Circle of Life

I had a ‘piphany. It was like one of those 3am ones, except that it was closer to 3pm. On Sunday.

We had escaped to Betty’s Bay for a weekend of slouching around in our comfies, with no cellphones or television. Just books* and copious amounts of dark chocolate and red wine.

So there I was on Sunday afternoon, reclining on the couch, and a movement caught my eye:

This fellow had decided that the pickings from Saturday night’s braai would make a tasty diversion from boring old snake meat. The fierce guard dogs were lying in the sun on the other side of the house, chasing bunny rabbits in their dreams.

After a leisurely poke around in the ashes, the mongoose dissolved into the bush and I dissolved into the bedroom for a nap. But before that could happen, another movement caught my eye:

Well. Isn’t this just lovely.

This chap has settled inside a rather handy hole in our ceiling - a very comfortable place to avoid being eaten by a mongoose. Altogether a bit much wildlife to lull me into a deep sleep. So I got to thinking instead:

If I expect the dogs to chase (read: eat) the mongoose, and the mongoose eats snakes, what does the snake find in the house that is so appealing? Must be geckoes. I haven’t seen many of their telltale droppings on the wall for a while, so the snake must be doing quite a good job. And the geckoes survive on mosquitoes who, in turn eat me. So where do I fit in? I chase the dogs and pick up after them. And so the dogs, in turn, chase the mongoose…

Hun’s reaction to my Circle of Life Epiphany was not as enthusiastic as I had hoped.

...Oo…

Apart from that minor disappointment, the rest of the weekend went swimmingly.

I was conned into cycling to Kleinmond on Sunday morning, and was fascinated by the number of butterflies – hundreds and hundreds greeted us as we rode into Kleinmond. It wasn’t so great to see so many casualties on the side of the road though.

Back in Betty’s Bay, we were struck by the damage to the mountains from the recent fires…

and dug out the photos taken in June 2005 after the floods in April 2005.

The scars from the flooding are still visible, and will probably get worse this winter.

Close up of the fire damage:

There had been another fire at the lake, quite close to the houses. But it was encouraging to see how quickly the vegetation had recovered.

Sjoe, maar dis pragtig.

We went for the obligatory walk on the beach.

Oyster Catchers and Chick. Ho hum.

But then I remembered that I had been pointed in the direction of Picnik



Looks like I’m going to be spending a lot of time playing in that sandpit.

*His: Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Hers: Postcards from South Africa** (Rayda Jacobs); Selected Stories (Anton Chekhov)
**”I left my soul at the foot of Table Mountain. I want it back.”