The Cape on a Good Day

Beautiful almost-Spring days like this are what makes living in the Cape so awesome. It's almost enough for you to forget the endless, bone-chilling winter rains (which we haven't had enough of this year), the darned howling South-Easter wind (that's only supposed to last from November to January, but started in September last year and held out until May) and the occasional heat wave (two years ago we had a couple of weeks of over 40C daily).

But take a day like this - sunshine, everything washed transparent green, tiny spring flowers daring to paint fields in shades of bright, orchards starting to blush pink and white, NO wind - heck, on a day like this it's Cape-love at its best!

Once a week I used to have to make the trek from Somerset West to Paarl, an hour's drive through the winelands via Stellenbosch. Mid-autumn was awesome! Every vineyard turned a different colour - different varieties giving different shades of autumn. If you were lucky, there was just a sprinkle of snow on the mountains. It was pretty hard to keep my eyes on the road and off the scenery.

No wonder my dad can't wait to get back from Australia to the Fairest Cape for a visit.