ‘longer’ way home only made it EVEN longer. But the scenery was different — it reminded us of fall in Alberta — miles and miles of harvested grain fields, and even a few vineyards once we got a little further inland.

When we got home I went uptown to get some supplies — my cell phone had run out of airtime and I needed to top it up.

Sue and I had G&Ts on the balcony. Just before sundown we went out for a walk along the sidewalk on Main Road — heading for Sea Point. We were going to try a Greek restaurant called Ari’s Souvlaki; Marina’s friend Lukas had highly recommended it. The walk was about 5kms. When we got there we were a little surprised to find such a small, old, simple restaurant. We got a table. Sue ordered Moussaka, I the Shwarma with beef from the spit. The food was better than the ambience but neither of us was very hungry and left at least as much as we’d eaten.

We took the bus back to Portswood and made a pitstop there to pick up some fruit and another tub of ice cream.

Back at the apartment we watched some news and ate our ice cream. In bed by eleven — we’ve got an early golf appointment tomorrow.

Back at the golf course again first thing this morning. It’s not as busy as it usually is — and it’s probably because some of the ‘snow birds’ (Europeans) are heading home. And who are we paired up with? Why it’s our old friend Fritz, from Germany, and his girlfriend (and caddy) Suzanne. Fritz has a house here in Cape Town and essentially ‘lives’ here. He has to go back to Germany every 6 months, and he stays there for a couple of weeks and then comes back here again. He golfs 3 or 4 games every week. He has a very unusual swing, but his game is not too bad. He and Suzanne don’t speak English very well, and so it takes a little more effort to ‘visit’ while we golf, but we do okay. We’ve sort of arranged to golf together again next week.

And after the disaster I had here last Wednesday (with the Russians), by the end of the first nine I had regained much of my confidence — finishing with a birdie 2 on hole nine for a front 9 score of 45. After a brief ‘snack’ stop at the clubhouse we headed back to the 10th hole to continue our round. Oh boy! Things got ugly in a hurry when I lost one ball in the brush, another in the creek, and another in the bunker! Ten on a par 5. The Lord giveth and he taketh away — sometimes all in one game!

We hurried back to the apartment for lunch. Sue did a second load of laundry in the afternoon. She read, I computed. Lovely day outside. Leftover Yellow-tail (from Marina’s yesterday) for supper. A bit of s-l-o-w internet again tonight — no photos to upload today. Tired and gone to bed by 10:30.

When we got up this morning and looked outside at the street, we were surprised to see that things were mostly cleaned up from yesterdays big parade and street carnival. No ‘Africa time’ here in Cape Town — they are organized and efficient.

After breakfast we went for a brisk walk on the Sea Point promenade — all the way to the swimming pool and back to the lighthouse and home through the park. We showered and got ready to head out for lunch. We took the car and made a quick stop at the Limnos Bakery where Sue picked up an assortment of sweets for dessert. Then we drove up to Marina’s house, about a 15-minute drive from our place.

Rowan had come to join us for lunch. Lukas, Marina’s partner, was looking much better than he did at our first visit. His foot was still in a cast, but the infection was clearing up and he was quite a bit more mobile without having his antibiotic drip thing attached. He was up at 5 in the morning baking bread and getting ready for our lunch. He loves to cook and he’s good at it. The fish bisque (snoek and mackerel in a prawn base) we had as a starter was very good. Then we went outside where Lukas had already lit the coals on the Weber earlier, and now put a couple of big Yellow-tail fillets with an Indian curry topping on the grille. Dinner was delicious. A side dish of pearl barley, a tomato salad, that fresh bread Lukas had made this morning, and the Yellow-tail. Sue’s sweets from the bakery for dessert.

We visited with our friends until Rowan had to leave at around 4pm. We too said goodbye, with a promise that we will get together at least one more time before we go home (in 2 weeks!).

When we got home Sue read and I took a little nap. The internet was down so that meant my programming would have to wait. Sue woke me up when she got a text that the kids wanted to Facetime. Well, how could we do that without internet? So I set up my phone as a hotspot and we talked to Alex and Max until the data on my phone plan was used up — and the call abruptly ended.

I went out to the Spar store and bought a bit more data. I’m not sure how much I ‘need’, since most of the time we’re using the wifi here at the apartment. And sure enough, soon after I got back from the store our connection improved and we were up and running as normal again. That meant I needed to write my journal for the day and post it. Which I did.

B+E this morning. No, not another break and enter at the 7Eleven in Steinbach — bacon and eggs in Green Point. It’s Saturday!

After lunch we went for a walk — I wanted to see how preparations were progressing on our road for the big parade tonight. They’d already blocked off our corner at noon and were setting up barricades and bleachers beside the route. The parade will start at the Buitengracht corner and end at our corner on York Road. We stopped at a bakery along the way to check out options for tomorrow — we’re invited to Marina’s for lunch and will bring dessert. We’d invited both Paddy and Marina to come watch the parade from our balcony but by early afternoon both had replied that they would not be able to make it. We saw a few floats parked on the side roads with people busily fixing and painting and getting things ready. There is excitement on the street.

From the starting point we headed to the Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, which used to be the Holiday Inn and was where we stayed for a month back in 2002. I wanted to walk our ‘old’ route from the hotel to down to the V&A. Fourteen years ago that route took us through a bit of an “iffy” section and we seldom walked there in the evening. Today it is all cleaned up, nice sidewalks and good lighting and lots of tourists and visitors out on the street. We walked past the marina and the Cape Grace Hotel, two of the landmarks we remembered from all those years ago.

The Waterfront was as busy as ever. Saturday. Lots of people sitting in the outer cafes, entertainers spread throughout the area, children playing in the play areas, shops busy. We wandered around for a bit, stopped to get more cash from the ATM, bought some new shoes for me, and then headed back home. As we were walking the air suddenly got a lot cooler, and the sky turned misty and foggy — we were walking through some low clouds. We thought for sure we are going to get rained on, but that didn’t happen. That’s how the weather can be here between the ocean and Table Mountain — sudden changes like this, when the ‘table cloth’ cloud that we often see on top of the mountain comes swooping down to the sea. I wondered how wind and rain might spoil the parade tonight, but needn’t have worried.

By 7 o’clock the streets below us were packed. Thousands of spectators were out to watch the parade of costumed performers, musicians, and floats. Loud thumping dance music was all around us. I stood out on the balcony, barbecuing our ‘boer wurst’ and watching the goings on. Since so many streets had already been blocked off, one of the few roads INTO the area was the one-way coming down past our place. There was a zoo of parked cars, all along both sides of our street, blocking garage entrances and plugging up the sidewalks. And the self-proclaimed ‘parking attendants’ were having a great evening, gesturing and conducting and yelling as the cars just kept coming into the area.

The parade route was jammed with onlookers on either side, so all I could really see from our first-floor balcony was the big lit-up floats. But they were only coming by every 5 or 10 minutes — while I still heard cheering and saw cameras flashing in between floats. So I had to go down to the street and see what was happening. And what a party it was! All the restaurants and bars on our street were PACKED! People were hanging off balconies above in the hotels and apartments on Main Road. Families sat in lawn chairs right on the street. The crowd along the actual parade route was at least 10 people deep here, and probably even more dense further up the street. Lots of onlookers had come prepared, dressed in exotic costumes and ready to party. As I pushed my way closer to the parade route I could see that the spaces in between floats had plenty of entertainment — marching bands, street dancers, large groups of school children all in costume, clapping, chanting, singing, dancing. REALLY dancing, like you see in the old Michael Jackson videos, where large ensembles dance in practiced and choreographed moves. They were good! No wonder I had heard so much cheering and clapping.

I returned to the apartment where Sue was still sitting quietly, playing Scrabble on her iPad and complaining about the loud throbbing bass coming from the floats. We had a little dish of yogurt for night snack and turned on the TV. The last thing I remember is Sue laughing at me as I desperately tried to keep my eyes open and my head upright, watching some highlights from the late-night talk shows. She hauled me off to bed while that party on the street was still going strong, the pounding was as loud as ever. But it all ended when our heads hit the pillow.

Oh boy! What did we do today? (Well, you COULD just go and read #123 over again!) That’s NOT to say it wasn’t another ‘red-letter’ day here. There’s not many things I like better than sitting next to Sue for the better part of a day, she reading quietly without interrupting phone calls or looking up recipes and putzing around in the kitchen, me coding on my computer and listening to Jeffrey Foucault and Leon Russell and Linda Ronstadt all mixed together into one incredible playlist. Good coffee in the morning. A little action on the street below every once in a while to help you remember to get up and relax your shoulders and take a look at the beautiful city outside your balcony. Lunch. Nice bread, with layers of ham, mayo and mustard, avocado, and now with a new twist — aged cheddar! — on top. A handful of spicy chips on the side. A glass of that elixir that is Pilsner Urquell. You might think that the afternoon could only be a let-down after such a mountain-top experience. Nope. More of the same. Throw in a Facetime call with the kids who are watching the snow melt on the deck in our backyard and now you’re probably starting to get envious. The programming has a few detours and bumps, but never so bad that I couldn’t find my way back on track, ultimately ending up where I was hoping to get to. No crises. No interruptions. No obligations. And that playlist is still feeding us one great song after another, connecting the now with a memory from the past — occasionally you just need to take your hands off the keyboard and listen closely and wipe a few tears.

As the afternoon sun began its slow slide into the ocean we finally pulled ourselves away from our sanctuary and headed out into the evening. They are setting up tents and scaffolding along the Main Road, getting ready for tomorrow’s “Cape Town Carnival“, which includes a two-and-a-half hour parade that will end at our corner tomorrow night. We head to the V&A. Sue wants to shop. I decide to stay out of her way and buy a ticket to see a movie, “Knight of Cups”, which, it turns out, is the most impenetrable, indecipherable, abstract load of crap I’ve had the pleasure of walking out of in quite a long time. So I go for a walk and end up ‘rediscovering’ the way into the Waterfront we used to take when we hung around here in 2002.

I meet Sue at the San Marcos restaurant back at the V&A. It’s a lovely evening. Lots of people out tonight — and as we eat our pizzas we talk about how ‘everybody’ should come here at least once in their life — such a cosmopolitan, sophisticated but relaxed, BEAUTIFUL place in the world! We each eat half our pizza, get the rest boxed, and walk back to our apartment. Short-sleeves, shorts, sandals, even now at night. (I STILL have not worn either of the two pairs of long pants I packed for these three months. How is it that even when we think we know how to pack light we still over-packed!) Mike, the self-appointed car parking attendant, is back on our street and wishes us a ‘good evening’ and asks how our day was. How our day was? Yeah well, I already told YOU how our day was.

We went for a long walk on the promenade again this morning. We had gone a few kilometres when I started feeling a bit weak. A little shaky. Was it because I stayed up too late last night? Or maybe I just need a bit of energy. We were near the the big public swimming pool where there are quite a few small food booths, so I sat down at one of the picnic tables there and ate a delicious crepe with nutella and bananas. That cured whatever it was that ailed me!

When we got back we went grocery shopping. After lunch I worked on a website while Sue finished reading her bookclub book, “The Woman Upstairs” (4 stars from Sue). The kids Facetimed a bit.

I went to pick up sushi for supper. It was starting to get windy — the forecast is for LOTS of wind tonight. On the way to the restaurant I met my new friend Mike, the ‘parking guy’ from down on our street. He’d been ordered off our street by one of the security guards from the apartment across from us who was going to call the cops if Mike didn’t leave. Mike saw me, called hello to me, asked my how I was doing. He was on his way to the beach — he’ll sleep there tonight. Maybe he’ll try coming back to our street again tomorrow night. He was all matter-of-fact about it!

Sue and I ate our supper and then doddled around some more until around 9pm. I Skyped with my parents. Then I queued up another Netflix documentary, “The Hunting Ground”, and we watched that. Had another Skype with Ed and Val in Gold Canyon. It was midnight when we went to bed.