Cape Town, you are so fickle

Cape Town had its first really bad storm of winter, and I spent most of the weekend snuggled under a blanket in front of the heater and desperately missing summer. And I don't even like summer. Mostly because I have fair skin that freckles and burns when I even just think about the sun.  The thing is that my fair skin isn't really thick enough to keep out the cold either, so I spend most of winter layered with jackets and under blankets.

The thing about Cape Town winters is that even bad weather here is never really that bad.  Our winters are mild compared to the rest of the country; we can have beautiful days in the middle of winter which are warm and sunny.  So when we actually do have bad weather, it takes us completely by surprise and makes Capetonians a little crazy and cranky.

Iit has been raining, hailing and thundering for almost 48 hours straight displacing thousands of people across the city.  This Capetonian girl is suffering in the cold and regretting every terrible thing I have ever said about summer, but ever so grateful that I have a stable roof over my head.

I did an online search for things to do in Cape Town in winter, because although the weather this weekend is enough to make me want to hibernate for the next 3 months, I know the mild winter days will come.  Also, I work in the hospitality industry and we only get to take our leave in winter ... and I am not going to spend 3 weeks in front of the tv watching series and playing games.*

On every website I went to, most of the suggestions included:

- Going to restaurants

- Going to pubs

- Going to winefarms

- Several outdoor activities, meant for the milder winter Cape Town days

So ... besides eating and drinking, is Cape Town a summer-only town.  What is it that we really can do in winter besides drink wine, eat comforting food and hopelessly wait for the bad weather to pass.  Well, this winter I plan to spend a significant amount of time playing tourist around the city, and hopefully I find more to do than eating and drinking.**

On the plus side (for me) I finally found a scarf that my boyfriend would let me knit for him.***  

The deal was that he would wear a scarf if it had skulls on it ... I think it came our pretty well and he is already wearing it.  The truth is that the scarf was considerably more trouble to knit than I first anticipated, so he better wear it every day.

And all I can hope is that when this storm has passed, Cape Town treats us to a few sunny days to make up for it.

*although those are two of my favorite winter activities

** although these are another two of my favorite winter activities

*** knitting is my winter sport