Terrace sky

At night I love watching the sky from the terrace. There are always at least 7 planes in it. Low and landing, or high and passing, like sputnicks. La Guardia and JFK's flights are visible, and if I stand on the stone table, I can see Newark's too, in Jersey, across the water.

Tomorrow morning we take off into this sky, on South African Airways, heading across the Atlantic for Senegal, and then, after an hour on the tarmac and a lot of noxious bug spray, we take off again for Johannesburg. All these takings off, with my heart in my mouth and prayers in my heart. Vince the pilot will be happy, in his element. I will be in a state of suspended animation.

Then one smaller jump, through the cumulus clouds of the Highveld, with my first, ritual sip of Appletizer on the plane, and we are in Cape Town. Home. My mother will ululate for us at the airport, possibly waving an agapanthus; we will head straight for the mountain on the freeway, with the poor shacks on either side of the road. We will pass the power station and the sewage plant's welcoming pong, and then wind around Devil's Peak and past the university's ivy clad sandstone walls, through cool, woodsy Newlands (hi Marijke!), past Kirstenbosch, up to Rhodes Drive, through the chestnut avenue, sharply down into Constantia, and into the familar cul de sac, to the house, the corgis, Ben, and the smell of summer in the kitchen. There will be flowers, and laughter, and we will have a braai for supper, with chops and boerewors, if we are awake. When we lie in bed, the silence of the night will be deafening.

I will blog, but not as frequently, and we will do many more hikes than last time, with botanizing on the way, and I hope to take a lot more flower pictures, and to show you other views of a Cape Town you may not know.

Till then.