Endings & Beginnings

The view from Boyes Drive towards Muizenberg on the way to Kalk Bay is quite splendid. As the road twists and meanders down towards the sea there are benches at every turn entreating you to spend a moment of your time so that they may gently reveal what they gaze at during their lifetime. We decide not to accept their invitation but instead be brave and on two legs instead of sitting, we stand at the top, the smell of the ocean filling our heads making us quite giddy and light-headed. We look in amazement at the scenery below.


In Kalk Bay, (you guessed right, one of my favourite places) we head straight for (you guessed right again) hot, crispy fish and chips...loads of it as the portions are in no way mean. We eat and observe the people, the tourists, the gulls (ever-fighting for morsels), the rocks with the waves splashing over them. It is peacefully chaotic as people buy and find a spot and eat and chat and look.

We walk around the street and go into all the little boutiques with their trendy, up-to-the-minute clothes and bags and jewellery and hats and scarves. They play music in the background that fits the mood and we immerse ourselves fully in a gloriously tactile experience, surrounded by the modes of the moment

We find a shop with old books and an arty-looking, bald man sitting at the back surrounded by the semi-precious gem stone jewellery that he makes. He sits and sings to himself as his fingers tie another knot or thread another bead. He seems content and happy and chatty and is not shy to tell us all about himself and what he does and why.

Later, tired out, we sit and have a beer overlooking a sea that will soon be dark and mysterious lit only by moonlight and witnessed silently by mountains and a few now full and sleepy gulls.

It has been another exceptional day with my daughter and we both realise that I will be going home soon and we will have to say goodbye for a little while.

On a moonlit night in the city bowl, before I leave Cape Town for the second time, I sit alone and ponder over how life has changed, creating many endings, yet how the seed of envisaging a new life was sewn on my first trip and how it took root on my second when Tony and I realised that we love the Cape and that we could joyfully begin a new life here. What will be will be.