The colourful title page of the February 2012 edition of the Muse magazine
Oooh! I have such exciting news for you all!
Do you want to hear it?
Do you? Do you?
I am holding up the latest edition of the Pinelands Muse, and doing a little jig of joy.
“Why?” you ask, a little puzzled.
Do you realllllllly want to know?
I dangle the magazine tantalisingly in front of you.
“Yes, yes, tell us!” you declare impatiently.
Because – wait for it – I’ve been published! In the Muse!
I love Cape Town!
At the start of 2011, we had gone for a beachwalk on Dolphin Beach to watch the kitesurfers and windsurfers playing with the wind.
This year, at the start of January, we felt like exploring a beach we hadn’t visited before – Milnerton beach. It can be accessed from Woodbridge Island, and lies on the cold Atlantic Ocean.
Now let us all sing along: Oh Weihnachtsbaum, Oh Weihnachtsbaum, Wie gruen sind deine Blaetter...
As we had had so much fun exploring Cape Town and doing all manner of touristy things with mom-in-law and sis-in-law during their various visits in 2011 (for instance, have a look at this post), we were really excited when mom-in-law announced that she would love to visit us for Christmas and New Year.
We promptly compiled a List of Things To Do, and started to plan how we would fit in as many of them as possible over the end-of-year holidays.
We couldn’t squeeze in everything, because we did need a day or two inbetween to recover – lounging on the sofa and reading a rivetting Christmas-present book, or having a bit of a snoozle on a towel by the pool in the afternoon shade – as well as to dash off some last-minute Merry Christmas and Happy New Year emails, and in the early evening, once the heat of the day had dissipated somewhat, to power-walk down to the local shops to purchase some ingredients for supper.
However, we managed to do a number of thoroughly enjoyable things: (Go ahead, click on the links to read the blog posts I wrote about each of those outings and day trips.)
We celebrated the start of the New Year with a leisurely stroll in the golden light of late afternoon along the Mouille Point/Green Point/Sea Point promenade, near the lighthouse with its distinctive red-and-white stripes.
There is an important update on this post!
From the show Tannie Evita Praat Kaktus ('kaktus' is the Afrikaans word for 'cactus')
The quaint little village of Darling, more or less an hour’s drive north of Cape Town off the R27, and midway between Yzerfontein and Malmesbury, is the home of South Africa’s most famous White lady: Evita Bezuidenhout.
She lives and performs at a most unusual theatrical venue: Darling’s old railway station, which has been lovingly converted into a delightful theatre and restaurant complex known as Evita se Perron. (The Afrikaans word for station platform is ‘Perron’, but yes, it is also an allusion to another Evita – Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina until her death in 1952).
Tannie Evita (‘Tannie‘ is the Afrikaans word for ‘Auntie’) – as she is lovingly known – is the most well-known alter ego of satirist, comedian and social commentator Pieter-Dirk Uys.
Joe Dawson on Cherokee and Barry Armitage on Jack turn into Forest Drive, Pinelands
On a typically hot summer’s afternoon, Saturday 14 January 2012, two intrepid adventurers on horseback trotted into town.
Quite frankly, this is not the kind of thing that often happens in a sprawling urban metropolis like Cape Town.
What horse-mad youngster, growing up with tales of cowboys venturing into the Wild West, the thrills of the US Pony Express, or crazy expeditions like Tschiffely’s horseback ride from Argentina to Washington DC, recently traced by South African Marianne du Toit (in her book Crying with Cockroaches: Argentina to New York with Two Horses), has not grown up with the longing to do something similarly adventurous?
A thatched Cape Dutch house, the style so typical of this area, surrounded by hundreds of roses
Over the years, it has become a bit of a tradition for us to visit Chart Farm in Wynberg whenever hubby’s family pay us a visit in Cape Town. It’s a delightful little place just visible off the M3, driving from Constantia towards town.
Spring flowers at Postberg Nature Reserve
One of our outings during mom-in-law’s recent visit to Cape Town took us a little bit up the West Coast towards the Langebaan Lagoon. We had last been in this area a couple of months ago, at the height of the spring flower season, when we had gone to see the breathtakingly beautiful fields of flowers in the Postberg Reserve section of the West Coast National Park.
This time, though, we turned off the R27 shortly before the Yzerfontein intersection, at a place called the !Khwa Ttu San Culture and Education Centre. I had seen their large signboard each time we had driven along the R27, and, my curiosity piqued, had done some internet browsing to find out more about this intriguing place:
Welcome to Butterfly World Tropical Garden in the Western Cape Winelands
The Western Cape Winelands are rightly famous around the world for their lush vineyards and excellent and most scenic wine routes, which are popular among visitors from near and far. In addition to the vineyards, however, there is another marvellous place that is worth visiting in this area: Butterfly World Tropical Garden, just off the N1 national freeway between Cape Town and Paarl, Exit 47 onto the R44.
On the morning of Tuesday, 27 December 2011, which had just been declared a public holiday for some reason, we had gone strawberry picking at Polkadraai Farm outside Stellenbosch. Afterwards, our car-boot smelling sweetly of freshly picked strawberries (ooooh!), we made our way northwards to our second destination of that day.
A Tip: This is going to be a fairly longish post – with lots of photos in the slideshow – so if you have time, make yourself a cup of tea and a slice of toast or two, and sit down for a hopefully educational read. 
Slices of Streifenkekse await their fate on the baking tray
When hubby was a laaitie (i.e. a young boy), one of his favourite types of Christmas cookies were something he called Streifenkekse (loosely translated from the German, this means something like ‘striped cookies’). They are also known as Schwarz-Weiß Gebäck (or ‘black-and-white cookies’). So when mom-in-law came to visit us over Christmas this year, hubby’s beloved Streifenkekse were immediately placed on our Must Bake With Lissi List.
And naturally, I was on hand to document the process with my trusty camera for my loyal readers. (It also meant I couldn’t do any of the hard work of actually kneading the dough, because I had to keep my hands clean for the camera 
.)
Are you curious to see some pictures? Shall I give you the recipe too?
