I mentioned in my last blog about the ongoing police operations going on in my village.

On Thursday I had another crazy drive to work which I assumed was related to the police operations.

I turned out of my suburb onto the main road only to find a half naked man gamboling down the street with a large dog in tow. He was beckoning me on, it felt like a surreal moment where I fell into a bizarre version of A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Puck was leading me to mischief. All he was missing was a flute.

Except it is not midsummer it is the start of winter and this was more of a nightmare than a dream.

It all seemed a bit suspect & then I saw some sort of reflective barricade placed across the road which turns up by the African taxi rank. I did not know if it was placed there by the police or criminals so I did a quick U-turn and went a different route where I found Public Order Police (POP) vehicles parked with flashing lights at every round about.

They blocked the roundabout by the police station with taxis and large stones.

Photo credit for the above images: Ashraf Hendricks.

I later saw this post by Ashraf Hendricks showing the POP shooting tear gas to disperse the protesters.

And then this post showing the police advancing onto the main road to push back the protesters.

Later I discovered on Twitter that Taxi drivers affiliated to Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA) are staging a demonstration in Hout Bay main road. This protest is to do with the local taxi drivers fighting over routes. This dispute was allegedly resolved and agreement reached, but it would appear someone forgot to send that memo to Hout Bay.  They say The Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations  (CODETA) has been allowed to operate on their routes illegally.

Eventually I saw that the protesters had been dispersed but things were still tense.

This News article gives more info on the background. There is a bitter history between the parties involved, healing and forgiveness is required. So far at least 13 people have died in the taxi wars.

On a personal front, I have been practicing the songs for the upcoming Spirit Dance to Heal the Earth which is scheduled on the 7th of July.

It is such a different sound to hear the songs sung with a strong male voice as most of our drummers are women.

The cold rainy weather has continued with our dams filling up with precious rainfall. We have been building cozy fires every evening.

I finally got some money in this week so we could loosen up a bit on our tight budget. In fact we splurged on takeaways from Spiro’s on the very night it hit my account.

Thursday night Norm cooked and we finished off the beef stew / goulash he made on Tuesday by using it to top off some low carb noodles. He fried some chopped cabbage and baby zucchini to accompany it.

The week rattled by with busy days full of meetings and cozy nights at home, the weather making us want to bunker down and stay in. On Friday we did just that, we again had a takeaway for dinner. I had chicken schnitzel and linguine with Napoletana sauce from Posticino’s.

Saturday was busy. We went for breakfast at La Cuccina. They were out of hollandaise which forced me to be adventurous and veer away from my usual order. I had The Tyson. You can have it as an omelette or as a wrap) Scrambled eggs, spring onion, mature cheddar, bacon, fresh chilli a tomato, HP and tabasco sauce. There is also a Veg option — you just take out the bacon and add mushrooms. It is R86.

Norm had his fave, Scrambled Eggs and bacon.

After breakfast Norm settled the bill and headed home and I drove into the CBD for a hair appointment at Pause.

It is such a spacious airy venue, there is nothing worse than having clients and staff all crammed together in a tiny salon, but the high ceilings at Pause make the place feel vast. The energy is nice and light and the tall windows bring in lots of light.

While the color on my hair was setting I had an appointment for a foot massage. There are treatment rooms at the back and they do lots of different therapies and treatments.

I was quite amused by the therapist talking about the drought and “Dojo Tanks”. Bless. I think she meant JoJo tanks. 🤭😂 I just let her whitter on, shut my eyes and relaxed.

My feet and legs felt wonderful afterwards, then when my hair was rinsed, I had a treatment and received a scalp and shoulder massage from Thembi which was just perfect, I felt relaxed top to toe!

I traipsed across town to my car in the drizzly rain afterwards and headed home for the afternoon. Then about 6:30pm Norm and I bundled up and headed back into the city yet again for my second time that day.

We had booked to see Ann Jangle at Cafe Roux our fave music venue.

I subscribe to their upcoming events notifications and I always read the description of the artists advertised to narrow down the choices, then try and find videos of performances to decide who we want to see. I loved all of the videos I could find for Ann.

We enjoy the venue, the vibe and the staff at Cafe Roux so it seemed an easy decision to make.

The rain stopped for our walk across the city, but it was bitterly cold. We settled into our fave table and ordered a drink while deciding what to eat.

Norm ordered the butternut ravioli and I had the bacon, feta and avo pizza. I forgot to snap a pic of either. They were both very tasty, however midway through mine I bit down on something hard and my tooth almost cracked. I fished out a piece of hard plastic, the type that snaps off of a feta container lid. We tried in vain to get the attention of any member of staff. Eventually after being acknowledged by the staff several times yet no one coming near, a waiter came to us. I told him about the plastic and he apologized and called over Mr T who was the manager on duty. He offered to replace my pizza but as I had eaten half of it by then I told him not to bother. He said he would comp the pizza and apologized again and went to get drinks for us. While he was gone I found yet another piece of plastic in my pizza topping. It made me feel quite ill but the manager handled it well, so fair play to him.

At 8.30 Ann Jangle came onstage with her band.

We had fabulous seats and a wonderful view. The trio at the table next to us however had been drinking all day and were very talkative throughout the evening and the man could not keep still, he kept kept invading my personal space, he sat on my jacket, put his jacket in my lap, elbowed me in the ribs and almost knocked me out while clapping maniacally. He had no clue about personal space. I tried to not lose it with the eejit. I silently imagined breaking my glass and impaling him on it.

But I’m a lady.

*cough*

Ann’s voice was stunning. She had a very powerful voice and unbelievable range, she could sound almost girly, dreamlike and tender, then switch to this deep, strong voice so easily. The childlike quality does not come through in her video recordings that I found. I loved that she had only 4 people on stage, it kept her voice as the focal point. I really enjoyed her, she is so talented.

We got home late and as a result had a long lie in bed this morning. When we got up Norm started a roaring fire and made us breakfast.

It was delicious.

I’ve been enjoying the sounds of the crazy storm outside and being grateful for the rain and my warm home.

I’m very blessed.

Until next time.

Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxo