Gloomy

I mean, we were warned. And that Level 6 warning was upped to a Level 9(!) for the Overberg.

But that was the one of the biggest, wettest storms to hit the Western Cape in the (almost) 20 years that I have lived here. Cape Town was bad (really bad), but a bit further south and east was worse.

Bredasdorp is completely cut off, as are Struisbaai, Arniston and Elim. But that doesn’t make a lot of difference, given that Cape Town to Caledon seems to be impossibly impassable as well. We were planning to go out to Agulhas this coming weekend, but now that all clearly depends on how quickly stuff drains down there.

The N2 has disappeared a bit at Bot River.

The road to Struisbaai

The road to Bredasdorp

Even the alternative routes around these problem areas are closed. Stormsvlei, Napier, Stanford – all no through roads at the moment.

Nearer home, as the weather gradually began to improve, we headed down to the V&A Waterfront, where I took this in the somewhat gloomy light.

No Galaxy A33 5G here. This was taken with an actual camera.

Sunshine tomorrow, we are told. We need it.

Day 706 – Rain

It’s been a dry and often cripplingly hot start to 2022 here in Cape Town. So no-one was more relieved than me to have just a few hours of rain this morning. And checking my pluviometer, I was surprised to note that even with the just 4 or 5 hours of light precipitation this morning, we more than doubled the total for the year so far (for our back garden, anyway).

Yep. January 1st to March 1st = 6mm.
This morning alone = 7mm.

It’s all moved on now, but the roads are cleaner, the plants are greener and the place just seems fresher.

If you’re coming to Cape Town soon and are worried that it might be grey and wet all the time, please note this this was the only rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future.

Day 631 – Breeze

It’s time to head home. Back to the hustle and bustle of Cape Town, the city just 6000 miles from civilisation…

It’s been a good break down in Agulhas. I could have been a bit less lazy, but sometimes a pre-nap nap is just what you need before your nap.

And the weather could have been better: several bouts of heavy rain throughout the week, and today – when the sun is shining and the skies are blue – a gale force wind. Not a metaphorical gale, either. This is actually fully 60kph and up from the east, and that actually puts it into Admiral Beaufort’s Force 8 category: quite literally a gale.

Doors have to be hooked back, the beagle’s ears are flapping wildly, the dirt roads are drifting into the sky and a plastic chair has escaped to the far side of the garden. It’s actually quite nice if you can get out of the it, temperature-wise at least. But it’s omnipresent: noisy, constant and wearing.

The tailwind should make for a quick and economical trip home, at least.

Day 629 – Holiday vibes?

It’s always good when I’m sitting outside with my laptop, but I’m struggling to see the screen because of the filtered sunshine coming through the slatted roof of the braai area. But while many people might be all geared up for summer holidays, I’m yet to feel the vibe: iffy health, cancelled family visits and wildly uncontrollable virus numbers are really dragging me back. Oh, and the weather has generally been slow to kick in as well.

So today, with the unforecast sunshine and gentle westerly breeze seems to have bucked the recent trend and it does seem like summer might have arrived. For the last hour or so, at least.

Still, I’ll take it. Especially as I’ve just seen what’s coming in from the South Atlantic…

That’s the view from the deck right now. My filtered sunshine has already disappeared, and it looks like I’ll be heading back inside for shelter shortly. This is really not helping me get into the holiday spirit.

I might have to go back to relying on beer and braaivleis.

Day 415 – Let’s do this

Have a become a bit soft in my old age or is it just a shifting of my thresholds because of my ongoing experience of differing geographically imposed conditions?

I’m down in Agulhas (alone) and it’s pretty miserable out. But it’s not that miserable. It’s wet and grey, but it’s not that wet and grey. (OK, it is that wet and grey right now.) And yet I found myself hiding inside (and even in bed) until hunger and a need for coffee dragged me out into the kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with staying in bed if you have no commitments elsewhere of course, but the outdoors is right there, and I feel like I should be in it. And this would be actually classed as ‘not too bad’ in my homeland and childhood. (Indeed, it would be described as ‘positively tropical’ in my early university years.) So is it that I’m just a bit soft now because I’m older, or is it just that I’m not used to it anymore?

And does it even matter?

I’m not daft: it’s absolutely pitching it down at the moment, and why would anyone – no matter their age or location – choose to go out in that? And in opening the front door to have a peek outside, there was a sign (quite literally) from above, as a scorpion fell from the door frame onto my head. We’re both ok. But I’m inside and much drier than him now.

But in the next window in the weather, I will get out and about: appropriately dressed for the conditions, obviously.

Meanwhile, it’s back to the cafetière and Mark Radcliffe on 6Music. Because why not?