Lifestyles of the rich…

Cape Town

It really was a brilliant sunny day today, although the top of Table Mountain never emerged from it’s fluffy topping. I’ve seen pictures of   the top of it, but I’ve never actually seen the top…it’s quite odd actually: it’s not very high, and according to the pictures, it’s absolutely flat on top, but it usually has this great pile of clouds on top that looks like a pile of mashed potato or whipped cream.

I skipped one of the big parties this evening…I doubt if anyone would miss me in a group of 2500 or so, and decided that it would be nice to eat some fresh fish at the harbour. There’s a huge shopping complex there, hosting Gucci, Chanel and the like,  obviously not for the folks I run with.  I found a lovely restaurant overlooking the basin where I could sit outside.  Because it’s winter each table had an overhead heater under the umbrella so it was nice and cosy.

The waterfront is called the Victoria & Alfred…there are two basins; the first one was named for Alfred, the second one for his mother.  It’s shortened as V&A,  which I assumed was Victoria and Albert…I didn’t even know her son was named Alfred.  I hope she didn’t call them both Al.

There was a vicious storm here in the winter of 1858 which resulted in the wrecking of 30 ships and innumerable deaths, which caused Lloyd’s of London to declare that they would no longer insure ships in the harbour.  Eventually the breakwater was built making it safe year round – reputedly the first stone was cast by Alfred.  Nice to know that your insurance company will stand behind you… It’s about 200 km north of Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of South Africa – strangely the Cape of Good Hope is about 150 km north of Cape Agulhas.  Because of the storms here, sailors originally believed that it was the place where the Atlantic Ocean met the Pacific Ocean.  Rumour has it that the Phoenicians sailed around here before the Portuguese claimed they were first in the late 1400s.  Whoever it was, it was a pretty remarkable bit of sailing.

So I’m eating dinner and eavesdropping on the young couple at the next table telling their parents about a wedding they had just been to.  They were explaining how the newly weds had negotiated Christmas with both sets of parents.  The most fascinating part was they had agreed to do something like a draw, so each person had to only buy one present.  To keep it all manageable in a big family,  they had decided to limit it to only small presents, such as a bottle of Krug, or 6 crystal wine glasses, either of which, by my estimate, is about $250.  I guess the definition of a “small present” is highly contextual.