Flying

Because my head is traveling I went Google-mapping, first trying to find Marijke's farm near Barrydale (is it closer to Lemoenshoek, Marijke?), and then going to look at my parents' house in Cape Town. I can see the Louw's next door, on the right, and the Champions on the left, in their red-roofed fortress. The Oaks' lawn needs watering, on the near side of the cul de sac, around their shiny, H-shaped house.

9 Sun Valley Avenue, Constantia: well, the cul-de-sac. I can even see the 7 olive trees....the roof that is most silver-white and shiny, just before 1 o'clock on the compass, right on the greenbelt.

OK, somewhere here, somewhere in the middle, north. How far off am I? - is the mythical Patatsfontein, that I've been hearing about ever since I first met Marijke in January (that was so weird: both suspiciously tall, both garden designers, both second careers, a year apart in age). Anyway, this is where my mom and I start off our week-long trek around the Northern Cape, spending two nights before moving WNW to Clanwilliam, where I think we will stay at the hotel with its famous breakfasts (but who can eat breakfast? As long as the coffee is proper. I don't need much of it, but it has to be real coffee. Note to self/mother: must take coffee pot). Back in the day I would travel to Clanwilliam at speeds pushing the sound barrier with my brother Anton (axe murderers, anyone?) in his Alfa or his (now business partner) friend Chris in a huge old BMW, through the tunnel in the mountains to go waterskiing on the big brown dam (this link is quite funny. To me, anyway). That was before his daughter Gabriella existed, before she was a Springbok water skiier, before. Before.

Then where do we go. Kamieskroon. Where I think we're staying at the hotel, too. Actually, I have to say, South African coffee is quite good. Much better than American. I mean, ordinary, non-espresso coffee - still, the pot will be insurance. We stay three days, then down again to Nieuwoudtville, where we stayed last year in a stone hut (part of the Van Zijl monopoly: avoid) outside town with a flimsy door against which we piled all the furniture. My weapon of choice was a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, which slept with me in bed. We made friends with a tail-less cat... Our house was named Katstert (cat-tail) after the flowers that grew around it, and we thought it very appropriate that this cat was its guardian. Shame, it fell in love with us after the dry sausage and milk we fed it.


The tall yellow flowers are the katsterts, Bulbinella latifolia...

Poor friendly little Katstert...she had been hunting alone in an empty field when I called her over.

 
These falls were just outside town, and below is Sparaxis elegans: they were growing in the middle of town in a field. You couldn't walk without crushing them. So we stood still.

And then back home again. Jiggety-jig. That home, I mean. How many homes can one have? Hm. And does home have to be a place?