I <3 Tulbagh

I took an impulsive, unscheduled break in beautiful Tulbagh this week. I am home now, but I think I left part of my soul behind.

This is what I found there:

1. A wonderful friend with a wonderful cottage in the middle of nowhere, a sleeper couch, peace and quiet.

2. A lot of cows. Early in the morning, this one didn’t seem to want to have her photo taken. But I was intrepid.

I felt like a genuine wildlife photographer getting this shot. I’d silently tracked her a good 10 metres along the garden fence, and was rewarded by this split-second itch-scratch.

3. Apparently I was being tracked myself. Mia kept a beady eye on me from the roof.

4. A thousand mountains.

(Don’t worry, I won’t show you them all).

5. A little girl called Lila-Raine, for whom I made a quick headband:

 

6. A peacock who, with a display like this, must have mistaken me for a peahen. I was flattered.

7.  Garden creatures that had my heart stopping with horror when I first laid eyes on them. Tina assured me they were grasshoppers, but they looked like prehistoric human eyeball-suckers to me.  I kept my car windows tightly wound up at all times for fear that one of these things would fly or jump inside my car.

8. An amazingly gorgeous shop that belongs to Susan, Tina’s sister, in new premises in Buitenkant Street. More about the Marmalade Angel tomorrow.

Now you see why I didn’t want to come home.

To be continued…

Tulbagh Weekend Part 1

There is so much to tell about my weekend in Tulbagh that I won’t do it all in one shot.

There are peacocks everywhere in the town, and they strut around and shriek at each other as if they own it. I was met by these three lads as I arrived.

Tulbagh is a 90-minute drive from Cape Town, in a rich, lush valley surrounded by extraordinary mountains: The Obiqua, the Witsenberg and the Winterhoek. You can see the snow on the top of  some of the peaks – that means it’s still bitterly cold in the early mornings at this time of year.

And so every dog must have his own pair of pyjamas to keep warm. Here are Tina’s dogs, Marduk and Maya the dachshund.

I was lucky enough to be able to stay with my friend Tina for three nights while the Spring Festival was on.  Tina lives in a cottage at the end of a meadow at the end of a very long dirt road at the end of the town… and I will have pics of all that tomorrow.

Just to say for now that I (and Jam Tarts) had a wonderful weekend in a wonderful town, despite some unpleasant weather on the Saturday. I have SO MANY new ideas bouncing around in my head.

To be continued…