‘Slaapstad’ is anything but, as we discovered recently
SHE WAS AMAZED TO SEE THE WAITERS (MALE) ALL WEARING LACY BRAS AND APRONS
ILOVE showing people around Cape Town and it’s not only because of the scenery. Jealous people from the north mock us and call our city “Slaapstad” and claim we have a big mountain and not much else. Not so.
Cape Town is a city of surprises, as I rediscovered when my Canadian daughter came to spend time with me after being away for some years. Our first stop after I’d collected her from the airport was the Olympia Café in Kalk Bay, where she was amazed to see the waiters (male) all wearing lacy bras over their shirts and aprons. Nobody else in the place seemed to notice, which made it all the more bizarre.
Naturally my daughter asked what was going on. “It’s Women’s Day,” I explained, “and the waiters are wearing bras to show their support for women.” Apparently people in other cities don’t do that kind of thing. Later in the week we visited the historic Vergenoegd wine estate in the pouring rain and arrived in time to listen to a lecture on – no, not wine – the raising of ducks.
Owner John Faure was giving an educational duck tour to a group of Grade 4 pupils from Somerset West. We ended up buying fresh duck eggs. You can’t do that on many wine farms in other countries. I took her to tea at Aspidistra Nursery on Vlaeberg Road.
It’s an Alice-in-Wonderland experience wandering along the twisting garden paths and meeting mirrorbedecked angels and mermaids, huge fowls with naked necks, suspended tea-pots pouring endless streams of water into rusted buckets, and bright parrots shrieking greetings to visitors.
“Boere” coffee and refined Earl Grey tea is served in a collection of old-fashioned cups and saucers in a peaceful canvas-sided shed in a jungle setting.
We sat by the log fire at Muratie wine farm and enjoyed a pairing of port and chocolate.
We stopped to photograph the extraordinary collection of painted metal scarecrows at Mooiberge farm stall.
There are literally hundreds of them and they’ve become a tourist attraction on their own. The line-up includes dinosaurs, flying motorbikes, blue bulls, sharks and a menagerie of assorted creatures, real and mythical.
My daughter’s camera was clicking away merrily. Many of her pictures were of the price tags on some of the wines in the shop. “They’ll never believe these prices back home!” she kept muttering.
On the way home along the coast road we stopped to photograph the spectacular display of arum lilies along the cliff-top roadside. Rain had been pouring down intermit- tently the whole day, but it hadn’t spoiled our enjoyment. There was enough to distract us from any thought of the weather.
By the end of the day my daughter staggered off to bed exhausted from the kaleidoscope of odd-ball experiences she’d enjoyed.
I sat in contented silence in the company of my cats, sipping a glass of fine Cape shiraz and listening to the thump and splash of False Bay waves on the rocks below my house. Damn! This a great place!
Last Laugh
A little old lady realised she had nothing in the cupboard for her husband’s supper. In desperation she opened a tin of cat food and served it to him, not telling him what it was.
To her surprise he loved it and insisted on having it at every meal. Later she asked her doctor whether it was safe to feed him cat food.
“Better not,” he said, “It could be dangerous.”
Two months later she called the doctor and said her husband had died. “See? I told you cat food was dangerous,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t the cat food,” she said. “He was sitting on the garden fence grooming himself, and when he tried to lick his hind leg he fell off and broke his neck.”