Dias Beach

Vince and I visited Dias Beach at Cape Point while we were in Cape Town, and I wrote about it for the informative Cape Town Blog, where it is posted today.

I winced and then laughed a little at my wincing, to see myself described at the end of the post as a "landscaper". Argh. Perhaps it's a North American thing. But as I said to the editor in an email, "landscaper" conjures up visions of acres of red mulch, brutally pruned (juniper) topiaries and a clapped-out van with tools hanging from it. I..."Ay"...I said, am a garden designer. "Desayner..."

He must think I'm a real pain in the rear end.

One other correction is that the pretty little blue flower in the post, so heliophila-ish, whose identity had me stumped, was id'd very kindly by Tony Rebelo, as Heliophila (yes!) cinerea, or limestone sporrie, who said it is endemic to sandy areas over limestone, on the southern peninsula. Not 'the Cape' (a huge area), as the description reads.

That makes a very, very small part of the world its home. I am so pleased to have seen it. It was growing beside the wooden steps down to the beach.

Yes, there were bluebottles that day. The sea was very rough, as it always is on that beach, and the high water mark was blue with them, so we trod carefully. But they are beautiful.