The Arch of Septimius Severus marks the entrance to the forum in Rome. Completed in AD 203, it is an impressive arch to stand under.
I have been reprocessing some of my Rome photos, probably because I am excited about my upcoming Spanish trip, so I hope you are enjoying them!
This will be my last pictures of the beach houses in Muizenberg. Hopefully by now some of the pictures from my trip in Spain should be starting to come through. Of all my pictures, this is my favourite, I really like the framing in it, and I think it would look great printed on canvas.
Another couple of shots of the wonderful Muizenberg beach. Spring is in the air.
Look how the beach seems to go on forever, you can walk for miles before turning around at the river.
This beach cabin as as brightly painted as the beach houses on Muizenberg beach. It is used by the life-saving club as a base, and although it looks a little dilapidated, it is still being put to good use.
With the wonderful warm days we have been having, the wild flowers have been bursting into colourful blooms, and disappearing as the sun goes down. This shot is of the wild grass growing on the side of the road in Muizenberg. The verges are covered in these bright flowers as far as the eye can see. And adding that starburst effect you get when shooting directly into the sun, it makes for an interesting shot.
Reflection of a jungle-gym in a huge puddle after the days of stormy weather; it look like it is in the middle of a river, doesn’t it? The huge area of water it is in is a massive puddle in a very water-logged park. I think it’s going to take weeks for it to drain (it is a lake in the background, it is not that wet).
Another lovely sunrise after a very wet few stormy days. I think that we are still going to have some more storms, and that this was just a brief interlude. The green belt around the vlei is completely waterlogged. Even the ducks have started using the puddles as paddling pools.
We had a very late winter storm over the weekend, and finally today has dawned into a wonderfully clear blue sky. But the mountain streams are gushing with all the runoff, and if you look around you can find some wonderful waterfalls that are usually dry or just a small trickle.
It is snoek season. At this time of year, thousands of snoek swim past our shores, and many of them are caught and end up for sale all over the place. You can buy it dried and smoked in supermarkets, or buy a while fish on the side of the road to cook on the braai.They are also incredibly cheap; you can buy a while fish (easily enough for 6 people), for about R20 ($3) on the side of the road. They almost give them away.
The only problem with snoek is that it is full of tiny sharp bones, and no matter how careful you are, you always seem to end up with a bone sticking into your cheek as you eat. So eating snoek is slow process.
On Wednesday I saw something a little strange, About 2-300 snoek were literally being dried on the side of the road. Some enterprising person had strung up some fencing and was drying the fish on it, no doubt for resale later. I am sure that the local health inspector would not be too impressed with this open-air fish drying factory on the side of the road. But at least somebody is being an entrepreneur.
You can find out more about snoek on the I&J website.
(Update – comments closed because this page is not a marketplace for dried snoek).
Cape Town has a large Muslim population, and at the moment many of my friends and colleagues are observing the month-long sunrise to sunset fast during the month of Ramadan. While I don’t think that I could survive fasting every day for a month, I have a great deal of respect for my friends that can. It must take tremendous will-power.
While I usually steer away from politics or religion (and the two are tied tightly together), one of the things I love about living in South Africa is the enormous tolerance the different religions have for each other. It may be naive to say that we judge people by their character, and not by their social, religious or political background. But I feel that (perhaps because of our history), South Africans are accepting of differences than many other countries.
This photo is of one of the many Mosques in Cape Town.
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