Athens and Cape Town have something in common...

Both are subject to bush fires at the moment.

Coming home from the orifice on Monday evening, we could literally see smoke on the water as the blanket lay over False Bay.

It turns out that the mountain between us and Simons Town was on fire (cause as yet unknown, but presumed to have been caused by "bergies" - tramps - living in the bushes).

The flames came very close to some of the houses built up to the fire break (why do people take that much risk with their homes? bloody idiots) and I'm not sure if any were actually burned. No doubt the local rag will have an article about it in the coming days.

By morning, the flames had been put out but everything was covered in a light layer of ash.

It really is sad to see the way this bush burns and it takes years to recover.

Cape Storm - Tuesday 18th August

These were the view from our lounge window last week...

Thank goodness I was working from home, or else we would have had some seriously unhappy dogs. As it was, I spent the best part of the morning wringing out towels which I had to use to catch the water coming in under the sliding door...

The camera on the Blackberry does not do the weather justice as you can't really see the rain coming down in sheets...




On the Wednesday, I got the landlady's DIY guy to come out and see what could be done about the water coming in under the door and discovered his rates. I've been thinking of starting up a handyman business for a while and at R280/hr, plus cost of materials (no doubt with a "handling fee" added) and R3.50 per kilometre travel, I think it might be a viable business. The estate agent who looks after the house has been asking whether I still wanted to do the handyman thing, as she has a number of jobs to be done and no-one to do them for her. It appears that all the handymen are so busy, they just don't bother getting back to her on the small jobs. I reckon it might be possible to make up to R30k a month at those rates, so maybe it's something I need to do...

This Dog is not Dead...

it is, in fact, just the way Cassie likes to sleep...

Angie rocks Kalk Bay in her Crocs and Socks

Sounding like a very bad Dr Seuss book, my sister (gotta love her) brought down the house (or at least, had me in stitches) when she visited us recently. We went to a nice little restaurant on Kalk Bay Harbour called Polana. At some point through the evening, I noticed she wasn't wearing proper shoes.

This is what she was wearing instead...like a true European touriste...