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.