Winter in the Cape

Winter in the Cape

Winter has finally arrived in the Cape, the southernmost region of South Africa. How do I know? When the rainy season starts. Serious rain clouds and a howling gayle raced down our alley yesterday. This is the time where I am just happy to be old and retired. I just snuggle up in our cottage, cancle all appointments, retire to a nice book or blog my stories or just sit there with a boiling hot cup of tea or coffee and watch TV. Sometimes, Maui the cat jumps on my lap and snoozes the day away. His snoozes have a hypnotic effect on me an not long after I have fallen asleep myself in my soft and warm rocking chair. Only the lack of sunshine becomes a problem after a while. When the sun does not shine, the houses get very cold inside. Heating systems are unknown of in South Africa. Warmth either comes from the fire place or the electrical plug. What do we do, to escape that chill? We snuggle up in a warm blanket and hide the feet in enormous sheepskin slippers, which keep our old, cold feet warm.
Hot drinks and soup pots keep us going until its bed time. The elctric blanket meanwhile has been warming up the ice cold sheets and we can glide into the soft bed at night time and stay in the bed until the sunrise next morning, which takes place at around 7 am at the moment.
But winter salctice has already passed and the days are getting longer again. Like all seniors, we are also waiting for warmer days.
The rain transforms the wintery brown fields into a cacophony of colours, produced by a myriad of little annuals, that come all by themselves out of the ground for a short while, set seed and dissapear again until the next winter rains.
O yes, every season has its good sides.