Cape Town – Page 25 – Notes from the Cape

Published October 7, 2011

The guilty party

One of the joys of spring in Cape Town is the wonderful spring flowers. One of the perils of sprint in Cape Town is the wonderful spring flowers. We have over 9000 species of flowering plants in Cape Town, and the wonderful brightly coloured flowers are seen all over Cape Town in spring.

But these flowers cause an extremely high pollen count, which of course is not good for hay-fever suffers like myself. This spring, it was so bad that it put me into bed for two entire days (even missing a friend’s birthday party). I am finally over the worst of it, and I really hope that is it for this year!

Cape Town

cape town flowers spring

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Published October 5, 2011

Horse riding on the beach

I drive past the beach every day to and from work, and today for the first time, I saw this group of horse-riders on the beach. I don’t know of any stables nearby, and I have never seen it before.

It really is a bit of a mystery to me, but I would love to go riding on Muizenberg beach. Can anybody enlighten me?

Cape Town

beach cape town muizenberg

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Published September 25, 2011

Tomato tart with gruyere pastry

We are supposed to be at Kirstenbosch Gardens having a birthday picnic with our friend Sarah, but alas I am having an acute and sudden dose of pollen allergy, so I don’t think that an afternoon in the botanical gardens in spring is such a good idea.

However, our contribution to the picnic was going to be a baby tomatoe tart with gruyere pastry, which Lois still made for lunch.

It is really simple to make and very yummy. Here is the recipe:

Fry 1 chopped onion and 4 cloves chopped garlic
Mix about 800 g baby tomatos with 1/4 cup salt, 1/2 cup chopped basil, 1.5t sugar, and a little salt and pepper
Mix in the onion/garlic mixture
Put the tomatos mixture into a ceramic pie dish
Cover dish with puff pastry from the supermarket
Brush some egg over the pasty
Finally sprinkle about 1/2 cup finely gruyere cheese over the top
Bake at 180 for about an hour, and leave to stand for a few mintues before cutting

Serve hot or cold. Yummy indeed!

Cape Town Food and Drink

cape town food and drink tart tomatoes

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Published September 24, 2011

Artichokes for lunch

My local fruit and vegetable shop had a whole basket of fresh artichokes, so guess what I am having for lunch today? Yes the look weird to eat, but they are excellent!

Instructions:

Boil until the other leaves are soft.
Pull the leaves off
Bite into the fleshy bits of the leaves and eat (a bit like you would eat an unpeeled roasted clove of garlic)
When you get to the inside, scrape the hairs off and eat the heart, which is the best bit.

Great with a vinaigrette or melted butter.

Cape Town Food and Drink

cape town food and drink

Flying High in a DA40

This is the last of the current batch of USA shots.

One of the highlights (excuse the pun) of our time in Delaware was our flight in Marc’s aeroplane. He is the proud owner of a Diamond Air DA40 aeroplane, which is incredibly cute! We took off from Wilmington Airport, and took a 40 minute trip over Delaware Bay.

DA-40 during the pre-flight check

A technical aside, for those of you that say the iPad is just a toy, the flight plan was logged using an iPad, and maps of the airport, runways and flight were on the iPad during the flight (in addition to the Garmin flight deck stuff in the aircraft).

Ready to go – (Photo by Lois Strachan)

The trip was great fun an uneventful (which is a good thing), two days later we were braced down for Huricane Irene, so it was a good interlude with the wonderful weather.

HDR shot of the aircraft, a copy is now on the wall in Marc’s study :-)

Coming in to land on runway 19 (ie 190 degrees on the map).

While the runway looked very short, it can easily land a 737, it is over 2km long. The trip was fantastic, and definitely a highlight of our trip. Thanks to Marc for taking us on the trip, and a huge thanks to both Marc and Patti for looking after us so well during our (extended) trip. Hope to do more flying soon.

Last shot, just before takeoff

Cape Town HDR Travel

aeroplanes cape town hdr travel

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Published September 19, 2011

Ducklings

I happened to see these ducklings on the vlei as I was driving past. As I grabbed my camera, they hopped into the water and swam off with mom (or dad) in tow.

Cape Town South Africa

cape town ducks lakeside zandvlei

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Published September 17, 2011

St James Beach

After the aweful weather we have had this weekend, it is lovely to be able to soak up some sun, and to go for a walk along the Muizenberg/St James beach. The sun is warm, the sky is clear, and it is simply an amazing day! The colourful beach huts in St James are still there, and they are still open to the public as changing rooms, (unlike Brighton where you can pay up to 20000 Pounds for the privilege).

While this particular beach is quite rocky, there is a lovely tidal pool you can swim in, and it was surprisingly empty today. I remember as a student coming down here for biology trips and having to walk among the rocks to find little beach animals and plants.

The walk from Muizenberg to the tidal pool is not far, probably about 1.5 km or so, but very pretty, and there are lots of people so it should be quite safe as well. And if you don’t feel like the walk, you can park on the side of Main Road and cross through one of the subways onto the beach.

Cape Town Travel

beach cape town muizenberg st james

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Published September 15, 2011

Fishing boats at V&A

I just got back from speaking that the Wordcamp Cape Town conference, and it was an awesome experience. There is so much technical talent in South Africa, and some amazing work being done. It was invigorating and exciting to meet so many amazing WordPess evangelists. I have also never seen so many iPads and Mac’s in one place in my life. I did feel a little strange using my PC laptop for my presentation :-)

The conference was the Atlantic Imbizo, V&A Waterfront, which is on the top floor of the shopping centre, offering amazing views of the waterfront and the harbour. Of course I managed to get in a shot or two, so I hope you enjoy these two of the fishing boats, taken from the roof of the building.

Fishing boats in Cape Town Harbour

Cape Town

boats cape town fishing water waterfront

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Published September 13, 2011

Happy Birthday to Emily

Happy Birthday Emily, hope you have a wonderful 2nd birthday. You are a very cute ~~monster~~ dog, but no longer a puppy, so please continue to behave a little better.