The Knysna Forest Half Marathon OR A Day of Low Rats

Wilderness National Park, looking West

Our cottage. 

The maintenance staff religiously flattened the molehills 

every morning and a few hours later they were back.

The serene and beautiful Touw River

Yellow-wood tree on the banks of the Touw

Flowering aloes in abundance everywhere

Fork tailed drongo in tree

The Knysna Forest Half Marathon OR A Day of Low Rats

I’ll explain the Low Rats later. This race has a reputation – quite a few friends have told me “You’ve gotta run the Knysna Forest – what a beautiful race.” So last year I entered and paid, but never got here – it is 5 hours drive from Cape Town and I was travelling right up until the day before.  I swore at the time I’d get it right this year and I did.

The race forms part of the Knysna Oyster Festival which is a week long (? 2 weeks) string of sales, promotions, competitions, family activities, sports – what do I know? – the focus seems to be on these mucoid masses that come in rather ugly shells, cost R10 a pop, taste like nothing (except lemon juice and Tabasco sauce), have to be drunk with a glass of Graca and for some unfathomable reason are very popular. Not with us, in case you couldn’t tell.

Wednesday

The rest of the family was on vacation or leave so we decided to make it a family thing. I booked a family cottage at the Ebb and Flow Camp of the Wilderness National Park. We left Cape Town at 10 a.m. and took a fairly leisurely drive along the N2, stopping at Riviersonderend for a coffee and Steer Burger – Wacky Wednesday, 2-for-the-price-of-1. We picked up a Kia Picanto at the George Airport for the business part of the trip and I was pleasantly surprised by the little car – OK, no power steering and no AC but everything else was fine.

I picked up a guy at the airport who needed a lift to Thembalethu – he was wearing a reflective jacket which I assumed meant he worked on the runway. It also reassured me that he was probably well intentioned. Of course the conversation fell to football. He didn’t have much good to say about our national team – said they had lost because they were more concerned about money than about representing their country. He may be right – I wouldn't know. Point is they have been kicked out. The French, Danish and Japanese teams had been staying in Knysna until their respective exits from the Tournament and he had seen something of all of them. He spoke about the unifying effect that the World Cup had had on South Africans – “gees”, “Ayoba”, “Se Nako”  – we have all learnt some new words, most of them not English. I told him I had heard the national rugby coach sulking, “I am sick of soccer. I don’t even know who is in the semi-finals!” and I predicted the demise of rugby as the national sport of white South Africans. Sorry, mnr. de Villiers, but football has done something that rugby never did – we have been bitten by the bug, and we’re not going back to braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet – well, not the rugby anyway. Take your place in the queue, and it isn’t at the front.

The Ebb and Flow cottages are in the flood plain of the Touw River. Actually I’m not sure whether it is a lagoon or a river since it doesn’t seem to flow. Maybe it flows in the wet season and Wilderness is in the middle of a really bad drought. The cottage had everything we wanted except that 3 nights in a row we couldn’t get a fire going in the fireplace, despite buying firewood and firelighters from Pick ‘n Pay and spending what seemed like hours coaxing and blowing and cajoling. I think it was the wood. The last time this happened was a Christmas braai at my in-laws, to which they had invited about 20 people – I simply couldn’t get it going and in the end we had to cook it in the oven under the grill. Most embarrassing.

Our first night there was also the occasion of the second World Cup semi-final – Germany versus Spain. This was a huge game in anyone’s book, but especially for us since herself has some serious German roots. Also, we both really enjoy the German team, which seems young and enthusiastic and has played some really attractive football during the tournament. Sadly it wasn’t to be – they just didn’t spark on the night and although they didn’t play badly, Spain played better, including a brilliant header which got them their one goal. So Germany were eliminated. We shall be reduced to supporting Holland, with South Africa, Ghana and now Germany gone.

Thursday and Friday

We did a few walks in the Park - up the Touw River. Herself and I stayed in one of the rondawels there when she was pregnant with Princess Firstborn and it brought back some good memories. Of course that was in January, hot and steamy and mosquito infested - very different from frosty July. There were dassies on the cliffs, a few waterbirds on the river, a fork tailed drongo flitting in and out of the trees. The aloes were all in bloom, quite glorious.

Saturday

I was originally going to sleep over in Knysna the night before the race and had booked myself a room at the Montessori hostel for the purpose. When I registered for the race on the Friday  afternoon, however, the race inquiries guy told me that it only takes 35 minutes to drive through from Wilderness and that if I left by 5 a.m. I would have ample time to make the 6 a.m. deadline. In fact the real deadline was 7.15 but they were advising people to arrive early. So I cancelled the school hostel – sounded rather Spartan anyway. Somehow, we managed to get the princesses up at 4.30 to leave at 5 a.m. It was still dark when we got to Knysna. We found a parking space right next to the Finishing marquis. I left the family and walked the 2.4km to the start at Loerie Park – normally it would be a scary walk in the dark, but there were lots of runners doing it and I just followed the crowds down the running path along the lagoon shore into George Rex Avenue and along to Loerie Park where we joined a 4-abreast queue which seemed to be about a kilometer long but probably wasn’t. The front part of it was disappearing periodically into buses and minibus taxis. I was hoping to get onto a bus but it wasn’t to be – I found myself on a minibus. Next thing we were off. The first km was fine because it was uphill and the taxi being full, old and underpowered couldn't go very fast. The turn across the traffic onto the N2 was touch and go but we made it. More uphill and then left to Nekkies up the R339. That’s when it got really scary because the road undulated and the driver gunned it on the downhills like his life depended on it. Somehow we got there in one piece.

We disembarked onto a tar road in a pine plantation and walked along a well lit path for some 500m to the gathering point for the half marathon at a place called “Glebe” (really?). The full marathon runners had already left at 7. There was an extremely long queue for the loo’s – made up virtually entirely of women. Enough said. We men had all gone in the forest. We had about 45 minutes to wait while the buses and taxi’s rolled in with the rest of the 6000 athletes. Some young men and youths were congregating just off the road, in the plantation – clearly not runners and I had trouble at first working out who they were. Several had large black plastic bags. The race marshals came and shouted at them once or twice, but did not chase them away – seemed to be OK as long as they kept their distance. So it turns out that there is a tradition attached to this race – given that the start is often in cold and misty conditions, runners come with an extra layer which may be an old sweater or T shirt or blanket and when the race starts they leave it with these “Forest people”. Nice thought. Unfortunately all I had was the Pick ‘n Pay plastic apron so that is what they got. The fellow with the microphone made a lot of light conversation but he did warn us that because of the change of finish venue, they had had to put in a 3km loop in the forest and that “it has a few uphills so don’t use up all your energy at the start!” We should have listened better.

We started running at 8 a.m. sharp. The first 2 km were a steady climb uphill which, though unwelcome, did result in the field spreading out and there was never really a problem with space, the way there is in the 2 Oceans HM. Then we turned right onto a dirt track, a plantation road, and we undulated our way along it for about 5 or 6 km. I found the lack of distance markers a bit frustrating as I was hoping for a good time on this ostensibly downhill and fast run and I couldn’t gauge my pace properly. But apart from that it was a lovely run. There was a fair bit of up and down, especially down, but nothing to stress the muscles too badly. We passed two water points. I had a headache and wondered whether I might be dehydrated so quaffed a few cups of Coke or Pepsi, I forget which it was, and took water sachets whenever I could. Around about the 8km mark, we were directed to the right down a subsidiary road. The downhill led us to an opening – we overlooked a very steep decline, at the bottom of which we could see the line of runners snaking along and, worse, snaking up the other side. An Afrikaans lady next to me voiced some concern to her friend about the coming "oppie". According to the official documents we dropped about 100m in the space of around 3km, and then climbed out again in about 2km, which brought up the 14km or 2/3 marker. In all the half marathons I have run (7 now) I have never walked, but this time I walked. I walked because the steepness of the hill reduced me to a pace where the walkers next to me were keeping up with me, even overtaking me. I walked because my pulse rate was hitting 170. Walked 30 paces, ran 20, until I got to the top. It was sheer purgatory.

The next 3km were mostly downhill. Again, we descended about 100m in 3km. Pleasant running,  There were some real characters on the run who kept everyone’s spirits up with their commentary and chit-chat. One fellow from PE said on a particularly nasty uphill “Gee I really miss the X5”. There were four guys in orange shirts and wigs, carrying a Dutch flag, another fellow draped in a Spanish flag and a young lady with pink bunny ears, pick tutu and pink socks. Well, it takes all types. Runners are a fun lot.

Then we got to a very larney, up market golf estate – I forget the name and it isn’t on the route map but suffice to say I couldn’t have afforded one of the garden fences, let alone one of the houses. OK, fine, I am not here to criticize the opulence of super rich South Africans – leave that for another blog. But I will say that the road down the mountain from their airy estate was one of the steepest descents I have ever had to run. We went from just under 200m to sea level in under 2km – by my calculations that is a gradient of 200m/2000m or 1:10, which may not sound bad, but that was the average and there were stretches where it was as much as we could do to stop our feet running away with us. I could feel my toes crunching into the front of my running shoes, could envisage the blood blisters forming, could hear my quads complaining with every step, my knee joint surfaces slamming into each other. I was going to have to pay for this, I knew.

Which is where the “low rats” come in. Running along the forest roads reminded me of a road sign one often sees on mountain passes in South Africa – heavy vehicles engage low gear, which in Afrikaans is a “lae rat”. So here’s the thing: low rats are needed when you go uphill (to give you more torque) and when you go downhill (to stop the vehicle running away). When you have a course which is all up and down, you spend most of the time in low rat. Hence, a predominantly downhill course like this is not necessarily a fast course.

After what seemed like an eternity we got to the bottom of the pass and the N2. They took us under the main road on a boardwalk which appeared to have been built specially for the purpose, and then along the newly bricked sidewalk along the N2. An elderly bystander encouraged us: “Well done, only 2km to go”. My legs felt like lead. Try as I might I just couldn’t find the energy to pick up the pace and get in under 2.15. Runners passed me in droves – where they found their energy I have no idea. I just knew that all I had in me was to keep going at around 9 km/h to the finish line. So in the end it was a 2.20, my worst time this year.  Herself and the princesses were near the finish line waiting for me, full of encouragement and congratulations. I picked up my medal and complementary cold-drink and we made our way down to the Knysna waterfront for a bit of R and R – starting with a large latte and followed up some time later by a “monster pizza” from Pannarotti’s, washed down with a glass of some rather sharp but basically OK red house wine. Which also gave me a good excuse  not to drive back to Wilderness – actually I wasn’t sure I’d be able to bend my legs, but the wine finalized it.

Back at the cottage I soaked luxuriantly in a hot tub foamed up with the herbal stuff that came in my goody bag. Heavenly, except for the fact that it burnt my chafed nipples like fire, but that is probably too much information entirely. I then lay on the couch and fell asleep while the princesses watched “High School Musical 2” for about the hundredth time. The sky had become overcast and soon the rain was pouring down. The temperature had dropped a good few degrees. Unwilling to try yet another unsuccessful fire, I turned on the electric heather and cranked it up to full, put on a few extra layers of clothes, fetched a blanket and drifted off again. Tonight is the 3^rd-4^th place playoff between Germany and Uruguay which we’ll watch. Tomorrow is the final but we’ll be back in Cape Town.

Sunday

Well, the rain continued through the night, and at times it was really heavy. The playoff game in Port Elizabeth was a cracker, with Germany emerging victorious by 3 goals to 2, but it was played in heavy rain at times which made things interesting, but presumably really difficult for the players. By dawn this morning it was still bucketing down and I began to worry that we wouldn’t make it out before the rivers flooded and the roads closed, but we were OK, trundling up the Kaaiman’s River Pass without too much hassle. As we drove west the cloud lifted and the rain lessened, until by Swellendam the sun was out and we were treated to some stunning views of the snow capped Langeberg to the North.

All in all an interesting race. Will I do it again next year? Not sure my knees will take it, but I’ll think about it.  I like Knysna. I like Wilderness and this whole stretch of coastline with its vleis and lagoons and rivers and beaches.  Part of me wants to move here, but that isn’t unusual in my travels. It does seem that there is a different rhythm to life here. Something to think about ….

And tomorrow back to the rat race. The low rat race.

Two Old Friends

I have just returned from a conference. I have never been a big fan of conferences, but I guess they serve a purpose. As far as I can see they are often just an excuse to generate a lot of hot air, spend a lot of money, eat too much and drink too much, and pass a lot of impractical resolutions, after which everyone goes home and resumes living their lives and doing their work as they did before. On the other hand, they can be useful for meeting new people and staying in touch with old contacts, friends and acquaintances. So I was delighted to bump into an old friend who in fact was the first person ever to hire me. He must have been reasonably happy with what he got because he repeated the exercise not once but 3 times, as I came and went to various other jobs and postings.

He crept up behind me when I was standing at our booth and softly said “Hello”. I turned around and was confronted by a middle aged man, slightly shorter than me (and I am not tall), with grey to white hair, a ruddy complexion, a bit of middle aged spread, a pleasant smile and kind eyes. I think it was the smile and eyes which saved me from embarrassment and I was able to greet him by name without too long or pregnant a pause. We exchanged some pleasantries and agreed to meet the following day for brunch during the final plenary (which he wasn’t keen on attending as he said he is allergic to politics). The next day he duly found me at 10.30 and we made our way to the cafeteria. I had fallen foul of some food poisoning and he wasn’t hungry, so we made do with a Coke (for me) and black coffee (for him). We found a seat on the balcony, not too far from the restrooms.

When I first met him he was 29 and I was 23. I had just graduated. He had recently been appointed medical superintendent of the large secondary level hospital, the previous incumbent having just retired. Before that he had done some paediatrics (in the absence of a paediatrician) and community medicine – teaching primary health care nurses, servicing the hospital’s 15 or so district clinics. This was at the height (or should one say the depth?) of apartheid. We were working at a hospital designated “black”, by which was meant that white patients went to the smarter, better resourced hospital in the town and black patients came to us. I think that better off black patients went to private hospitals. What Indian patients did I can’t remember – I don’t remember them coming to us.

For an 800 bed hospital, we had 12 interns (I was one of them) and 24 medical officers, many of them just out of internship themselves. There was a wonderful, hardworking, good-humoured, fulltime physician (I hope they have canonised him by now), but no paediatrician (despite a busy paediatric outpatient clinic and a 200 bed paediatric ward). We had a part-time private paediatrician who would willingly dispense advice over the telephone but who only occasionally come out to the hospital. The surgery department had one fulltime specialist and a number of fairly experienced medical officers. Surgery was popular at the hospital – in fact most of the doctors who came to work there did so for the surgical exposure and experience – they weren’t particularly interested in clinical medicine or paediatrics, just in learning how to fix a broken femur or do a hemi-colectomy. Obstetrics and Gynaecology had one rather old, semi retired fulltime specialist, who repaired to the doctors’ overnight rooms for an extended siesta every afternoon, and a number of part timers who “covered” after hours. Lastly, a very grumpy part-time radiologist. That was it, as far as I recall. No orthopaedic surgeon. No psychiatrist. That is what my friend was trying to manage, with little or no relevant training apart from his basic medical degree, and on a salary of maybe 3000 rands a month, when his private GP colleagues were making at least double that and private specialists more than three times as much. One day I shall write about my own time there, but this particular blog is not about me, but about my friend.

Over the years, as I came and went as an employee, he rose through the ranks to Senior Medical Superintendent, then Chief – I half expected them to make him Minister of Health or insist that he move to a bigger hospital. He was good at his job – hard working, meticulous, a good administrator, good people skills. He had a vision for the hospital and despite years, decades of obstruction and underfunding from the Afrikaner Nationalist government’s Health Department in Pretoria and it’s satellite offices and lackeys in the provincial capital, he succeeded in getting funding for hospital improvements, some of them very major. Under his management, doctors came and went, but some senior and excellent ones came and stayed and as a result, decent medicine was practiced and, I believe, a great many lives saved and/or improved. What set him apart from many of our colleagues, to me at least, was that he actually seemed to care about the individuals who came in and went out of the hospital – 60 000 outpatients and 30 000 inpatients a year when I was there. It is so easy to become callous when one is confronted with that much suffering and simultaneously denied any decent tools to try and alleviate it. He didn’t – he just did what he could and returned the next day to do the same. He had compassion, and that made him different. I am not aware that he was in any way religious, although he confessed to having been a member of one or other Student Christian association when at university. So I don’t think it was his faith which motivated him or underpinned his humanity. He was just, as is just, a decent person.

During my last stint of working for him, which is about 15 years ago now, I took over the community doctor post and spent my time running the TB clinic, visiting the TB hospital and visiting and supporting the district clinics. It was the best job I have ever had – a wonderful combination of teaching (the primary care nurses), practising clinical medicine and doing some administration and management. There was even ample scope for research, which I sadly didn’t capitalise on. I gave it all up for better security for my family, better education for my children and a better climate.

He is now 53 and I am 47. I have gone my own way, which I am happy with, and he has stuck by the hospital he helped build up. A few years back he stepped down from being superintendent – a younger, black doctor has taken over. My friend has become the chief medical officer in charge of TB. He spends his days seeing TB patients and I expect teaching the other doctors and nurses about TB. I asked him whether he is ever consulted on institutional management decisions – he shrugged his shoulders and said “If they ask, I am happy to advise, but they don’t often ask”. Which is sad – 30 years of experience apparently going to waste.

As we sat and sipped our drinks, I was reminded of a Magna Carta song which I have long enjoyed. One of the verses goes like this:

Two old friends of mine
Is this all life has left of you?
Who took the laughter, the times
We said what we were going to do?
When we were grown and ready
To take on the world, with a song
And now the tune is one
You can't remember

I remember some of those times with him – we shared a love of the outdoors and a love of fine wine, and I have good memories of evenings spent with him and others at campsites in remote corners of game reserves, chatting around an open fire under the stars, sipping at a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. In those days it was a question of what we were going to do when we had gotten rid of the white supremacist Afrikaner Nationalist government. Then we would be ready to take on the world, not with a song, but with primary health care, with access for all, with a whole host of other idealisms and impracticalities. Democracy came in 1994. 17 years later, lots has changed. On the other hand, lots hasn’t. One of the things that hasn’t is the quality of medical care available to average black South Africans living in areas such as those served by this hospital. My friend told me of a current and province-wide freeze of medical posts. Also a moratorium on ordering equipment and supplies – this because they overran their budget last year. Essential drugs (such as TB drugs) are now often in short supply or simply out of stock. They still have a paper based TB register. It still takes 6 weeks to get a TB culture result from the laboratory 200km away.

I asked what his plans were. Did he plan to move? When did he plan to retire? Well, he said, he could retire any time from 55, but he is relatively happy and he thinks he’ll stay on, doing what he is doing, making what difference he can. What about the problems with the hospital? He said that one learns to just shrug one’s shoulders like many others have done for so long who work in the SA Public Health Sector. One just says, “Sorry, it is out of stock” or “Sorry, we haven’t received the result” or “Sorry, your child has died.” Because there is really nothing else one can do if one is to remain sane.

Maybe that is what our efforts come to in the end. A shrug of the shoulders. A slumping of the shoulders. A roll of the eyes heavenwards. A sigh of acceptance – acceptance of mediocrity, of the less than ideal, of second best or third best or worse. We let the years of head bashing wear us down until our ideals are blunted, our outlook cynical and whatever energy and motivation we still have, turned inward towards preservation of self and kin.

The song ends:

Two old friends of mine
A dripping tap
And a broken old chair
And if I read between the lines
Someone's lonely
Someone doesn't care
If it's all gone by tomorrow
For tomorrow's been and gone
Like a bird
That has no home

How sad. We can’t remember the tune with which we planned to take on the world. We have lost our ideals, our vision, our dreams. Our Brave New World was stillborn and the tomorrow we envisioned was left stranded with nowhere to land – a bird with no home. How sad.

America

America

It has been over 2 years since I was in the USA, over 2½ since we left. I think that is mainly a function of the distance. It really is a hell of a long way: 12 hours to Europe and then 7 across the Atlantic plus lead time, layovers and delays on arrival. Getting through it in less than 24 hours in the exception. Or you can do 2 hours to Johannesburg and then the mind numbing 17 hours to New York or Washington, plus 2 hours in Dakar to refuel and to offload/onload passengers and cargo. That’s no better – also 24 hours plus. I prefer the European connection – it just gives you a chance to stretch the legs, get a shower, unwind a bit, have something to eat that doesn’t shout “airport” and “airlines” at you from the other side of the room.

I almost didn’t get there. The day before I was due to leave the UK the Icelandic volcano (she whose name cannot be pronounced) belched forth some more ash and it was touch and go. In the end we left about an hour late, and they had to take us right up north, over Iceland itself (weird as that may sound – the plume was blowing southwards). We got into Dulles, Washington at 8.30 instead of 7.30, which meant that the individual passport control areas had closed for the day and everyone was being channelled through one. I was being picked up by colleagues. As soon as we landed I emailed them (we both have Blackberries), and then periodically emailed updates – when I saw the length of the queue at passport control (6 deep, 90 minute wait), when I got to the front of the queue, when I was waiting for my baggage off the carousel and finally when I got through to say where I was standing. No sign of my friends. It was only then that I noticed that none of the emails had been sent – the hourglass symbol was merrily rotating. The joys of connectivity. We finally found each other and headed off to White Flint, Rockville, where they have an apartment.

It was strange seeing the old familiar sights, US road-signs – no turn on red or the flashing pedestrian crossing indicator with the countdown in seconds next to it,  Washington’s road names – Old Georgetown Road, Rockville Pike, the avenues named after states which fan out from the Capitol like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, the streets in downtown DC very sensibly named “G street” or “F street”, the 495, the 270, route 28, and the names of the Metro stations which I had come to know so well over the course of six months of commuting – Friendship Heights, Medical Center, Bethesda, Strathmore, White Flint, Twinbrook, Rockville, Shady Grove: it all started coming back. The next morning my hosts had to go back to the airport and I took the opportunity to explore the neighbourhood. I eventually found the White Flint Mall, after some difficulty, and the Borders Bookshop. The US has 2 great book shop chains – Borders is one, the other is Barnes and Noble. They tend to have multilevel, well stocked shops with coffee shops attached where one can literally spend hours – and lots of money. I found a book by Karen Armstrong I have been looking for. There were lots of others I looked at and could easily have bought but was thinking of the weight of my suitcase going home so restrained myself. Just as well, as it turned out. I got a cinnamon bagel (another great US institution) and cream cheese for the way home. Only problem was there was no knife and the cream cheese came in a tub, so I was reduced to digging it out and licking it off my forefinger in between taking bites of my bagel. Too much detail. It was delicious.

Sunday night we did sushi at a Japanese restaurant on Rockville Pike. Always amazes me how filling it is – those little delicacies which look like a mouthful are really much more than a mouthful. And if you add a bowl of meso soup for starters, it really is a full meal.

The weekdays were full. I was jetlagged and waking at 3, 4, 5 – so it wasn’t much fun. By the end of the week my clock was coming right but by then it was almost time to leave. I think I ate in on only 1 night out of the 8 nights I was there. Thrice I went to friends, once we went to Teeters for pizza, once to Panera’s, once we ate Thai and once Japanese. And then there were lunch dates as well. Twice they bought in pizza for work functions, twice we went out for pizza (once I had crab-cake), once we had curry at the Bombay Kitchen down the road. It was wonderful to see old friends, catch up, share a meal, drink some good red wine ...

The weather played ball and gave us some glorious spring days. It rained once or twice but not for long. I had intended doing some running but got a bad cold just before I left the UK so that messed up my plans. As a result I expect a shock when next I get on the scale at gym, but a few good workouts should sort it out. Can’t wait to get back to it – I feel like a toad! [Post script: I actually lost 3kg!]

I think Saturday was my best day. I started off with 2-3 hours of work, just clearing the desk so to speak. Then I took the metro through to Bethesda where I was going to meet a friend for lunch. We ended up going up to Montgomery Mall to look for a rug (for her) and an iPad (for my brother). The Apple shop was abuzz with people looking at the iPad and there were plenty salespeople trying to sell us one. The only problem was ... they didn’t have any in stock. Not in the shop, not in the city, not in the country, it seemed – sold out! Well I guess that is what you call a successful product. We grabbed a pizza and then she dropped me off back at Bethesda. I caught the metro (I had a day pass) through to the mall and wandered around for an hour or two renewing my acquaintance with the Capitol building, the Washington monument and a host of other fine buildings, but mostly with the vibe of the place – the Mall has a unique atmosphere which is hard to describe – sort of mixture of national pride and joie de vivre. One sees groups of youngsters and not-so-youngsters playing handball, soccer, people jogging, cycling – all in this superb setting with the Capitol in the background. George Washington University was having its graduation ceremony there the following day – right in the middle of the mall, with that magnificent backdrop. Michele Obama was scheduled to speak.

Then I took the metro back to Friendship heights and met some different friends for a sandwich / bowl of soup / cafe latte at Panera’s – something herself and I did I don’t know how many times in our six months there. Before I left I collected a half dozen assorted bagels, two of which I selected to take home – not sure what they will taste like after 20 000km in the hold but the thought is there.

On Sunday I took the Metro to Shady Grove and met some different friends again, who took me to their church nearby. I have been there once before and find it similar enough to ours to suit me. Even knew some of the songs! After church we drove through to Frederick which is about 30km north west. It has a historic town centre, dating back to the 18^th century and the days of the War of Independence and the Civil War I guess – must look it up. Anyway, there are some stunning old townhouses, lots of churches, court houses and the like and, best of all, some really great restaurants. I was told the quiche was wonderful – in the end I opted for tuna salad, thinking about my cholesterol and my girth, but they were both delicious.

Then it was over and I was sitting in the Super Shuttle hurtling toward the airport at some ungodly speed, driven by a guy from West Africa who didn’t seem to know the meaning of “slow down” or “turn down” (the volume). We survived, but I have had better taxi rides. I guess this was half the usual price so I shouldn’t complain. A last cup of Starbucks latte for old time’s sake and then we were boarded and heading out over the Atlantic.

I am not sure when I shall see the USA again. I hope this won’t be the last time. I am fairly sure I don’t want to live there but I certainly enjoy visiting the place. And there is so much more to see – we barely scratched the surface in our time. Didn’t get to the West Coast, nor Florida – didn’t even get to New York. Will have to pull ourselves together.

A site familiar to any Washingtonian: the Metro station. I have heard many Washingtonian friends complain about it - I think it is magnificent, both as an architectural and engineering accomplishment and as a public amenity. A ride costs between $3 and $4 depending on distance and time of day. It is safe, clean and comfortable. What more do they want?

The well known "Smithsonian Castle" in the Mall, the headquarters of the Smithsonian Institute to which the visitor to DC owes so much for free access to magnificent museums and other attractions like the zoo. I have never actually been inside this particular building but have always loved just looking at it and photographing it.

Another of my favourite buildings on the Mall - and this one I have been into. It is the National Museum of the American Indian (www.nmai.si.edu/). I just love the design of the place - the curve of the walls, the stone, the shadows that are cast, the water features, the exhibits. The family didn't particularly bond with this place, but I did.

Is this the best known landmark in the world? Whatever your politics, it is a magnificent building. For me it brings back many good memories of days spent walking around the Mall, eating hotdogs, or ice creams. Or in the heat of summer simply drinking as much water as possible.

Or maybe this is. The Washington Monument. I have always had mixed feelings about it. No doubt it is impressive. One really needs to get up close and intimate to get a true sense of that. In its own way it is beautiful - in its starkness, its sterility. I expect the Freudians and the Jungians have written books about it. What does it signify? Strength and might undoubtedly. Solidness. Massiveness. Uprightness? Last man standing? Loneliness? The odd one out? I don't know - I don't really get it, but it certainly does something to me, even if it doesn't do much for me.

England

England

There is something very comforting about MacDonald’s. Ja, Ja, Ja - I’ve also heard that the Big Mac has virtually no nutritional value at all and that MacDonald’s French fries are just fat plus salt and that their Diet Coke is mostly chemicals, possibly carcinogenic ones. But here’s the thing. At least you know what you are getting. And you don’t feel ripped off. At least I don’t.

At home I hardly ever go to MacDonald’s. No more than I go to Kentucky Fried Chicken or Steer’s – we make the occasional sojourn, usually at the instigation of the princesses. But somehow when I travel I end up at the MacDonald’s. Like today. I had an overnight flight from DC to London. So I was up early yesterday, worked the whole day, caught a 10 pm flight and didn’t sleep very well. Result: not feeling wonderful when we touched down at Heathrow. Add to that waiting for an hour for my luggage, which never came, only to be told that the United Airlines check in lady in Washington had got it wrong: it was booked through to Cape Town (she said I would definitely need to collect it and recheck it since my onward flight is SAA). 

I have an 11 hour layover. Not great but there are worse places than London to spend 11 hours. Actually it is more like 5 hours now. Anyway, I saw a sign to “SAA arrivals lounge – by invitation only”. To be frank, I didn’t expect they would let me in, but I thought I’d try my luck anyway. “No,” I was told, “you have to be Gold”. “Thank you, I understand completely,” I said, aiming for a bit of thinly veiled sarcasm, which I think was lost on the lounge staff. OK, so no airport lounge. Don’t like them anyway. Try a hotel – all I really want is a shower, change, possibly a sleep, and somewhere to work for the day until check in time.

I caught the U3 bus up to Bath Road in Drayton West. This is a trick I learned from my boss. You can take the National Express Hotel Hopper but it costs four pounds and they drive you about 1km. Nice work if you can get it! But here’s the secret – the buses which leave from the Central Bus Station are free for the first three stops – something to do with the fact that it is impossible to walk to Heathrow so they have to provide you with free public transport.

“Yes,” said the check in clerk at the Heathrow Sheraton, “we do have day rooms. They are 85 pounds plus tax so that will be around 100 pounds plus 15 pounds for internet access for the day.” And of course there would be food – I think the lunch is about 20 quid. So about 150 pounds or nearly R1800 for the privilege – that is 6 tanks of petrol in our cars – a month’s supply for both cars. Which is how I ended up at MacDonald’s, just across the road. Four quid bought me a Big Mac, fries and a large soda. I got to sit at a comfortable and clean table where I could do some work in peace at no extra cost. The guys next to me have their laptops out as well. They are babbling away in what sounds like Portuguese but I am not sure – anyway it doesn’t bother me. Every few minutes there is a roar as a plane takes off – we are right next to one of the main runways. It doesn’t worry me – I can see that if you lived here you might eventually stop hearing it. Not just because of hearing loss – I think you would become accustomed to it.

It has been a long trip – 2 weeks away from home is not my preference but it seemed to make sense this time. It was foul when I left Cape Town – the weather I mean – one of those winter frontal systems which really remind you why it was called the Cape of Storms. I sat in the business lounge at the airport (Silver was good enough there), with the rain pelting the windows and obscuring the view across the apron and runway, struggling to hear what was being said on the telecom I had dialled in to. My travel agent had secured me a decent seat – don’t ask me which one but I had a wall in front of me not a seat with the result that I could stretch my legs a bit and there wasn’t anyone kicking back and tilting theirs into my French salad dressing.

I had a couple of meetings in London – I was staying at the hotel where the meetings were being held, the Heathrow Sheraton. The meetings were ... meetings. What can I say? I got a chance to have a look around the area though – I went for a run one afternoon up to the nearby village of Harmondsworth. This is the crazy thing – here you have one of the world’s busiest airports, with 40 planes landing / departing every hour, I am told. Surrounding it you have the usual array of warehouses, businesses and hotels, which feed it and feed off it. But just beyond that you have fields of lurid yellow flax, sleepy villages, old stone churches, manor houses and quaint little pubs ... it is all a bit unreal ... and then beyond that again the motorway.

The White Horse pub, just up the road from the Sheraton Heathrow. It was quite cold the night we went so we elected not to sit outside. Inside it was warm and welcoming. The ceiling was quite low and I expect the building is a good few hundred years old. I asked for a “local beer” and was given a Foster’s! Ah well, I tried. I don’t mind Foster’s. The one negative was the Juke Box - looked and sounded really out of place, but I guess the publican has to keep his clients happy.

Flax fields: The bright yellow field just behind the hotel. I have called it flax. I shall have to find out whether that is correct. It is certainly striking. Is this what Sting was singing about in his song “We’ll walk in fields of gold”? I wonder.

Harmond House and Harmondsworth Hall: These are all shots of what I took to be the Manor House of the village of Harmondsworth. I know nothing of their history but I thought them quite pretty, especially the flower baskets.

Harmondsworth Church: This is the church in the village of Harmondsworth. I forget the name – St Peter’s, maybe. The vicar’s name looked Nigerian. Certainly not English. I wandered around the adjacent graveyard for a while. Many of the gravestones were illegible on account of weathering and erosion, but some I could read – they seemed to be mainly 19^th and 20^th century. The church, on the other hand, looks much older. There was no sign of life in the place – in fact the pub across the road was a lot more lively than the church, which I guess is about par for the course.

Harmondsworth Moor: I thought this was quite charming – wedged between factories and warehouses, a little bit of heaven – Harmondsworth Moor. But the interesting thing is that it is reclaimed landfill. I walked around, took some pictures, wondered whether I should buy some property here ... until I found out it is owned and managed by British Airways ... but quite delightful. Full marks to the worthies who created it.

Do I like England? Do I feel drawn to the place? There is definitely a lot about it that attracts me. Maybe it is just that I feel like I better understand the people here – not totally – they are not South African and I am not British, despite my passport, but I think they are that little bit closer to us (by which I mean English speaking white South Africans, my “home base”), than Americans are, which is strange given that America is also 350 years out from being colonised by England and other European powers. I watched the UK elections on BBC and then I listened to American political debate on National Public Radio in the USA and I have to confess that I understood the former and not the latter. The same applies to sport – try and I might I just cannot fathom American football, struggle with basketball and can just about figure out baseball. On the other hand football (soccer), rugby and cricket, which dominate the English sporting scene, are the stuff of my youth, like second languages to me. And of course the British drive on the correct (not the right) side of the road. Maybe we should spend some time here. It is just the climate that is a bit of a killer. I have a dream of spending the UK summer here and the SA summer in SA. We have friends who do that. Best of both worlds – never have to be cold or wet!

Hiking Silvermine again

Looking south down the peninsula chain from Noordhoek Peak

Promontories from left: Elsie's Peak, Simonstown Mountain.

Protea cynaroides, the King Protea, South Africa's national flower.

Looking across Hout Bay from Noordhoek Peak.

From left: Sentinel, Kapteinspiek, Karbonkelberg Peak, Suther Peak, Little Lion's Head

Silvermine Dam and the Amphitheatre. 

Note the crazy swimmers.

Protea

?? P. nitida / Wagon tree / Waboom

Protea

?? P repens / Common Sugar Bush / Suikerbos

Long Beach and Kommetjie, from Noordhoek Peak

The Triglutei had a fairly lengthy break. Or at least this member of the Triglutei did. I think the others tried to keep it going with one or two walks. The problem was that Gluteus number one, Sir Lawrence, got some work, and then got sick. So he was out of the running with flu and gypo and wat-ook-al for a while and only really got back on his feet this week. Gluteus number 2, My Learned Colleague, was available, as were a number of the riff-raff, but we just didn't get our act together.

Sir Lawrence asked me after Thursday's squash (which I won, for once), "So how about a hike on Saturday morning?" I must confess I did not jump at the opportunity. The winter has been drawing in, we have replaced the summer bedcovers with the big thick weighty down duvet, the sun is only rising after 7 and the prospect of getting up at 5.30 on a Saturday did not exactly thrill me. "Where?" I asked. "Wherever," he said, "how about we try that circular route you talked about in Silvermine?" Well, that got me interested. I walked that path back in the late seveties or eighties when we first came to Cape Town, with my parents and I'm not sure whom else. I remembered the spectacular views over Hout Bay, Chapman's Peak and Noordhoek, and the serenity of the mountain dam in the middle of the amphitheatre. Yes, that would indeed be a good way to spend a Saturday morning, even if it meant getting up at 5.30 in the dark and stumbling over the Corgies.

Funny how six weeks changes everything. Last time I went I packed a swimming costume and towel and wore shorts and a T shirt. This time I wore a woolly cap (which has a flag and says "RSA" in big letters: appropriate, I thought, before the World Cup), a think fleecy tracksuit top, tracksuit pants and I took an anorak in the bag. I was later glad I had.

I picked the other three up in Muizenberg just after 6.30. It was still dark. We drove slowly around the mountain and up Ou Kaapse Weg, arriving at the closed and locked Reserve Gate around 6.50. The Eastern sky was ablaze and it was no hardship to wait the ten minutes until the Warden arrived and opened up. A group of runners had just made it to the top from the other side of Ou Kaapse, one of whom I recognized as a friend of mine who has run the Comrades Marathon many times. They offloaded some empty cold-drink cans into our boot and went their way - interesting gesture. I told my party that this fellow is one of the few people I know who will stop in the middle of a marathon for a smoke break. He says he likes the taste.

It cost the others R15 each to get in: I got in for free thanks to my Wild Card. The poor official was still a bit sleepy and informed me with some satisfaction that as from next week opening time will be 8 a.m. not 7 a.m. We drove up the tar road as far as the parking lot next to the dam and left the car there.

The circular road, which is also a track for mountain bikers, takes you  northwest, up the Silvermine valley, up some fairly hectic zigzags and over the lip of the amphitheatre. In places the road is steep enough to have warranted concrete strips; for most of the rest it is loose gravel. We passed the turnoff to Elephant's Eye Cave and decided against making the detour, which would have added an hour to the trip. A small flock of malachite sun-birds was flitting from one bush to another, their brilliant green plumage catching the morning light. Too small to photograph satisfactorily with my camera unfortunately. 

We walked on up the valley betwen Constantiaberg and Noordhoek Ridge, which is called Prinskasteel Valley, according to my map, climbing steadily and stopping every so often to turn around and admire the rising sun over False Bay and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the distance. The valley was mostly in shade and there was a brisk breeze blowing in from the south east, so it was fairly chilly. The flowers were good - Erica's particularly and some really superb King Protea specimens. I think most had flowered a month or so ago and were starting to dry out, but there were one or two new ones.

Where the main track turned south west, we continued on the path to the lookout over Hout Bay and were pretty much blown away by the view, fortunately;y not by the wind. Quite stupendous. You look down on Hout Bay, the Sentinel/Hangberg (331m), Kapteinspiek (414m), Hout Bay Harbour and Hout Bay Heights, the rather bizarre "Lichtenstein Castle", Karbonkelberg Peak (653m) and Suther Peak (615m) which together make up the Karbonkelberg and over to the right Little Lion's Head (437m), which the map told me was formerly known as "Het Zuycker-Broodt", and Hout Bay Corner - the end of the Twelve Apostles. The Bay looked calm from 622m, but I expect it wasn't so calm down at surface level. There were very few cars on Chapman's Peak Drive.

We tried to find a path labeled "Skyline Panorama Path", but couldn't find the start, so went back to the main track and continued in an anticlockwise direction on the east side of Noordhoek Ridge, climbing all the time, until we reached another superb viewpoint and the start of a short path to the top of Noordhoek Peak (754m), with its pyramid cairn. The map warned "take care in high winds", and there certainly was a keen wind blowing, although not strong enough to blow us off. The problem was the sun and the wind seemed to be coming from the same direction, so it wasn't possible to get out of the wind without losing the sunshine. As a result we took our pictures, admired the view, but didn't stay long at the top.

The track then heads south east down Noordhoek Ridge, with good views over the southern peninsula, Long Beach, Noordhoek itself, Kommetjie, Ocean View and the rest of the Fish Hoek Valley and beyond. We passed a path to Chapman's Peak which looked worth investigating at some point. We saw a couple of raptors - one was a crow, the other was smaller with a barred tail - maybe a buzzard or something like that - raptors are not my forte. Then down some zig zags with occasional shouts of "Cyclists!" and the need to get out of the way or be ridden over, past what the map calls a "Large Kreupelhout", which looked to me more like a "Large Dead Kreupelhout" although it did have some signs of life in the upper braches - some rather beautiful yellow moss - past a old, rather dry dam, to the Noordhoek Viewpoint.We didn't climb the "koppie" for the full view - there was a pretty good one from the edge of the ridge. 

We then left the road and headed north east over the ridge into the amphitheater again. We saw a bird with a long tail sitting in the top of a protea bush which we concluded must be a Cape sugarbird. Then down to the Silvermine Dam, where we sat for a few moments to finish our juice and biscuits and watch some crazy people swimming, before heading down to Lakeside for coffee (for all) and a late breakfast (for some). General agreement that it had been a good walk and that the area deserved further exploration.