Category: this is south africa

Team GB

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But probably not the one you’re thinking about.

It’s been a busy weekend, but we still found time to finally make that ginger beer that we’ve been promising to make since… well… ages. And it is delicious.
We used this recipe from the Scrumptious blog and the kids had a whale of a time zesting lemons, stirring buckets of ingredients and helping to bottle the stuff before bedtime.

This morning – happy to note that none of our bottles had exploded overnight – I released the pressure before sticking them in the fridge and going and running around on a football pitch for an hour or more. When I came back, the young workers popped one open and: wow.
The ginger is actually rather understated, but as a refreshing lemonade-style drink, it’s an absolute winner. Almost half of our 5 litre stash has gone already. I suspect that the remaining 50% will struggle to make Tuesday.

In short, it’s simple and it’s delicious. An absolute must for summer.

Solitude

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sol·i·tude

[sol-i-tood, -tyood]
noun
the state of being or living alone; seclusion: to enjoy one’s solitude.

And the name of a er… two person tent currently on promotion at Cape Union Mart.

Channelling Sickboy from Trainspotting, “the biggest misnomer since Pussy Galore”.

Don’t miss next month’s offer, the “Crowd” one person sleeping bag.

5 Rooms – 5 Stars

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We went out dining last night, down to 5 Rooms at the Alphen Hotel (which actually is in Constantia) and we had a great meal.

The Alphen has history oozing from every Cape Dutch pore and there are heaps of pictures and photos on the walls documenting those who have lived and visited there. But they’re interspersed by huge contemporary pieces as well. It’s a theme carried through into the lighting. Huge original chandeliers hang alongside modern shades, occasionally dwarfing them completely. It gives a curious, almost theatrical feel to the place.

In the same vein, the atmosphere is further enhanced by the in-your-face music straight out of a chilled afternoon in an Ibiza bar [example], filling the small, intimate 17th century rooms with energy and life.

The restaurant – presumably so named since it occupies five separate rooms (I counted and they didn’t include the bathrooms – perhaps an oversight?) – has a well-stocked bar at its heart, with a drunk Englishman (not me) telling the barman how to identify and reject under-ripe limes, and Peroni and Castle on draught. The Rose Bar round the back also has Black Label and Milk Stout on tap. So that’s my summer evenings sorted, then.

The service was supreme, from booking through the welcome to the table service and the food didn’t disappoint. Mrs 6000 started with the Norwegian salmon and followed it up with the superb veal, served with pesto souffle wrapped in sweet potato and greens. I chose the duck pâté (roasted pistachio nuts, blood orange jelly and potato crisps) to begin with and then moved onto the remarkable value of the seafood platter – linefish, mussels, calamari, a tiger prawn and a crayfish tail – for R159. Excellent stuff.
That main course was part of their winter specials list though, so you’d better get in there sooner rather than later. Spring is almost gesprung.
[Update – Winter Specials are on until 30 September 2012]

The desserts were equally special. A delicious crème brûlée with refreshing berries and a terrifyingly sharp sugar nest for me and a trio of truffles served with frozen grapes (“they’re like, grapes, but frozen”) and a shot of Patrón for the other half (Mrs 6000 will do most anything for a shot of Patrón, so nothing else on the dessert menu really stood a chance).

The wine list isn’t huge, but there’s some very decent stuff on there. As an irregular (at best) white wine drinker, I was particularly impressed with my 2011 Professor Black Sauvignon Blanc from Warwick Estate.

It wasn’t a cheap evening, but as the Fund Manager reminded us last week at Hussar “this is what you pay to eat out these days”. However, I do think that it did represent really good value.

We’ll certainly be back at 5 Rooms, and as I mentioned, we’ll probably spend a few decent sunny evenings in the Rose Bar.
If this is representative of the rest of the hotel’s offerings, then The Alphen is fully deserving of its 5 star rating.

Heavy task, big ask

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It’s been one of those days. Little problems stacking up to make for one big headache:
A loony driver at Koeberg interchange, a rude lady in the parking lot at Canal Walk, experiments not bloody working like they’re supposed to, email issues, poor service from local companies (x3),  the utter, utter disaster that is the “new” M5 south, some “challenging” behaviour from the kids and then finally sitting down to write this blog post and the chair (possibly booby-trapped by my wife?) snapping and sending me left shoulder first into the tiled floor.

It was a full on Nhlanhla Nene moment:

After a day like that, still sitting on the cold, cold floor and with an internet connection which is bordering on the not connected, I trust that you’ll excuse my reluctance to actually produce anything reasonable or worthwhile. Nhlanhla Nene didn’t bother getting up and neither shall I.

Tomorrow will be a better day. Fewer problems. Greater governability.

Conspansion

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Remember back in January when I described an evening out at Societi Brasserie? Of course you do.

Societi Brasserie claimed that evening to be in “Constantia”, where it isn’t.
Now, for those of you outside the Mother City, wikipedia describes Constantia as:

an affluent suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, situated about 15 kilometres south of the centre of Cape Town

and that’s a perfectly reasonable representation of the place. It’s green, leafy, pleasant. It’s posh. And that’s why people want to be there. Not least the ANCYL, who earlier this week named Constantia as one of the places that they wanted land:

Yozi singled out Constantia and the Rondebosch Common as land that could be given to the province’s poor.

(you may remember Yozi from this post about extra holidays) (but I digress) (often).

Constantia is sought after. Having the name in your address adds an extra 25% to your house price and a certain something to your standing. And perhaps that’s why so many places claim to be there, when they’re actually somewhere else. If we choose to believe these places, then it’s not hard to see that Constantia, like the Universe, is expanding. I’m calling this phenomenon “Conspansion”.
And I saw some more of it while eating steak at the Hussar Grill last night:

Yes folks, Steenberg Village is now in Constantia. Not Westlake (where it is) or Tokai (where it’s near), but Constantia.

That’s Conspansion right there.

How quickly is this Conspansion taking place? Well, here’s a handy map to help you out:

If you look towards the top left of the map, then you’ll see Constantia labelled clearly as “Constantia”. That’s where Constantia is and where it’s been since the mid 1600s.

You may then note its progress south, to Nova Constantia and Belle Constantia, the latter of which I found first reference to in a document from the 1850s. I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations and it seems to me that the rate of Conspansion was about 1km in two centuries. That’s about 0.005km per year.

Let’s consider now the period from 1850 to January 2012, when I was at Societi Brasserie. So about 162 years in total, and Constantia expanded by about 3km. That’s a conspansion rate of 0.019km per year – about four times as quick as the previous two centuries. The warning signs were there – we just didn’t see them.

Until now.

Because last night, as I mentioned above, I noted that Constantia has now expanded as far as Steenberg Village – a further 700m south from Societie in Tokai… er… Constantia. 700m in 7 months.

Suddenly, we’re faced with the terrifying scenario whereby conspansion has not only topped the threshold level of 1km per year, standing at 1.21km per year, but also that the rate of increase is an incredible 6268.42%.
“Ish just got real”, I believe is the appropriate modern terminology.

If Conspansion continues unchecked at these rates, soon all of the peninsular will be Constantia. Forecasts as to what exactly will happen then are mixed. While some experts believe that Conspansion with stop at Cape Point lighthouse in Constantia, the majority suggest that we will witness an ever faster Conspansion moving eastward, beginning with the gentrification of Retreat, Lavender Hill and Mitchell’s Plain before Nyanga and Khayelitsha are swept up in an all encompassing Constantia.

Tony, Yozi – stop with the protests and marches. Stop with the violence. Just be patient. You don’t need to come to Constantia – Constantia is coming to you.

This isn’t just service delivery, it’s suburb delivery.

And by my reckoning, it’ll be there by February next year. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Lovely.
Then we can all be friends and neighbours. And you can stop stoning cars on the N2 in Constantia.

Please forward me any examples of Conspansion so that I can update my database accordingly.