He runs a great play centre for kids, called Planet Kids, in Muizenberg. One of the best features of this place is that it caters for specifically for kids with special needs, although all kids would have fun playing and learning here.

Part of the inspiration that urged Andy to start this play centre 2 years ago, is his son, Luca, who has autism, and I hear that the centre is doing quite well.

It was nice to catch up with how he is doing, and I hope that his endeavour continues to be a success.

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I am talking about the new Bus Rapid Transit system that Cape Town is building to help ease traffic congestion, and provide some infrastructure for the Soccer World Cup next year.

The original plan was to have four phases, to be completed by 2020, and costing about R10 billion in total. Phase one, which is due to be completed by mid next year, was forecast to cost R1.4 billion.

Construction has been going on for a while now, severely affecting my route home from work every day, and causing taxi drivers to protest about the extra competition.

Well, recently it turned out that someone had miscalculated the budget, and a scaled down version of phase one would cost R2.35 billion. That is almost double the money for a much smaller project than originally intended. I then heard today that the budget had grown to R4.2 billion!

How on earth does a project like this end up costing 3 times as much as the original estimate resulting in being R3 billion over budget?

And if you want to know how much the extra cost is going to cost an average Capetonian? There are according to Wikipedia, about 3.5 million people living in Cape Town, which means that the extra budget amounts to R850 per PERSON in Cape Town. I think that puts it a little bit more into perspective….

You can read more at News24.

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I did get some nice photos of the wreck from Claudia, who had time to go and have a look.

What had happened is that the coal carrier was anchored in Table Bay, apparently awaiting engine repairs, when a fierce storm struck on Monday night, with gale force winds.

Waves were apparently breaking over her bow, and when the ship’s anchor cable snapped, the ship was forced onto the beach.

By the early hours of the morning the 25 Turkish crew had been rescued by the NSRI, but the ship itself is another matter.

By the time I left work, I stopped at the beach on the way, and the ship was still exactly where it had been beached. It is such a delightful sight (in a rather macabre way) to see this huge hulk so close to the shore. It looked like half of Cape Town turned up to see it too, as the beach was thronged with people catching a view of the ship, and taking countless photos.

The main concerns of the salvage operations now is getting the coal and fuel off the ship before it pollutes the surrounding area if the ship breaks up, but for me, I am rather a bit more curious as to how they are going to get rid of this beast…

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I would like to know, how can a city be designed where if one of the routes out of the city has a problem, the rest of the city comes to a standstill. True, the N1 is one of the main arterials out of the city, but off the top of my head, I can think of at least three or four alternative routes to avoid the area. The problem comes in that all of Cape Town’s roads are so near full capacity that any additional pressure on any of those routes causes those routes to be pushed over the limits and causing tens of thousands of commuters to have elevated blood pressure.

Our traffic problems are not helped by the myriad of road works in progress, and even the usefulness of the planned Bus Rapid Transit system, which would be the first real public transport which would work, is in doubt. Last week taxi drivers once again striked about the BRT and want the project canned. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

Local government needs to do something to address our road system…..perhaps we, as Capetonians, ought to strike to get some improvement rather than strike to get rid of any improvements.

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The most famous ghost reported in this building is connected with a certain painting which can be found in the Bar Room. It is a portrait of a young gentlewoman, and some people have reported seeing her still walking round the building. She is often called the “lavender lady” or the “lilac lady” and was often seen by magistrates and their wives when they had lived there.

There is also another story that there is a painting hanging in the building which cannot be photographed, and any attempt to do so results in a either a blank, or a blurry photograph.

The building is now used as the Simon’s Town Museum, and so, being open to the public here begins the adventure…..

Being intrigued by these stories, especially of a painting that can’t be photographed, I thought i would be fun to go investigate. I am a skeptic, but have always wondered about the explanation for ghosts. They just have this curious attraction, which I am sure I share with many people. I can’t quite say I believe in ghosts, but it is still fun to hunt down the stories.

So, this weekend, I got Claudia and Cole together, and we set off on our wild ghost chase. We got to the museum, after an hour long car-ride, filling up cole’s head with talk of ghosts all along the way. Once we arrived we couldn’t wait to start exploring. The museum itself was interesting, but working our way through, we finally got the Bar Room. It was the last part of museum which we got to, but that was purely coincidental, if you are willing to believe that. There was the painting on the wall which legends spoke of.

I went back to the front desk, and to check, I mentioned that I had heard of a painting, and before I got any further, I noticed a sly smile creep slowly across her face….she knew exactly what I was about to ask. That was indeed the painting of the lavender lady, and some people had claimed to see her. Apparently walking through the room where I had been moments before, and then trough a wall where there used to be a doorway.

Portrait of the lavender lady

I trundled back to the painting and just had to try take a photo of it. My first photo came out blurry, and I wondered if the legend was true. I then took a second shot, and it came out fairly clear, albeit faint. I am sure that this is the painting that you supposedly cannot take a picture of. And I do suspect that it is for a reason of earthly origin. You see, the painting is a very dark painting, without much contrast in colours, so unless you have very good light, it can be hard to see much detail even with the naked eye, so a camera likely won’t fair very well.

While taking the photo, I will be honest, and admit my mind kept thinking that the ghost of the lavender lady would pop up at me for daring to try take a photo of the painting, but nothing supernatural happened to me that afternoon.

So, in the end, I found no proof of the ghost, but never-the-less still had a fun trip to try……and if anyone else happens to bump into her, do tell.

For more tales concerning the Residency, check out this link

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Looking at Sunset Beach over Diep River - Cole's Pic

What a winter we are having here in Cape Town. Two weeks ago I wrote about a major storm with gale force winds which I enjoyed so much, and here we are after another weekend of huge amounts of rain.

On Saturday, we had the second highest rainfall in a 24 hour period since recording began. 55mm of rain fell, compared with the record set in 1985 of 61mm. It has truly been a very wet weekend.

On Friday night, we had guests over for supper. They live just a few blocks away from us, but had to drive all around trying to find a route to our house since most of the roads in our suburb had flooded. That was the first clue that we were going to have it bad.

On Saturday, the news started coming in about flooding happening in various parts of Cape Town. You can see some quite spectacular shots from around town here. It has been worse than usual with thousands of people in the informal settlements particularly finding themselves forced out of their homes.

View of the vlei with the RC airfield in the centre thoroughly submerged

Now this brings me to today. The rain has calmed down considerably since Sunday, however, this morning on the way to work I discovered that Otto du Plessis Drive, which is my main route into work, was closed due to flooding. What had happened is that overnight the runoff further inland had flooded the Diep River catchment area between Tableview and Milnerton. It took me two hours to get to work this morning as compared to my normal half an hour, but the temptation to see the water was just too strong for me to resist.

Well, by this evening the waters had subsided enough to allow the road to be reopened for my commute home, however, Claudia, Cole and myself did go take a look at the high water so we could take a few photos.

I do know that times like this can be very hard for a lot of people, and I do have great sympathy for them, but I just cannot help but look at wonder at the forces of nature.

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I went to see The Pirate Experience, put on by Boswell Wilkie Circus at the Grand West Arena, with Claudia and Cole and we enjoyed it thouroughly. And trust me, it takes a lot to hold a 7 year old’s attention for almost 2 hours. 

It has everything you could ask for including a drunken sailor harassing the crowd, sword fights, a lake with actual water on stage, a huge ship and many supurb acrobatic and aerial acts.

It also had a story of sorts binding the whole show together, but that played second fiddle to the acts. There was never a moment when the action stopped and at times there was two or three different acts happening at once.

There was only one element missing from my youthful circus experiences and that was the tantalising smell
of sawdust and popcorn, which was more than made up for by the caliber of the performance.

I am very glad to see that the circus is able to reinvent itself in a time when I feared that it might become a relic of the past.

Another great thing about the show, is that they were selling pirate swords, hats and eyepatches for kids, but instead of ripping people off, they kept the prices low. Especially since the tickets are R85 each. A little expensive, but well worth it in my opinion.

The show is still running until the 19th July, so if you are in Cape Town and especially if you have kids, although this is purely optional – no kids are necessary for the enjoyment of this show – I seriously recommend you go and see it. You can book at computicket.

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A cold front hit Cape Town this morning, and it is a big one. We are being attacked by strong gale force winds and torrential rain, and not to mention snow on the mountain peaks.

Now, any sane person would be snug in bed, but where exactly do you think I ended up?

On my way home from work this evening, it was initially raining cats and dogs, but when I got to Milnerton, more or less the halfway point of my journey, the rain stopped but was now caught in a major traffic jam, so got an idea. My route takes me right past Milnerton Beach,so I thought I would stop to savour the glorious weather.

It was absolutely splendid I must tell you. It was half an hour after high tide, and it was on a spring tide on top of it. The wind was a very strong onshore gale force wind, so strong that I could not stand easily when faced with the full force of it. This is my most favourite time to go to the beach for me.

In the picture below you can see the view from Milnerton Beach. I am facing the direction where you can normally see Cape Town on a clear day. You can just make out a little of signal hill on the right of the photo.

Milnerton Beach during the storm

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