Author: Rudy

Made coffee and had breakfast. Sat around for a couple of hours, working on logos while Sue did laundry. There was a bit of excitement here for a while — I went out to see what all the kerfuffle was all about and learned that there were 2 cobra snakes on top of our roof! Dangerous, too. At least that’s what the girl in the hallway said to me. And her boyfriend was on the phone calling some snake charmer to come and get rid of it. And SHE was calling the SPCA to do the same. And then here comes Warren, the maintenance man, and he too is all excited about the snakes. And down on the street there’s a small crowd gathering on the sidewalk, and they’re pointing at our roof and gesturing away. And the girl in the hallway says that it’s that time of year here, and the snakes are up on the mountain but these two apparently came down into the city and found their way up onto our roof! It makes no sense to me. Warren and the girl head downstairs and out onto the road up the street. The boyfriend and I follow. As we get to the next apartment block we look up and there, about 6 stories up, someone is calling down to us from an open window. “What’s going on down there?” Can you see it? “See what?” There’s two snakes on the roof of our building! “Yeah, I see ’em. You mean those toy snakes?” Toy snakes? “Yeah, they’re just toy snakes!” Well, that figures! It just didn’t make any sense that cobras would crawl up onto the top of our building — what’s there for them? Excitement’s over. The group of onlookers on the sidewalk heard what the guy in the window said and disperse. Everyone feels like an idiot. I see the ‘head’ of one of the toy snakes hanging over the edge of the roof. It’s not moving.

At around 10:30 Sue and I head out. We’re going to walk the Sea Point promenade again. It’s cloudy and cooler today. NOTHING like it’s been here for the past 2 weeks. Great temperature for a long walk. Half an hour into the walk I ask Sue if she has her bus pass. Oh no, I forgot it! Okay, I guess we’re walking all the way home then. Which we do, but we come back along the Main Road instead of along the coast. That way we can stop and browse through a couple of very impressive large grocery stores — and see the fresh muffins on the bakery shelves and smell the coffees in the fancy coffee shops. And keep walking. The 8.5 kms took us a couple of hours to walk, what with all the stops.

Sue made some super sandwiches for our lunch. The rest of the afternoon I was on the computer and Sue was reading. And at one point she says, if old retired people like us can’t spend the day doing nothing but going for a walk and then sitting in the comfort of their home and reading — well, what else is ‘retirement’ about anyway!

At around 4 my computer interrupts me with a FaceTime call — Max and Alex! It was great to visit with them. Then, after our usual happy hour, I went out to the Asian restaurant around the corner and ordered sushi takeout. I didn’t really know what I was all ordering, but when I brought it home and opened up all the containers it turned out pretty good!

And then it was time for the movies. Today I wanted to watch Mad Max: Fury Road. I didn’t REALLY want to watch it — the preview looked like crap. I hadn’t even really heard or seen much about the movie, but now that I have the list of Oscar nominees I noted that this movie was nominated for TEN academy awards, including Best Picture! So really, I felt obliged to see it. Sue had already said she wasn’t at all interested, and I had offered to watch it alone, but now we figured we should at least give it a try. We are old, but not so old that we can’t try new things even if we THINK we won’t like them. Kind of like sushi.

Well, I’m all for relaxing and enjoying the passing of time, but after about 30 minutes of that movie we both couldn’t take it any more! Even RETIRED people don’t have time for that kind of make believe nonsense. And we really did try! But this was such DRIVEL…

So we stopped that movie, and started up another one — Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. Nothing to action-packed here either! In fact we had to pay attention and follow along with the subtitles. It was WAY better than that first film. But even so, by 9:30 we were both getting too sleepy to continue. So we put it on pause — we’ll finish it another time — and headed for bed. That’s what RETIRED people do.

Got up, made coffee, read the news. Sue made breakfast and wondered why I don’t ever mention the f-f-f-FABulous (Millie’s expression) fruit we eat here in South Africa. And right while she was saying that I was thinking, “What exactly does Sue think is so great about fresh papaya and bananas?” We’re such a good couple…

After breakfast Sue read her book and I worked on a website. Just before 11 we headed out; destination: Bree Street in the City Centre. Google Maps said it was 2.2 kms to get to the part of town where all the ‘cool’ restaurants were. But we stopped at some kitchen stores and some grocery stores along the way and it was probably close to noon by the time we had walked most of the way up Bree Street and decided on a lunch place. And that’s how we found ourselves sitting at a small outdoor table on the sidewalk in front of Bacon on Bree. Guess what they serve there? Well, the folks sitting next to us got a couple of plates with HUMUNGOUS burgers on them — and bacon spilling out from all sides of the bun. I was tempted, but Sue nixed that idea. So we looked at the ‘Breakfast’ choices. And ordered the first two on the menu, eggs and toast for Sue, and some kinda Mexican bean breakfast with a sausage for me (no need for ‘toast’ — bread is much too fattening for me anyway).

So if the Canadian dollar ever goes back up a bit and the hog farmers in Manitoba find themselves needing a new market for their pork, well… I know Ed has ‘schracklich fail schwien’ in his barns, but this bacon joint was serving it up like it was as cheap as oil in Alberta!

On the way home we stopped at some of those stores we’d “browsed through” on our way up and Sue bought a few knick-knacks for the kitchen. Then, once we got close to home, I went to the Ultra Bottle Shop and got a couple of 6-packs of Pilsner Urquell and Sue went to the butcher shop to get some skewers of lamb and beef for tonight’s supper. We got into the apartment at 2:30 — we’d walked just over 7 kms, had a great lunch, and were all set for our supper to boot!

Sue finished her book, Fifteen Dogs, and started her next one. I got going on a new website. No nap today. At around 6:30 it was time for supper. Sue cooked some manicotti and cauliflower while I barbecued the beef and lamb on the ‘braai‘ on our balcony. (The two university boys we golfed with the other day told us that actually a ‘real’ braai involves charcoal, and what we have is just a ‘wannabe’ braai!)

When Sue had the dishes all cleaned away it was time for our evening matinee. Tonight’s feature film was Brooklyn, nominated for 3 Academy Awards. Sue said it was a ‘sappy story’, but she sure enjoyed crying most of the way through it. After the movie we watched CBC’s “The National” on my computer and had some yogurt for dessert. And that’s the way it was today in Cape Town.

After a late night (I stayed up to watch a quarter and a half of the Carolina-Arizona NFL game last night — by which time it was clear that the Panthers would win easily), I slept in a bit this morning. But by 8 o’clock we were sitting in our usual spots drinking our morning Aeropress coffee.

I spent the rest of the day working on some projects on my computer. Sue read. After yesterday’s cloud and rain, the sun was out again today, although not as hot as it’s been. And Sue had had enough of looking out our streaky windows at the action on the street below — she got out a big pail and a bunch of her special micro-fibre cloths and cleaned our windows. And blinds. And now it’s bright and shiny in our place and if you don’t notice the difference then Sue will tell you about it. We made a quick trip to the corner Ultra to buy more libations before lunch.

After we’d eaten our sandwiches we had more of the same: reading and computing. And all that work can really tucker you out — so we had naps too. After my nap Sue and I went down to the Main Road and bought ourselves some ‘ready-to-eat’ meals from the always-busy Giovanni’s Deli just around the corner. Sue zapped our dinners in the microwave and we washed down our fish and chicken dinners with some of that famous South African ‘pinotage’ we’d bought earlier in the day.

And then it was movie time again. First, “45 Years”, a lovely British film — quiet and complex, starring Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling (who is nominated for a Best Actress oscar). We followed that up with the movie “Youth”, starring Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine — and although the movie LOOKED fantastic and had a marvellous soundtrack (a song from the movie is nominated for a Best Song oscar) it was just a little too obtuse and weird for our liking.

And that brought us to the end of another great day in Cape Town.

Light cloud cover this morning as we drove to the golf course — we took the car because we wanted to take our clubs home so we can go to one of the other courses here in Cape Town this week. We had a tee time for 8:17. We were paired up with a couple of young university boys from Stellenbosch. The 20-year-old was a big strapping rugby player; his 23-year-old brother was smaller, but could out-drive the athlete. I finally figured out that the ‘yardage’ on the golf courses here are not ‘yards’ — they are meters. No wonder I was consistently short with my shots. But that made it all the more impressive to watch these two guys hit their drives! On the 16th par 4 the tees were 300 meters from the middle of the green. We’d already witnessed each of the guys drive the green a couple of times — on this hole Heinrich didn’t wait for the foursome ahead to walk off the green and put his 301 meter tee shot just past the hole. The group ahead were not overly impressed, but I sure was!

We got back to our apartment around 1 o’clock. Some of the roads around the big soccer stadium were cordoned off so we had to drive the long way around to get home. As we ate our lunch we watched and listened to the throngs of fans driving past our building on their way to the big Sunday afternoon soccer game. Lots of singing, cheering, honking, and ‘vuvuzelaying‘. Sue read all afternoon and finished her book, ‘Cool Water’. I had a nap.

At around 5 we had a short FaceTime with our kids — they were just sitting down for bacon and eggs. Then we headed out for supper. And we took our sweaters with us! That is a first since we arrived here. It was actually cooling off a bit! We went to Hudson’s, a very busy hamburger restaurant a few blocks from our place. Pretty good. We stopped for gelato on the way home.

Back at home I hooked up my computer to the TV and we watched the movie “Sicario”. Pretty good. It was eleven o’clock when we finished the movie. I turned off the TV. I heard some dripping noises coming from the open window — hey, it’s drizzling. Then I found a video stream online of the first of 2 NFL playoff games on the computer. By 11:30 it was actually raining pretty hard outside! The farmers and the golf courses around here will be VERY happy with that. And it will nicely wash the streets and sidewalks clean.

It was 1:30AM when the backup quarterback for the Denver Broncos (Peyton Manning) finally took his team to the Superbowl, beating Tom Brady’s Patriots in a close game — worth staying up late to watch!

News of the day: Tim’s sister Carrie had a baby girl!

I went to the bakery to buy a fresh loaf of bread this morning — to go with the bacon and eggs Sue made for breakfast. Then it was time to clean up the place. Sue swept the deck, washed the floors, cleaned the barbecue. By the time that was done it was time for lunch! Leftover pizza from last night — just as good the second time around.

After lunch we went for another long walk around Green Point Park. We again ended up at the V&A Mall. I went to see a movie (“The Revenant”) while Sue shopped for sandals (she’d heard the movie was quite violent and didn’t want to see it). The movie was more than 2.5 hours long (but excellent!) and when I came out of the theatre there was Sue sitting and having a nice big cappuccino in the theatre’s cafe. We went out into the big square outside the mall — the sun was warm, but not as hot as it has been here most days. People were enjoying the live music and watching the children playing.

We walked back to the apartment, making a pit-stop at the butcher shop to pick up half a dozen skewers of chicken. After happy hour and then got supper ready — our first ‘Braai’ (that’s what they call a BBQ in South Africa). And that little Weber on our deck did a very nice job! We ate out on the deck too, watching the people and cars going by, a refreshing cool breeze coming in from the ocean, listening to music emanating from some of the cars on the street and other apartments around us — we sat out there until the sun was down and the (nearly) full moon was shining brightly.

And then it was time to go inside and crank up another movie, “Trumbo”. It was 11 o’clock when the movie ended — and time to go to bed. Got an early start again tomorrow: 8 o’clock tee time at the Metropolitan.

After breakfast we went out for a long walk — first to the Green Point lighthouse (behind the golf course) and then all the way back to the V&A waterfront mall. We tried one of the four ATMs in front of the Pick’nPay store in the lower level and were able to take out 5000 Rand — 2 thousand more than the maximum allowed on any of the ATMs around our place. Plus, we were relieved to know that our bank card was working again. I also bought a lighter adapter so we could charge my iPhone in the car — and avoid running out of battery with our ‘GPS’ next time we take a drive. Just after the noon cannon shook the place (really! it’s up on the hill behind our apartment and you can hear it all over Cape Town), we headed back home.

After lunch (sandwich for me and some kind of homemade rice concoction Sue made for herself), we took our maps and my new USB-lighter-charger and went down to the garage.

Our destination was Stellenbosch. Along the way we stopped to check out 2 golf courses not far from our place — Mowbray and Rondebosch. Both had plenty of ‘public’ tee times available. So that is an option for us as we move forward.

Then we drove past some SERIOUS shanty-towns and made our way out to Stellenbosch, about 45 minutes away. Once there, we parked near the tourist information centre and wandered into the centre of town. There is a big shopping area downtown — and as strolled around we remembered some of the shops and the layout of the mall and the adjacent parking lot from when we were here in the fall of 2001, staying in Franschhoek and would make day trips to Stellenbosch.

After a couple of big cappuccinos and a McFlurry at the McCafe we headed into the mall and wandered around until we found the Woolworths store. Sue was looking for sandals. Eventually we got out of there and found our way back to the Volvo. We google ‘Home’ and the darn phone guides us back to Cape Town, then THROUGH Cape Town, and up along the ‘High Street’ behind our place, and right into our garage. Whew!

We had our happy hour on the deck and then I queued up one of my movie downloads. After we’d watched our movie (“Anomolisa”) we headed out into town — and found ourselves in another of the many restaurants on our street. We ordered mussels, an avocado salad, and shared a pizza — after all, it’s Friday night.

Back at our house we sat at our devices for a while. Opened the patio door to let a big breeze blow some moderating temperatures through the apartment.

I wrote my nightly blog entry, but I must have been sleeping while I was doing it! When I suddenly sat up, awake again, and read what I’d just written, I had NO idea what or why I’d written that — and some of it made no sense at all! I read it aloud to Sue. She laughed and said I’d better “un-post” it. Which I did. I fixed it up a bit and “saved” it, and quickly headed off to bed before I had any second thoughts about what I just “published”.

Woke up at 6, had a quick breakfast, and then hurried across the Main Road and the 10-minute walk to ‘our’ golf course. This morning we bought a 10-pack of ‘vouchers’ at the Metropolitan Golf Club. That gets us a discount for the next 5 outings. The morning was very pleasant — not too hot, a light cool ocean breeze. We were joined on the first tee by Simon, a young man originally from London, now working and living here in Green Point. We had a fairly slow round, but did quite a bit of visiting along the way. On the second fairway, after a very good (for me) drive, I took out my 3-wood and crushed the ball. Unfortunately I also crushed the wing and ribcage of one of the many big birds that were sitting and grazing on the course — not only did my ball stay right there on the grass, about 15 yards from where I’d hit it, but I think that poor bird won’t have survived much more than another day.

By the time we finished our 18 holes it was quite a bit warmer. We stayed at the clubhouse for lunch and then walked back home. Gin & tonics and a couple of Netflix episodes of Narcos — only two left and we’ve completed our first series.

We left the apartment at around 4:30 — Sue had a short grocery list. I wanted to take out more cash — but the ATMs didn’t like my card today. We used up almost all of our cash to pay for the groceries. On the way home we were met by Warren, our ‘maintenance’ man at the apartment. Now HE needed a bit of cash to pay for his electricity at home! But we are OUT of cash! Back inside our apartment Sue managed to ‘find’ some extra Rands and ran downstairs to give that to Warren.

So, instead of picking something up for supper, Sue ate her leftover Thai food and made me a sandwich and salad. That was okay too. We called the SCU to ask about our debit card — but all seems to be in order. We’ll try that again tomorrow.

After supper, at around 7pm, we settled into our usual spots and finished watching the ‘Narcos’ series. After that Sue sat and read while I did some computer work. Went to bed early — tired.

I got up early this morning (6am), not because I had anything to look forward to (like golf), but just because. I checked the hot water — still working! — and called the plumbing company who came to check on it yesterday to let them know it was working. “Great,” says the lady who answered the phone. “Call us next time if you have problems again.” Okay! Thanks so much for coming to check on it! “It was our plizha,” she says.

Did you hear that? THAT’S what makes this place so great! We Canadians might have said, “No problem,” but here they say it was a PLEASURE (and they say it with that cool South African accent).

After breakfast Sue and I looked at some other courses that we might golf at in the next week or two. Sue had finally had it with the dead plants in the planters on our balcony, so she got a big garbage bag and ripped them out. Before lunch we went out to do a bit of shopping: more sunscreen, more beer, more cheese.

Right after lunch Sue figured out how to use the washer and did a load of laundry. It’s a new energy efficient machine, so it took a long time to do a load. No dryer, but a big drying rack in one of the closets got set up in our living room and I left our ceiling fan on high when we left the house a little after 2pm.

We went down to the V&A mall. I was looking for a cigarette adapter to charge my phone (/GPS) in the car. After doinking around at the mall for a while we continued on around the harbour. Our friends Marina and Helene had mentioned that was a regular once-a-week opportunity to go along for a sailboat ride at the Cape Town sailing club. They forwarded the notice to us:

Spend an evening sailing on one of the Royal Cape Yacht Club’s (RCYC) yachts participating in the Lufthansa Twilight Series. Bring warm clothes and a waterproof jacket.

We had tried to ‘pre-register’ by phone a couple of days ago, but were told to ‘just show up’ at around 4pm and they would register us and we’d be sailing by around 4:30. I’d looked up the location of the yacht club on google maps and since it was only about a 4 or 5 Km walk, Sue thought it would be good exercise for us if we walked there.

So we walked. Well, the walk along the harbour wasn’t anything like walking around at the Waterfront or the V&A Mall! No decent sidewalk, lots of big trucks, dirty streets, metal fencing, etc — in other words, a WORKING harbour. It wasn’t as hot today as it had been for the past few, but it was still plenty warm. By the time we finally arrived (safely) at the yacht club, we were hot, sweaty, and thirsty. And a bit too early to register. Okay, let’s go sit in the bar and cool off.

It seemed that ‘registering’ wasn’t as simple as it seemed. I had put our names on a list, but we were about the 15th on the list, and it looked like we might not get to go! Sure, people ahead (and some who’d registered AFTER us) were getting ‘picked’ — but most of them were either ‘experienced sailors’ or cute girls. And because the winds were VERY strong today (last Wednesday they had cancelled the event because of high winds, and the screen in the lobby showed everything after 1pm today was “in the red zone” — so quite a few boats were opting NOT to go out today.

WELL! This did NOT sit well with Sue. We had NOT walked all this way only to get shutout! I urged her to go stand in the lobby and smile at the old sailors and maybe we’d still have a chance. And besides, if it’s too windy to sail, do you REALLY want to be out on the ocean? Well, if we’re not going sailing then we’re WALKING all the way back! Gulp. Okay, I’ll go see what I can do.

And just when we were more or less resigned to a long hot walk back to the apartment, this tiny old lady comes up to us and asks, “Would you like to sail?” Yes! Okay, follow me.

And before you know it we are on a steel 34-foot boat named ‘Cabaray’, with Ray and Liz Matthews, and Christian (a German) and Alan (English). And we are the ‘guests’. And while there is some question as to whether the race will even begin, we will be ready! We no sooner are on the boat and we’re taking sails out and rigging the sheets and a whole bunch of other ‘sailor’ things. And we’re backing out of our slip. And heading out into the open bay. With lots of other boats. It appears the race is on. Did I say race? Oh yes, this is a race. Ray says there are about 80 boats entered, but probably only about 50 will race today. And we are in a class with 7 other similar boats, and will be starting with the second-last group. And while we wait for the start signal we jockey around on the big waves for position — not so close to the start line so as to be OVER when the horn sounds, but also not in the middle of a ‘granny tack’ where we’re facing the wrong direction!

And then we’re off! and it’s a GREAT start. We’re in perfect position. The wind is violent and we’ve had to take the sails down several feet in order to not be ‘over-sailed’. But we are flying. Well, actually we’re keeled over big time — one rail is regularly under water and we are getting soaked with sea spray. But Ray and Allen and Christian are working their butts off, cranking and pulling and ‘coming about’ and not at all worried about the gale force winds. Sue and I are smiling — this is WAY more action than we had bargained for. We didn’t really think it would be an evening ‘cruise’, but by now my palms are raw from pulling ropes and my knees are skinned from running back and forth on top of the boat, raising and then folding the big sails, trying to stay out of the way but helping when it seemed I was needed. This is REAL sailing! I want to get my phone out of Sue’s bag, which is down in the hold, but the sailor quickly advise against it: “Cameras and sea salt are not a good combination.” So the reader will just have to believe me that we were in some mighty big winds, doing our best to lean a keeled-over boat upright, looking out at a lot of other boats fighting to stay perpendicular to the waterline, and not really enough time to consider whether this was fun or scary!

Did I say gale force winds? We had just rounded the first marker and were not sailing WITH the wind (a TERRIFIC start — and about that time Liz mentioned to Sue that LAST YEAR we won the trophy!) when 3 loud bursts of the horn put an end to the race. “They’ve called the race. Too much wind.” Shoot! What now? Do we take down the sails? No, says Christian, let’s sail her back to the docks. So we ‘fly’ home — our speedometer reads more than 7 knots, plus we have a 23 knot wind (30 knots, says Allen, is officially a ‘gale’!). We are really moving.

And that’s about the time our adventure started. We were close to home base when all of a sudden the engine stopped. Oh oh. Our experienced captain (we learned later that he is actually the commodore of the yacht club!) didn’t waste any time. “Hoist the gib!” he shouts. But Allen, who has just carefully taken down the front sail and nicely wrapped it and tied it up, doesn’t respond. He later explains that he did not know we had no engine, so it didn’t make any sense to him to put the sail back up. But now we had NOTHING! Except a huge wind blowing our boat STRAIGHT INTO THOSE BIG ROCKS that protect the harbour! Too late for the sail. Next Ray comes running to the front of the boat, dragging a big heavy old anchor. DROP THE ANCHOR! NOW! But first Christian cuts the sheet from the gib and ties it to the anchor. And then we have to fasten the other end of the rope to the boat. And all the while the winds are getting more violent, the waves are spraying us even more, and the big boulders on the shoreline are getting closer.

Ray gets on his radio, announces that we’ve lost power and need help. He signals to the boats coming into the channel behind us. Soon another big sailboat comes up alongside us, cuts in front of us, swings wildly around towards us on the other side — and CRACKS up against our boat. Everyone on both boats is reaching and pushing away and throwing ropes to try to get towed. But the wind is too rough and we can’t manage it. The other boat pulls away and we continue to drift. It tries again, and this time Christian manages to throw a rope that the guys on the other boat can catch — but ours is a STEEL boat, it’s heavy, and the other boat can’t pull us in this wind. In fact, now THAT boat is in danger of hitting the rocks. They manage to roar away, back into relative safety of the open water.

And now it’s too late for us. Our starboard side bangs up against the wall of rocks. We can hear the keel below crunching on rocks. And then we bob up and down, back off a bit, and bash back up against the rocks. Allen and I are near the front of the boat — feet pushing against the rocks as hard as we can to keep one particularly sharp edge from piercing the side of the boat. Christian is trying to tie bumpers all along the side of the boat to protect it — but the boat shifts forward and back and the bumpers don’t line up with the rocks. More boats come to try to help — but it’s too dangerous for other sailboats to come this close to shore in these rough waters. Eventually a big ‘coast guard’ type of motor boat arrives. But it too can’t tow us off the rocks. And it has trouble getting close enough to us.

Finally a big orange inflatable boat with two big engines in the back and a full crew of ‘rescue’ guys in full wet suits and life jackets arrive. I didn’t really believe that would work, but it did. They pulled us off the rocks, so our boat ‘backed’ off, and the front swung around one last time, clanking against the wall of rocks, and then we were free. Ray kept asking Liz to go down below and see if we were taking on water. By now he had unpacked brand new never-been-used lifejackets and insisted we each put one on. Once we were free from the rocks and ‘safely’ out in open water again, the other motorboat came back and threw us a tow rope. They pulled us all the way to the pier, passing huge brand new catamarans and yachts, many destined for shipment to Florida and the Caribbean. There were about a dozen sailors waiting at the dock, helping to tie our boat up. Even here, the winds made this no small job.

As we were getting towed into the bay, I was thinking about the damage to the boat (and even to the boat that hit us earlier) and I commented to Allen that “sailing is a rich man’s sport”. Allen smiled and said, “You know what they say: If you want to know what it feels like to be a sailor, go stand in a cold shower and burn money!”

Sue and I made our way up the ramp and walked into the yacht club. There was a huge party going on there! I guess 50 or so boats, most with 6 or more people aboard, and the race finished before it really even started — well, 300 people were going to stick around and enjoy themselves. So we did too.

Big beers, cheap hamburgers, and even a guest lecture by a guy who had sailed a sailboat from Cape Town to Argentina, then to South Georgia to climb a mountain, and finally sail back home to Cape Town. Our late arrival back at port meant we missed the lecture. But we had our own story to tell now, and many of the sailors had by now either seen our boat or heard about our problem — so when Ray and Liz and the crew were finally done cleaning up the boat (it will be hoisted out of the sea tomorrow, checked for damage, and they hope it will be racing again next Wednesday night!) and had made it back to the clubhouse — well, they will be telling stories long into the night tonight.

We, on the other hand, were exhausted. Not only windswept and sunburned and feeling dirty with our matted salt-watered hair and icky clothes, but we’re just not used to that much ‘activity’. So we said goodbye to our new friends (who invited and encouraged us to come again next Wednesday!) and went out to find a cab to take us home. But no, here in South Africa people are so kind and friendly. And another ‘friend’, a woman standing in line at the bar with Sue, waiting to be served, offered to give us a ride — and dropped us off right in front of our place. Thanks for the ride!

It was her plizha!

Good morning. What’s on the agenda today? Well, I thought we should take Peter’s car out for a spin.

So mid-morning that’s what we did. Started up the Volvo, drove it out of the garage and turned it south at the intersection. And we’re on the road!

We didn’t really have a plan, but we’d talked about maybe just heading down to Haut Bay and then back home for lunch. Well shoot!, that only took about half an hour and we were just starting to get comfortable! So we pressed on. And soon we were going up and down along the coastline, enjoying some of the most spectacular scenery this side of Chile! The driving was very fast, but we saw probably around a hundred cyclists, and boy!, some of them were coming down the winding passes might fast!

At one point, near Chapman’s Peak, we had to pay a 40 Rand toll, and THEN the road got even more scenic. The Cape’s famous fynbos, growing on steep cliffs, with the road winding up and down, hugging the coastline. Even the rockfall shelters are beautiful!

We were following the M6 highway, which took us across the peninsula and down to False Bay on the other side. We could have continued all the way down to Cape Point at the southern tip, but decided to stop at Simon’s Town for lunch. We parked the car and went across the road to a harbour-front strip of restaurants on the town pier. We enjoyed a big platter of seafood and cold beers, while we looked out at a bay of beautiful sailboats, and were entertained by 5 old black men who were doing a pretty good impression of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. All for about fifteen bucks!

Back in the car after lunch. We took a different, more direct route back to Cape Town. We were using my iPhone with GoogleMaps as our GPS, although the roads and directions were very clearly marked. (Actually the GPS wasn’t the only one telling me how to drive! My co-driver, sitting to my left, was offering constant advice regarding the speed I was driving — I think every time we were in the far-left lane on the four-lane highway she thought I was in the PASSING lane, and forgot that we were in a left-hand traffic country!)

Well, the phone’s GPS served us well, but just as we entered Cape Town, with a drive THROUGH the city left to go, the phone beeped and warned us that the battery was about to go into hibernate-mode. Yikes! No, no, no! Thankfully we managed to get all the way back to our garage before it actually shut down. Whew! I guess I’ll have to go look for a cigarette-lighter adapter before our next drive out into the country.

Back in the apartment I selected a Glenn Frey and Eagles playlist from my music library and hooked up my phone to the stereo. Sue sat on the deck and read. Around 5 o’clock the phone rang. Well actually, A phone rang. I picked up the handset on the kitchen counter — Hello? Hello? — nobody there. I had just sat back down to continue my Eagles reverie when the phone rang again. Again no answer. Huh? Then, while I was standing there looking at the phone, wondering what was going on, a phone rang again! I opened up the door to the storage cabinet under the phone, where the hot water tank is, and there on top of the hot water tank was an old wired in telephone. Hello? Ah, it’s the intercom for the buzzer at the front gate!

I let in the plumber who was here to check on our hot water tank. It only took him a few minutes to deduce that it was the breaker, an electrical problem and not a plumbing problem. So I am to let him know if we have any more hot water issues and if we do he’ll be back with an electrician.

Okay, that’s settled. Time for happy hour out on the patio. G&Ts with a portion of Biltong (for me, some kind of cereal mix for Sue). And then back to our reading and computing. My mom sent me an email complaining that she wasn’t getting enough stories from me! Really? I’m spending half a day at my laptop writing about things we do the other half of the day! So I called her up — and sure enough, they are one day behind on the journal! Oh well, it was good to talk to Mom and Dad — they both seemed to be in good spirits.

At 7pm we went out for supper. Today we turned right at our corner and ended up at a Thai place. It was pretty hot still, so of course we ordered the ‘hot’ chilli paste with our meals. The service was quite relaxed — after a quick gelato from the shop next to the restaurant we got home at 9pm. Just in time for another episode (or two?) of Narcos on Netflix.

In the news: I was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Glenn Frey yesterday. The Eagles created a lot of the music that became the soundtrack of my life. RIP.

I woke up at 6, an hour before what I’d set the alarm for. Checked my phone — did the Broncos beat the Steelers last night? Yes. Email from Mom? Yes. Email from Tim? Yes. And the next thing we get a FaceTime call from Tim — it’s 10 at night back home, but 6am here. Well, I was up anyway. So after a short visit with Tim and Alex, who have moved into our house, I got out of bed and made coffee. We have a 7:49 tee time at the Metropolitan Golf Course today.

We emptied some of the pockets in our golf bags and headed out. It’s not quite 1km to the golf course if we walk through Green Point Park, past the big World Cup soccer stadium.

The temperature was comfortable, but you sensed it would warm up quite a bit yet. We checked in at the clubhouse, Sue had a muffin, and then we were introduced to our playing partner, Charlie, from Scotland. And then off we went to Tee #1.

The Metropolitan Golf Club is actually only a 9-hole course, but you play 18 holes by going around twice, the second time using alternate tee blocks and greens right behind or beside the ones you used for the first time around.

I dribbled my tee shot almost to the ladies tee. “That’s okay. Take a mulligan,” said the Montrealers in the foursome right behind us.

But after a couple of holes things started to fall into place. Not all our shots were long and straight, but most were. And putting was pretty good, too.

We golfed the loop that made up the first 6 holes of each 9, and then we went back under the road and past the clubhouse to play the last 3 holes on the other side of the road. And each time we passed the clubhouse I had to stop and buy another blue Powerade.

By the time we’d walked (and carried our clubs) for 18 holes the sun was directly above us and it was quite warm, although the occasional sea breeze kept things manageable. But my feet were killing me and it was high time for lunch. Charlie said this was his last golf game here — he is flying home on the weekend — so he gave us all the new balls that he had not shot into the water hazards. We asked Basil, the starter, if he would store our clubs in the club storage (for members), which he did. Then we ordered lunch from the club grille. The cheese burger I ordered had neither cheese nor burger, not even a hamburger bun (they were out), but the cook substituted a slab of grilled chicken, laid it on a couple pieces of bread, put it into a plate of fries, and parked it next to my big cold Namibian beer. So that all worked out okay.

We walked home, stopping to buy a loaf of bread along the way. Back home we changed, drank a few gallons of water, then promptly both fell asleep on the couch. Meddach-schlop.

Around 5pm we felt sufficiently refreshed to sit up and look at our devices again. Man, what did we do before the internets? Happy hour on the balcony, watching all the cars go by. Another shower and a bit of suntan lotion (Sue thinks it works retroactively as well) to make my nose a little less red — I got a bit too much sun at the golf course today!

At 8 we went out for supper around the corner to a fancy burger joint. Food and service is just so great here! Sue had ribs and a salad and a glass of nice red wine, I had a burger and a huge beer…

Back home we plopped ourselves onto our couch and got the Netflix started up again. Narcos, episode 3. Let’s see if we can stay awake for another hour…