Tree

The stormy weather that prevented our trip out to Robben Island (top tip: always believe the Harbour Master) also brought down a tree in the neighbourhood. A big one, too. Maybe 20m of oak, now lying right across one of the roads. There was much oohing and ahhing on the local WhatsApp group, and a couple of lines thanking the Deity of the day for not letting the big tree fall on anyone foolish enough to be out and about during the horrible overnight weather, and for it missing any houses or parked cars.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tree has not gone anywhere and is still blocking that road some 15 hours later though, and I’m left wondering if the allegedly omnipotent being responsible for the tree coming down safely, ended His/Their involvement at that helpful “not maiming or killing anyone” point, and therefore stopped some way short of preventing any ongoing inconvenience caused by the tree falling as it did.

But we’re told that these big guys upstairs – whichever one(s) you choose to believe in – work in ways in which our puny human brains cannot comprehend. So maybe the ongoing, annoying detour to get out of our local area is there for a good reason (I mean above and beyond the several tonnes of wood blocking the quicker way).

Or maybe there’s some other reason, unrelated to sky fairies.

One thing worth noting is that the oak trees in the neighbourhood were assessed as healthy by the City’s experts back in February. So either the wind was completely off the scale last night (it was pretty breezy), or this oak somehow fooled the tree doctor earlier in the year.

Anyway, there’s plenty of firewood readily available if you’re willing to put in a little bit of hard graft befoe the City turn up, whenever that might be.

The Perfect Storm?

It’s Spring Day tomorrow in South Africa. The unofficial start of the good weather that will last through until next July, allowing us to enjoy braais, beers by the pool and some dreadful home performances by the nation’s cricket team. But winter had one last throw of the dice and scored a lucky 7 with a particularly evil cold front which came through on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty nasty, as the SA Weather Service warned us:

Gale force westerly winds (35kt/65km/h) are expected in places over the Western Cape on Saturday. Strong-gale to storm strength winds (in excess of 80km/h) are expected along the Western Cape Coast. Very rough seas with destructive waves in excess of 7m, coinciding with spring high tides, are expected along the Western Cape coast. Heavy falls of rain are expected in places over the western parts of the Western Cape on Saturday. Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected to set in over the western parts of the Western and Northern Cape Saturday evening. Snowfalls are expected over the western high ground of the Western Cape as well as the south-western high ground of the Northern Cape from Saturday evening into Sunday morning.

Lovely. Thanks for that.
I did pop out on Saturday afternoon, but after almost dying on a tree-lined stretch of road near our house when large chunks of the trees started lining the stretch of road around my car, I declined to go out again.
Until this morning, when a promise of decreasing wind, together with a hint of sunshine and a morbid curiosity to see what was left of Cape Town tempted us down to Mouille Point and Three Anchor Bay.

        

        
Stormy scenes at Mouille Point: see more at flickr (and videos too!)

The worrying thing was that these pictures were taken about 4 hours before high tide – and a spring tide at that. I’m due back in Sea Point on Tuesday and I will be very interested to see if it’s actually still there.

Want more pics? Click here.