No Shark infest to Somerset West - Day 370

Driving along the dales, but saw no whales, and no shark infest to Somerset West.

I woke up to rain drumming on the tin roof, much-needed rain. South Africa has a severe drought with tight restrictions on water usage this year. In Cape Town, until October, there was a limit of 50 litres of water per person per day. It has just risen to 70 litres. To put this into perspective, a 2-minute shower is 20 litres, using the washing machine is 10 litres and a normal toilet flush is 9 litres. Think about how often you use water; cleaning and hygiene, watering plants, cooking and drinking. It all mounts up. I am sure some people were jumping for joy when they saw the rain this morning.

Back on the move, we travelled the long way to Somerset West via Route 44 which navigates around False Bay. Unfortunately, the view wasn’t great, hindering a view of Cape Town and the iconic Table Mountain, however, this didn’t stop us from detouring down to the sea for a bit of whale watching. No whales today, just the odd seal swimming.

At one point, I thought I saw a pod of seals. Tim quickly parked the car, we jumped out and then saw that it was people surfing. At the car park, we noticed a black flag flying with a poster explaining the different colours of flags. Black means that shark spotting conditions are poor. Sharks? Tim saw a little wooden hut, climbed over the wall and went to investigate. Inside was a young guy whose job was to search for sharks for 10 hours a day and raise the alarm if he spots any. The last Great White Shark was seen four days ago and was approx. 3m long. Mmm…not sure I’d surf there.

We arrived at Somerset West at exactly my eta of 2:17pm and was greeted warmly by Keith. We have come to stay with my friend and former business partner Katherine's Dad. We settled down for a cup of tea and had such a lovely natter. Keith has a fantastic memory, remembering names and knowing what year he did certain things. He shared that it was 1969 when his Mum visited from the UK to South Africa, also the year when he and his late wife travelled to South America etc. I realised that I may just about remember what age I was at certain key moments in life, but would then have to calculate the year.

We were invited to his lady friend Cecily’s for dinner, but before then I had a coaching session, this time for me, I was the client. I often have my own coach – why wouldn’t I? I know the power of coaching. Interestingly this session was very different to any I have had in the past. I had no issue! I realised that usually, I would have a coaching session because I wanted to change things, achieve a goal or overcome something. An issue? No. Do I want to change anything? No. Any goals? No. It was such a fabulous session realising that all is ok, more than ok, I am truly living in life. And even when things are not so great, I am ok with that as well. “It too shall pass” is very powerful when we deeply understand this. Sometimes it is great to reflect how far we have come on this journey called life and celebrate.

Off to Cecily’s. What a delightful lady. Again we were greeted warmly and had such a pleasant chat. Cecily is a teacher and author, passionate about literacy and distraught at the demise of the current education system, seeing children’s reading ability decrease. She is currently writing about Uganda where she lived as a child. I’d love to read her recent books when they are published.

She cooked us a lovely meal. Ahem, it might have been wise if I had remembered to inform Keith and her that I don’t eat meat. I forget – it’s been a way of life for 37 years now. Cecily was so understanding, I just had the delicious Italian style-sauce from the chicken casserole over my rice, and there was a salad as well. I really must remember to pre-warn people in future.