Friday: Steve has arrived!

He had good flights, sleep aided with wine. He got to the hotel around 8:00 am and enjoyed several cups of coffee and a hearty breakfast. Right now, he is showering as we prepare for an adventure downtown out of the 50K+ winds.

We drove into town, found free parking (!) and we toured the V&A wharf complex where we had lunch in the hurricane-like winds. Seriously—it blows you out of your path. Then home for a respite at the hotel, then to glorious Camps Bay for happy hour and a walk.

Happy hour at the Pepper Bar in Camps Bay. 

Steve had some champers, but I am driving so I  had sushi.

The escarpment behind the beach at Camps Bay.

  

VERY happy hour.

  

Steve retains his hat in the wind.

  

Protea at the local flower store.

Thats waves IN the pool blowing against the outer wall of a sea swimming pool. 

And the waves of the turbulent sea behind. We saw a mini tornado on the water.

Windy Thursday

The wind is blowing at 40K today, but some gusts are incredibly strong. There are scattered clouds but lots and lots of sunshine. The fabulous French boys, Pierre and Robert, drove me into town and we walked around the downtown core for a bit, then they came with me to the car rental place so that I could follow them home in their car.

I really enjoyed walking around downtown in the company of the boys. I do translation for them—they do not understand English at all—and I get absolutely delightful company. I liked the pedestrian streets, the open spaces, the ongoing cloud waterfall on Table Mountain.

The afternoon was spent reading Stacy Shiff's Pulitzer prize-winning biography of Cleopatra and anticipating the arrival of Steve tomorrow morning.

A variety of Bird of  Paradise unfamiliar to me.

Robert (left) and Pierre.

A Gum Tree.

Pierre in the market square downtown.

Wednesday: Impressions

The clouds on the top of table mountain roll and pitch all day. They

cascade like a waterfall. I can hardly wait to get up there.

I am my father's son. I love harbours, but this one is more like the 

Chicago pier than a working port. The working port was too far to walk to.

1. Old business: I was taken aback by having to pay a fee to go into St. Paul's in London. I always use churches as sanctuaries when I travel and I absolutely love their architecture. They are oases of calm, but I have never ever had to pay, as I recall, even at the Vatican. That's been sticking in my craw since London and not even this paradise has obliterated it, but now that I have recorded it here perhaps I will heal!
2. I  have lived for a year in Nice and I have lost  my soul to the charm of the white-washed architecture and the charm of the Greek islands. And I have visited that socio-geo-political islands of Gibraltar and Bermuda. Well Cape Town is the white heat and Buganvilia of the Greek Islands plus the Britishness of Bermuda—especially with the heavy presence of African people—plus, in some areas along the coast, the tourist vibe of a small sea-side town on the cote d'azure such as Juan-les-Pins.
3. Before booking my trip, whenever I mentioned that I was going to South Africa, people would say how beautiful it was. Then, after I booked, virtually everyone's response was: "Be really careful because the crime there is intense." Those sentiments fed my abundant overall anxiety about the trip—a new experience for me—and when I saw all the locks on the stores and the security guards everywhere including Sandy Bay beach, I remained concerned. But today I walked for four-and-a-half hours into the Vitoria and Albert  wharf area and back along the sea. It was hot but there was a nice breeze and not a molecule of me was concerned about my security. I expect to be prudent in our travels, but here is no different then many other places I have been—it is just one of the more beautiful.
4. Last year, my trip to Tanzania was my first time across the equator. Now I am at the bottom of the world and that awareness heightens your experience of the rolling thunder of the waves as they crash and run up the linear structure of the rocks that you know have withstood the incredible power of the sea since the beginning of time. This tip of the world is raw Africa, but then it isn't—it's Britishish and unlike anywhere else on this continent that I have ever been. After visiting Bermuda, Trinidad, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, India, here and living in British Columbia, the Commonwealth becomes something far more real than an idea.

Tuesday: Sandy Bay

When I arrived, a handsome young gay couple from Lyon, Pierre and Robert, arrived with me. The man waiting for me was also waiting for them and we all came to the Glenn Boutique Hotel. Well this morning at breakfast, they invited me to join them for an afternoon at the beach. I had an idea of how that might be.

I worked on my script in the morning, and then met them at noon and off we went in their rental car to the beach. It was a 30-minute drive along the beautiful coast drive to Sandy Bay. We parked the car and walked about a kilometre to the bay and what a bay, but there was no shade and it was over 30°. Worse—the water was freezing cold.

We spent the afternoon there: I walked around and they guarded my stuff and then they went off and I guarded their stuff (and baked). But when I came home, my beautiful room was glowing with sunshine. A bath, some diet coke and my New Yorker and I was in heaven, and in the evening a had a nice dinner here at the hotel.

There are orchid-like wild geraniums everywhere.

Pierre amongst the glorious wildflowers.

Straight up from the beach where we were.

This is where we spent the afternoon.

A small natural composition.

Shells.

A friend dropped by.

Sunday/Monday: To Cape Town

First good-bye to David and Carl at Carl's work. He is the bar manager at the Sanderson which is designed by Phillipe Starck.

Jacket I saw walking to the tube—delicious!  David, left, and Carl.

Long tube ride to Heathrow, easy check in when you allow plenty of time as I do, and then a twelve-hour flight to the Cape. I rested and met a seat mate, Fadah Wassa, who, on a scale of one to ten on the hospitality continuum, is a twenty. The six-week old infant in the seat in front of me scared me, but it was silent the entire flight and a joy to watch sleep.

I was picked up with a French couple and driven to the hotel. The couple is French, so I was immediately the translator. Short nap, long bath and a walk around the block. The gated store-fronts and the security everywhere confirms my worst fears, so I came home. I will be cabbing to secure places. But 5 minutes walk from me is the beach below (where it is too cold to swim—the Atlantic) with a civic swimming pool beside it with a lawn for sunbathing. (Photos below.)

But nothing I did today beats reading that Toronto mayor Rob Ford was turfed out of office for violating conflict of interest guidelines. Sometimes, not only do good guys get elected (Obama), but also sometimes bad men lose (Ford, Lord Black the Revolting).

My balcony.

The pool.

My room.

The view from my balcony. Thats Pinnacle Mountain behind the tree.

What's that shadow behind Bwana?

The beach nearby.

Saturday's 4-star Dinner

Finally, a really great  meal. A Pho dinner at a nice restaurant that David knew of. When we got there, I was kind of ticked that we were seated right beside the kitchen, but when the food came, I would have eaten in the bathroom. Vermicelli noodles, bean sprouts chicken and then all kinds of delicious things  I have no idea about (maybe dried shrimp, some nuts) plus a perfect amount of green chilli, lemon grass, raw ginger basil—but you could taste every distinct taste. There was sauce of course, a vinegary sweet-soy mixture of some sort.

A delicious delicious final dinner in the UK. Yay!  It's so great to have a native guide like David.

Saturday in the Rain

I enjoyed the morning in my hotel room, doing email and enjoying the calm and quiet. David arrived at 11:00 as planned and we headed off to the Tate Modern in the rain. The TM makes an impression; the scale is amazing and such majesty requires, for me anyway, spectacular art and the art I saw today at the TM left me absolutely cold and unmoved. But as I have often said, hating art is as much fun as loving it.

My dear Miss Liz would be so disappointed in my response to the TM, but there you go. Thank goodness I had one of my most impressionable experiences in an art gallery at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. I know there is contemporary work I love, but there was none at the Tate Modern today for me. So we went to the V&A so that I could indulge in glass and illuminated manuscripts—ocular comfort food.

It is really lousy being a tourist in rain and David's shoe was leaking and the Central Line was down today, so it was fine to come home early and relax with a plan to meet David later for Vietnamese food for dinner and perhaps go to a movie.

Friday: Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens was worth the healthy price of admission. I took David as my guest, so admission for the two of us was 30 pounds, but Kew is on the same tube line as my stop across the street.

The Princess of Wales conservatory alone was worth the price, and who knew that a garden could be such a wonderful experience even in late November. Of course the glass houses were the highlight and it was almost hot inside with the sun. The presentation and the abundance of the plants was extraordinary and the wide landscape panoramas (without people in the winter) were heart warming.

I will let the photos say the rest....

Huge, calla lilies.

 Bad photo of an extraordinary brilliant metallic blue berry on a star-structure purple fleshy leaf.

And lunch and a lovely little tea-room luncheon shop in Kew.

Dinner with Carl and James

Carl, left; James, right.

I met my friend Sylvie in the early seventies and saw her only twice between then and this past August. And when I went to visit her, it was like we had never been apart. I loved Sylvie instantly when I met her, and last August, it was no different. Loved once, loved forever.

And tonight was just the same. Carlo and I have only seen each other once in the past fourteen years or so, but tonight was as it was with Sylvie. Loved once, loved forever. And for almost his whole time living here, he has lived with James whom I had never met until tonight. James is a thoroughly charming Australian expat and he and Carl have a lovely home in Homerton.

FEEL MY HAPPY

My play is about motherly love.

It is 5:00. Happy Hour!

Tomorrow, apparently, will be like today in terms of the weather. I find the temperature very comfortable (roughly 12°) and I am very happy to be outside if it is not raining, so tomorrow, to get away from crowds and bustle, I decided to go to Kew Gardens on the train and then come home before going to meet Liz. That is an ambitious plan for this about-to-be senior.

And goody goody!! David is not working tomorrow, so I am taking him with me. We will go walk in the gardens and talk, and if there is a shower, we can go into the Conservatory. A garden!! Heaven! It brings tears to my eyes contemplating the joy of a garden. That is not new for me, but feeling this way in winter is!

Then dinner with illustrious and illuminating Liz and her man, Tom, in Brixton.

In the V&A, the project images on a domed ceiling 

and is is stupendous but few people notice.