We are back at one of our ‘bases’ in the Cape. The boys are having a post-school swim in the estate’s swimming pool. I continue to marvel at the beauty of South Africa.

Having made friends with children at a harvest festival at one of the local vineyards, we followed up with a post school play date with Oscar’s new found friend Zara…at a garden centre/vineyard/piggery! Stunning grounds and gardens with play equipment for the children to safely occupy themselves. Public parks in towns do not as a rule seem to be the place to play…

We returned to Langebaan on the coast on Saturday morning and whilst the boys listened to stories and read books I continued to marvel at what a truly stunning country this is.
For a country where there is a state of paranoia, and a very complicated political (and consequently emotional) environment and where abiding by the road rules is hardly given a second thought it is an incredible place to drive. The roads are wide and fast. Wide hard shoulders means that drivers pull over onto them to allow you to pass/over take. You flash your lights to say thank you, and they flash to acknowledge you. Vehicles coming the opposite direction, if finding you on their side of the road don’t honk horns and gesticulate whilst shouting obscenities (as in Australia) but they move over towards the hard shoulder so that everyone can get through and get on with the day.

People pay attention when driving over here – you have to. I was marvelling at this as I drove at 130km/hour along the back road – not fast enough to catch up the pickup/ute/bukkie half a kilometre ahead of me, but clearly not fast enough for the Audi that came flying up behind and past me!

Meanwhile the rolling fields stretched for miles around me, wheat fields combined and in the process of being cleared of straw bales, cattle and sheep (with ostriches or donkeys grazing alongside them to protect the stock from African wild cats). It is a country of breath taking beauty.