The girl with the green umbrella

This perhaps isn’t the most appropriate photo for 25 December, given that much of South Africa celebrated Christmas – sorry about that. Still though, if you also celebrated Christmas, I hope that you had a peaceful day, commemorating the occasion with those you love.

Bike in the rain

I took today’s photo two days ago – a very wet Thursday afternoon in Cape Town. The day started off cloudy with intermittent spots of sun. It then started drizzling a little, cleared up a little, and then rained down extremely wet and furry cats and dogs.

I think this bike’s owner was hiding out in the coffee shop to the right of this pic.

My view from the Westin hotel

Unfortunately I never had one of the awesome rooms – the ones that face Table Mountain and the setting sun! So, if you plan on staying at the Westin, try to organise that you get a room facing Signal Hill’s direction.

Below are a few more photos taken from my room on the 8th floor – a little later in the evening.

Wet roads and sunshine

I find it a little stressful to drive in unfamiliar places when the sun’s glare on the road completely obliterates the markings and forces me to squint. Similarly, driving at night on unfamiliar wet roads into the bright lights of oncoming traffic is another thing that I really don’t enjoy.

Don’t you just hate driving in conditions like this? Wouldn’t it be awesome if the rain would leave the roads alone and stick to falling on mountains, fields and in our gardens?

Remember to be smart and drive slower in poor conditions and when you can’t see road markings clearly. Be safe and arrive alive.

Slippery wet streets

I realised again a few days ago (when I took advantage of a normally-safe gap in traffic) that it’s actually incredibly dangerous to momentarily forget that roads are slippery when wet. Fortunately I knew to reduce the power, gain control and re-accelerate – and fortunately the car coming at me from behind was actually going slower than I at first thought it was.

Who recognises this town? It’s not too difficult, click to zoom – there’s huge clue right there in the photo.

Highway of rain

Whoa, where did all this rain come from? Kerry-Anne and I drifted out to Paarl to check out the “Persia to Paarl” festival that was being held at the Nederburg estate.

Sadly, on arrival we scoped out the scene and decided that it wasn’t going to be worth the R160 entrance fee (for two of us)… so instead of photos of pretty dancers, lovely bottles of wine, or sparkling beaded jewellery, we bring you this somewhat grey, perhaps even depressing photo of a wintry Cape Town weekend. To be fair, it was raining kittens and puppies, so perhaps that was the reason for the festival appearing to be rather less exciting than we’d hoped it would be.

Perhaps next time, hey?

Mud pools after rain

We’ve often been told by visitors from abroad that the difference between South Africa and other cold countries is that our homes aren’t geared for cold weather. We don’t have particularly well-sealed windows or doors, I don’t have a warm fire burning, there’s no central heating, and nor do we have that awesome underfloor heating that a few of our friends are no doubt enjoying right now.

If you do find yourself visiting our city over winter, while you don’t have to bring your snow gear along, do bring enough warm clothing, because it does get chilly every now and again.

Shortmarket Street in Cape Town

… falls mainly on Greenmarket Square. Well, not actually. The rain in Cape Town has been falling pretty much everywhere over the last day or two, and in rather large quantities too.

We had to go into the city for a friend’s birthday party, and both wondered at times whether it wouldn’t have been better to take a motorboat or canoe instead of our car. There’s been flooding in quite a few areas, including Camps Bay, Newlands and Somerset West. Fortunately our neighbourhood seems to have escaped with a bit less rain than everywhere else, so we weren’t affected in any way (apart from getting a bit wet walking from our car to the restaurant from which this photo was taken).

Of course, the great thing about Cape Town’s winter is that we get all the cold, rainy weather in a few short, intense bursts, and for the rest of the time it’s sunny and clear.

Driving rain

We woke up early this morning, with about 42 fire trucks blasting our house with their huge fire hoses. When the pounding water eventually held up, I looked outside and found that every single fire-truck and fireman had mysteriously disappeared without a trace… leaving behind pools of water all through our garden.

Oh alright… you saw right through my story, didn’t you? It wasn’t really firemen, of course, but rather the biggest and heaviest cloud that we’ve seen for a long while, unleashing all its rain in one enormous downpour. I must say, I’m not particularly looking forward to this winter; it’s been icy cold this afternoon – around 11°C (which is freezin’ for a Cape Town afternoon)!

We’re heading off to a friend‘s birthday party at FTV in Cape Town this evening. It’s storming outside, but Shana’s convinced it’s going to be hot inside. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it went!

Woman in smoke

The Stellenbosch Fire Chief was quoted as saying “Everywhere. Every area.” in response to being asked where fires had been reported. Apart from the Stellenbosch fires and the 83 other reports within the Cape Town city limits, fires have been reported in Somerset West, Clanwilliam, Gansbaai, Hermanus, Plettenberg Bay, Algeria, Moutonshoek, Philadelphia, Bellville, Tygerberg, Strand, Monwabisi and Blikkiesdorp.

Today the temperature hit 40°C, although fortunately the wind remained at bay until late this evening. In retrospect it seems as though the hot weather today was a blessing in disguise. Earlier this evening we had a few rain showers (caused by the warm air rising) that will certainly help dampen the dry veld, and at least slow down the fire’s progression. So far it looks as though Stellenbosch has had just over 5mm of rain this evening. With weather reports predicting more rain, we can only hope that they’re accurate and that tomorrow holds in store many more showers.

If you missed yesterday’s post, take a moment to look through the photo album that I put together with photos taken just outside of Stellenbosch yesterday evening.

As I’m typing this post I can hear large drops of rain falling again. Awesome.

Relevant News Articles:
iafrica
Cape Argus

Tractor in the rain

Our province experienced heavy water restrictions a couple of years ago and at the time it seemed as though everyone was installing well-points or bore-holes. I even tried to install one myself – this makes for an entertaining story.

At the time talk was going around that the government was considering placing restrictions, or perhaps levies, on the use of ground water for residential irrigation, due to the impact that the increased and uncontrolled use of ground water could have on the province’s water table, and consequently on natural vegetation.

Read this interesting article for more information about the origin and use of groundwater in Cape Town.