Nicole catches crabs

Well with a headline like that you would expect something a little, shall we say, saucy, in this post? And yes, if you scroll down there will be pictures of Nicole catching crabs. But first, an intro.

After kloofing, what better thing to do than to drive 3 hours north of Cape Town in a small car and lay our bruised bodies to sleep on the nippy ground - ie go camping? None, eight of us agreed and did just that. Now, I'm soon to go on holiday for two weeks so I can't write at length about the epic tantrums of Alex, the kerosene-wick surgery of Mike, the baboon-proof snoring of Goran, Julia's wedding-ring-in-rockpool nightmares, Nicole's bespoke crustacean-capturing or Luke's amazing ability to take any conversation beneath the navel with a few well-chosen words.

Instead, I leave you with pictures. Now I'm off on a two-week holiday. No doubt I'll find some down time to blog again.

The campsite, 3 hours out of Cape Town
Catch those crabs! Using a shoelace and a ringpull?
And she did... to everybody's surprise
Dr Mike trying to find the wick
Nurse Nicole helps out
The morning after the night before

Watch that Kloof!

All right, all right I've been awol a while - so sue me. Sometimes living your life takes precedence over writing about it.

Last post - oh yes, that was just after my parents left. Well, that I've been very busy since then you'll have no problem imagining I'm sure. What with is what eludes me at the moment, however. On Monday I flew to Durban for a day. I was there to interview this woman who led a clinical trial on anti-HIV gels for women that was stopped a few months ago because women appeared to contract HIV more easily using the gel than not. Her name has been dragged through the mud in the press down here, and I was there to hear her side of the story which was quite different of course. The result will be published in the Guardian some time at the end of April.

Today, it's exactly a week since my sister left. It was a pretty sad affair, at least on my part, what with my flat now standing all too empty. Calling all friends to come down and visit! But make that before end of May as I might be moving out. Trying to see whether I can afford and be arsed to buy the place, but there are a lot of considerations involved.

Last Sunday I went flathunting. If I'm thinking about buying my flat, it's only good sense to see what else is out there. The answer - not much, if you're looking for cheap places. Fair enough, house prices are less here than in England. But interest rates are extremely high on mortgages - sometimes going up to 12.5 per cent! So even a small mortgage will cost a lot of money. If only I could work out a way to borrow money at home for a flat here... But then, what if the rand plummets? Risky business.

But going back to sister's exit, she was nearly arrested at Cape Town international. The reason - her visa had expired. Turned out that the 'expires 20/3/07' on her visa meant that the last day she could travel IN to South Africa was 20 March and that, once in, she could only stay 5 months. She'd stayed 5 and a half, you see... But 1000 rand saw her bypass prison and get back home to her Ricky. And mum and dad of course.

Can't remember doing much else last weekend, except NOT picking up Deborah who was coming down from Harare Sunda evening. She had an accident en route to the airport (the Research Africa curse strikes again) and only arrived on Monday, when I was already on my storm-lashed flight to Durban. It was a terribly bad week for her to come down, not only as I was going to be away the first day, but since yesterday was a public holiday and that would only leave 3 days with her in the office. But it's worked out ok, and now hopefully she will come down permanently at the end of April. But you never know, things are hairy in Zimbabwe at the moment.

My plans to visit London in May have also gone tits up due to the arrival of my editor in chief HERE the week I wanted to go. I'm going to Italy for a conference anyway and it's nice to kill a few birds with the one cramped 12-hour flight. I'll still make Trieste, though, 9-12 May so if anybody has collected enough airmiles for the flight I'd sure appreciate the company! So maybe I won't make London until June, or even July, depending on whether or not I secure tickets to Glastonbury.

Amid all the forgetfulness, I remember distinctly going canyoning (or kloofing as it's known down here) yesterday during the public holiday. Or at least my body remembers, I ache from head to toe. For those who don't know what canyoning is, it goes like this: You find a mountain river/brook that throws itself down cascading waterfalls and rapids and, in short, throw yourself after it. I've done it before in the south of France - once in the Alps and once in the Pyrenees - but this was something extra as there were no guides. Or, well, there were those on the kloof who had done it before and at least we didn't do the aptly named 'suicide gorge' in the same area where you DO need an experienced guide to avoid falling on razor sharp rocks from a great height. Still, when I've done it in the past there have been wetsuits. There were none this time, and the water was, say, 17 Celsius? At most? And we spent a good few hours in it? Hey, worse for the boys than for me!

We had our clothes and lunch wrapped in plastic in our bags, which floated along on the kloof, and it was truly exciting to unwrap them at the end and see whether your salt and vinegar crisps had in fact turned into salt and vinegar mush. Luckily they hadn't, although there were some deliciously melted winegums after the hot trek back.

The river god suffered us to pass without harm, but in return it claimed the sole camera and accompanying water housing of one of the participants. It was chucked into the water before the owner with the words 'it floated when we went diving' and let's just say that it didn't. At all. Therefore, there are no photos of the kloof. But to give you a taste of it, I've stolen some photos of a kloof in the same canyon a while ago. It was sunnier yesterday...

Is she...?

A thought for today, while next week's press day rushes towards me like a speeding TGV and a dinner date with La Famiglia threatens to leave several strings untied over the weekend. Namely: Tabloids. Or more specifically, headlines asking in different clever puns whether a given female celebrity is in the family way. Now, I don't know about other laydeez out there, but I'd say that I look preggers in every other picture taken off me. It's not a fat thing. Actually maybe it's a fat thing. But more often than not it's in the posture or in the way you sit. Or in my case, slouch. If I were a celeb I'd be in the headlines every week. I'd be every red-top's dream!

Leaving you with a prime example! Actually, it's from the Oscars party - I cheated and brought a change of clothes for when the crazy clothes stopped being fun. But I wore a pair of huge Bridget Jones pants to keep to the Hollywood vibe in a small way. That created the eerily white tummy. But aren't control pants meant to keep things IN? Oh dear.
Two, four or six months, what do you reckon?

Calestous profile

Oh, and the Guardian has finally published the profile I wrote about Calestous. It is here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts/story/0,,2027121,00.html

Karma and Knysna

Do you know what the bad karmic equivalent is to petting a baby cheetah? That is, the amount of crap you have to endure to spend some time with a wolly little thing in the evil quid pro quo thing we call the universe. No? Let me tell you.

It's waking up to a man standing on your balcony using a high power water thingy to take off the plaster off your building while dirty water is seeping into your kitchen. It is phoning your estate agent to ask what the hell is going on, only to hear that your landlady is planning to sell your flat. It is finding out that your future now ivolves building works at home as well as at work. It is being faced with the choice of moving out early from the flat of your dreams due to the disruption, or staying but in a building site until my lease runs out end of May.

All this, it seems, for a few moments of bliss with two of these:


In Sweden, you can own rental contracts. Nobody can kick you out but you. Of course, there it's hard to find somewhere to live. But I'm so fed up with having to perpetually exist under the threat of landlord whims and fancies that I'm actually considering buying the place. But then I'll probably also buy a damp problem and rotting windows, my sister pointed out this morning as I fumed over my breakfast cereal completely devoid of peace and quiet.

Of course, this post was meant to be about my recent adventures, of which there have been many. There was a Catholic wedding and boy was I surprised the bride and groom didn't run out of the church as the priest started going on about how hard marriage was and how they were at the BOTTOM, not the top before going on to quote some embarrassing "erotic" passages from the bible. First and foremost, a wedding is NOT about a party. Oh well, luckily I was at the 'kool' table and there WAS wine AND a party so pffft to you, priesto!


A group of us went to see a play at the old zoo in Cape Town - you sat where the audience used to sit and watch the lions and then had dinner (a very sparse such) in the disused lion cages. Some were too tall to fit through the doors.


The day before my parents arrived last Sunday, Miracle-Gro and her flatmates held an Oscars-themed party. Since Simon is the heir of a winery it was a well lubricated event. Some took the costume thing more seriously than others. A fun game will be to play 'who are we' - so... Spot the celebs???

Linda and Luke as the main couple in a film eponymous with my character's name... Who are we? [NB both looking extremely stupid in this pic] Clue: Luke is sporting a magnificent double chin trying to look shorter than me...

Gro went all out to capture that real uppear east side flair. Who is she?

The secret is in the tache. And the chin. Also, for extra points spot Gro's fake eyeleashes. Who is Andreas?

Mr Backsberg opening a bottle of his red stuff. But who is he? The clue is on the shirt...

Sister likes it hot. Who is she?

You're allowed to make fun of dictators

Simon's girlfriend was a Valkyrie. Dunno when they won an oscar though...

My bottom in these silk trousers from the early 80s, rented from a second hand shop, must be commited to posterity - as it were. As Gro said: "Well, at least you know now what your arse will look like when you're 80..."

Then the family came.




And we went on a tour of the Garden Route... With stops in Addo Elephant park, Knysna, Outdshoorn and Montague. Very nice.

Dries, our personal safari guide. Or Gris, as we called him, which will be funny if you're swedish. Holding up a tuktuk bug

Dries looking for the elephant

Peekaboo!!!

Older bro teasing little bro

In the end we saw a lot of elephants, they all came walking past our parked jeep. And on the next day we saw giraffes and a buffalo and lots of boring antelopes... I petted the cheetah at a sanctuary where they're bred in captivity to improve the blood line.

Dad mimicking a hungry crocodile?

The best scenery, however, was in Knysna on the coast. It was the day before a tropical storm from the Indian Ocean clashed with a cold front from the Atlantic side, causing massive rains along the garden route. But when we were there, it was stunning. We spotted at least 20 hammerhead sharks in the inlet to the bay, waiting for the tide to bring fish I guess.

Mum miffed at all the signs forbidding you to do things in a Knysna national park



So I guess it hasn't been bad these past few weeks. It's just, well, I don't want it to change. But it will. Sister is leaving on Thursday, I might have to move from my beautiful flat, Gro will be off also in a few months' time. Why can't it just... Stop? For a moment. I was having such a good time.