Chapter 34: Hunkering down in my windy cave

Hola chicos and chicas! So many of you have been asking what the hell I've been doing with myself since I stopped working in....ummm when was it????... March last year. Well you've got the Asia travel reports, I guess, and some of you knew that I was in Canada for the summer, but since then I'm told I've kind of gone to ground. In fact I've been in glorious, sunny, WINDY Capetown.

And I am happy to report that I am quite, quite happy (almost manic in fact) and I have no trouble filling up my day with things that amuse me. For example, I am back on the tennis court and Just Loving Myself Sick on it! In order to get the ball in play I still have to patsy my serve (when really I just want to thump the bugger) but I have developed a mean slice backhand that I'm sure looks very sexy from the sidelines. And I've found a good coach who is encouraging me to rethink lots of aspects of my former game. I've registered now to go and play in the Gay Games in Chicago later this year. I'm playing doubles with Golly; he squawks like Monica Selles - or for those of you who are South African EXACTLY like a hadeda - when he plays. I'm sure it will prove very distracting for our opponents.

And also, So Duko. I'm addicted. To the envious chagrin of my fellow addicts Ian and Ruth, I have graduated to "Difficult" (last one completed in 29 minutes), but I have collapsed in absolute disarray after attempting to elevate myself to the exhalted status of "Fiendish". People who can do fiendish are not human; they have a cyborg chip in them somewhere, I'm sure. And I've got my friend German addicted too. I show him one puzzle and in 20 minutes he's running his Peruvian ass down to the bookstore to buy the puzzlebook.

And combatting too much "junk in the trunk" (i.e. a fat ass) from Capetown's exceptionally fine restaurants takes a lot of time too. Trying to fit in gym, tennis and yoga is hard on the daily schedule. In fact, it's kind of weird, but I seem to have no free time whatsoever, and can't possibly imagine anymore how anyone fits a real job into their lives.

And - no mean achievement here! - I have the best tanline in Capetown.

And for you gay boys, and straight boys and girls who are honorary gay boys, I have to tell you that we here in Capetown enjoy pondering a most interesting question: what is it about South Africa? In the rest of the world, it's always the gay boys who are the cutest. This is one of the immutable laws of the universe. But South Africa is the other way around. The straight boys here are all jaw droppers, and they give off such a weird metrosexual vibe that it blows the gaydar of gayboys completely to smithereens. We don't know if we're coming or going.

I'm also enjoying wind games on my scooter. Did I mention Capetown has been WINDY? There are basically three basic variants of this game. The first one is when a sudden gust of wind blows you from the side, and it is called Lane Jump. Basically, this is about trying to avoid being blown into the oncoming lane and ending up as jam on someone's windscreen and bonnet. This game requires lightening quick anticipation and nerves; the wind comes down on you like the rapture and within a microsecond you have to steer the scooter sharply into the wind, or else you are a goner.

The second game is called Dermabrasion. This is where a gust of wind comes at you head on, carrying a load of rubbish (mainly grit, but also paper, tin cans, branches of trees) and throws it in your face, temporarily blinding you and causing you to shriek out "Bloody Hell". This game requires goggles, and a high tolerance for pain.

The third game is called Parachute Whiplash and Choke. This is where the gust of wind comes at you from the ground. (I don't know how it does that, but it does.) So it gusts up under you, into the sides of your helmet and basically tries to forcibly remove your helmet from your head. The helmet acts as a parachute, basically snapping your head back, cutting off your air supply, and giving you a bruise under your chin where the attachment snap runs. I have LOTS of fun playing these games.

The wind has also exacerbated greatly Capetown's fire problems. For the last two days we've had the biggest fires ever in Capetown. Table Mountain was burning, as was Lion's Head and Signal Hill. There were evacuations. At first the smoke drifted out over the City Bowl and Bay, but there were still patches of clear sky that the sun shone through turning the water like molten brass, and creating this weird metallic light. But soon the smoke covered the whole city, and the sun was blood red, and the air was full of ash and flying embers. I was coughing but nonetheless I saw a doughty jogger running along the seawall. At night I went with my friends to Codfather to eat sweet langoustines and drink chilled sauvingnon blanc, and we watched the fires ringing Lion's Head; the flames in some places must have been several stories tall, but from where we sat, through the smokey air, the flames looked instead like a volcanic eruption of red lava flowing down the mountainside.

But I don't really mind the wind, even here at Keith and Harry's house in what is surely the windiest quarter of Capetown. (The pine trees outside their beautiful Camps Bay house, which opens on two sides to the sea, are permanently bent sideways, like giant bonsai.) At night, the wind howls down the mountain, like a mad animal, and I lie in my little room off the main house and fall soundly, soundly asleep. (And here, I'd like to just say thank you, thank you, thank you to my dear friends Harry and Keith and also the divine duo of Kobus and Gerard who have sooooooooo kindly put me up for sooooooooooo long; you guys are all wunnerful). And y'all have the best dogs too. Kobus and Gerard have a pretty but rather jealous golden retreiver named Sugar, who immediately interposes herself if you try to pat Shadow, their sweet, sweet, ancient arthritic Staffie. Shadow lies on the hot wooden deck, splayed out like a spatchcocked chicken, and talks in grunts, groans, moans, and whines.

And Keith and Harry have a delightful retriever puppy named Rex, who has one unfortunate habit: leaving huge - and honestly, you really can't believe how very large they are - steaming turds behind the curtains and under the piano. Harry is away right now, and Keith's sense of smell is compromised from a head injury a few years back, so I walk through the house, always sniffing. (I just read this paragraph out to Keith and he asked me to let you all know that it's NOT a habit that Rex has, it was merely three times, and his house does NOT smell of shit.)

Capetown continues to be as magic in so many ways as always. The other day at Sandy Bay my friends Kevin and David and I noticed this seal, a couple of meters from shore. He kept popping his head up to look at people on the beach. Then about half an hour later the waves picked up. The sun was behind the waves, and so when they broke they turned this translucent green, like a peridot crystal. And we could see, in the waves the silhouette of the seal, body surfing the waves, over and over again. He played like this for hours. The seal was playing! So, my friends, enjoy life and play in the waves while you can.

So that leaves me on to my final piece of news. I've been feeling just slightly schizophrenic as I have been going to various job interviews (banking, mostly London-based) because I really don't really want to do that high-pressure, long-hour job again, but the moola and status and structure and all those security cards are all powerfully attractive to my psyche. But I think after finishing this email, I'm going to send emails through to the headhunters withdrawing from the interviews, because I'm just too excited about my alternative plans to head onwards to Australia on 8 Feb to research and write my book. And in an amazing piece of serendipity, I googled creative writing courses in Sydney, and the first one that came up was a 10 month course designed specifically to help aspirant writers give birth to their first novel or script. The next intake is end-February. I mean, it's so perfectly perfect for me, and I have to take this as a signal from the universe that this is what I'm meant to do.

I'm happy to be writing these travellogues again, and look forward to sending you more updates. Loves ya all.