Summer reaches fever pitch

It's fig time in Cape Town, time for my only real fig fix of the year aside from my own little honeyed terrace fruit in July or August. I never find really good figs in New York. And I love them.

Next week Ellen and I head for fig central, the small town of Prince Albert, at the foot of the Swartberg Pass. And where are we staying? Why, at the fig farm, of course. Full immersion.

She arrives late-late at the end of this week and I have being wracking my brains to try and fit in everything a person who knows Cape Town wants to show a person who does not know Cape Town. It's impossible. There is too much. Too many beaches too many walks too many things to eat to climb to buy to smell and to drink, nevermind to look at. So we'll do our best. The Little Karoo trip is perhaps counter intuitive, but I wanted to show her some different country, too. There will be a big sky, the Milky Way at night, no electricity, a town where you order your bread at the bakery the day before you want it, and buy your own milk from the dairy.

Yet in Cape Town there are penguins and turquoise water and orchids and caves and views and gardens and shops and picnics and sunsets and drinks on the beach and vineyards and and and.

Somehow.

In the meantime, there is a plate of figs to eat, a rack of lamb chops to braai for supper, a drink to mix, red wine to chill (just a little), and a lot of daisies to deadhead.

The evenings down here are still long.