A mountainbike meander

Mountain biking seems to be one of the pursuits I've managed to pick up over the last two years. You won't find me competing in any multi-day, coast to coast epic adventures, but I do like to participate in the occasional funride. Luckily for me the western cape region is rich in these family-oriented events, usually set on fruit, olive or wine farms and last Saturday was no exception.
It was the Cape Argus... ::drumroll:: mountain bike event. So no half-crazed road cyclists tackling the highways, byways and mountain passes of Cape Town. No sirree, this event is set on a very scenic wine-farm just outside Stellenbosch.
You can see why I like the mountain bike events, can't you.

So there we were, up at bird's fart to make the trek all the way out to the winelands, be registered by 7:30 and start the ride at 08:10. My partner in mtb-crime had talked me into doing the 22 km ride as the track profile seemed mostly flat and this route also featured something we both love - single track! These usually look like meandering footpaths closely surrounded by rocks, shrubs and trees that seem to move into your way just as you approach them. What do you mean I'm missing the point of single-track... you want me to miss them?!? Oh... bugger.

We drove along what felt very much like a single track path and was directed into a field obviously used for pasture, but now roped in to serve as parking area for the droves of mtb enthusiasts. Now we have noted that the more hardcore mtb'ers get all geared up and sommer cycle to the registration point. Not us.... we still have to have that 2nd cup of essential caffeinated beverage (now that the sun has actually risen), munch on some breakfast and then start assembling bike & rider equipment. So we decided to walk to the registration point first.... and walked. And walked.
I was half expecting sign posts saying 'only 2 km more!' and 'hang in there', or perhaps even 'water point ahead'. Eventually something tent-like was sighted, our numbers obtained and the trek back to the car started. By the time we were ready to start our race, I was ready to rest!

Considering I usually participate in the shorter family rides, the atmosphere is usually a relaxed one filled with jokes and friendly faces. The route started off all friendly as well, and then quickly turned nasty. I mean, what kind of sadist starts a mtb race off with a slight incline that leads right past the wine tasting rooms!!!! Do they realize the horrible temptation they put me through? It would be so easy to just steer ever-so-slightly off course and straight into the air-conditioned tasting area where I could lounge, sipping the nectar of the gods in pleasant contemplation before stumbling outside, around the building and across the finish line, my somewhat staggering motions echoing that of the exhausted cyclists.

But no, I gritted my teeth and carried on along the yellow sand-road. The track was very level, consisting mostly of bakkie (jeep) tracks filled with the occasional washed-out runnel, cow patties or thorn-patch. No, make that lots and lots of thorn patches. This race will not be remembered for its challenges or scenery, but for the number of punctures. Every stones-throw, or should that be thorn-cast, you'd find another unlucky victim of nature's little weapons, sweating and cursing as they changed tubes / repaired flats.

I too fell victim to this free-range arsenal about 10 km into the race. My partner in crime stopped as well, and we settled down to perform the necessary reparations. Believe me, we thought we were prepared: we'd taken classes, we'd practised, we'd come prepared with spares of every possible kind... except, of course, the ones we needed.

There is no word to capture quite how it feels when you unfold the spare tube to find out that the nozzle does not fit through your bicycle's wheel-rim. Perhaps 'deflation' is the most apt one to experience one's spirit sinking into the ground in a combination of embarrassment, cold fury and a dash of 'why me?'.

Luckily there are plenty knights in plastic armor on shiny steeds around, and one kind sir offered not only to help us, but gave me his spare tube. Soon we were on our way again.... for another kilometre or so. And then there was the next puncture...

Another knight stopped by, but he had no more spares either. Luckily this happened just at the split between the 22 km and 13 km race, so I waved my partner on with a white kerchief while I trudged the last 2 km to the finish line in what very much resembled a walk of shame. So my 22 km race turned into a 11 km cycle and a 2 km hike....
At least the scenery was nice.
And yes, next month you'll find me out there again, but hopefully more prepared. If nothing else, let's hope the flats happen before I leave the wine estate.

Doggin' it

Since I've dedicated one posting to the cats, I should probably do the same for my dog.
I'm the kind of pet owner that never quite intends to end up with as many or diverse a collection as I do. Take the dog for instance.
No, really, take her - there are days when I'd happily ship her off to outer Mongolia for doing something so inexplicably dumb it's beyond stupid.... Pterry would probably call it Diputs.
It was a case of "buy one house and get a dog free!"
Deep inside that 1 ear up, 1 ear down, brow furrowed in pleasant confusion, shedding-like-it's-never-going-to-end ball of fur lurks a golden heart. Never will you find anyone happier to help you sniff out any table scraps that had fallen down, helpfully excavate any signs of mole-activity or just be happy to see you back home.
But oh, what un-distilled neurotic dumbness lurks in there as well.
Take the cat flap for instance - and that should give you a clue right there.
Cat Flap.
Not dog flap. And definitely not an Alsatian-sized flap whatsoever.
Yet when the first grumble of wanna-be thunder echoes through my neighborhood, my dog suddenly believes in quantum physics and the ability for a dog to be both large and able to fit through a post-card sized opening.
Hang on, maybe she's stumbled onto a new theory - step aside quantum cats, we've just discovered Schrodinger's Dog!
Three cat-flaps, a screaming owner and a neurotic dog later, studies are still continuing. Despite her apparent convictions that the world is about to end every time an electric storm flashes by, I am yet to see evidence that lightning has her name and address and is out to get her.
But perhaps I am judging her too harshly... as her third owner, I have probably missed out on some serious events in her earlier years.
A dark past which I blame for her tendency to take offense at apparently innocent fellow-hikers and strollers-by. Whether we're out walking or having visitors, the two distantly circling neurons in her doggy brain will bump into each other, sending out crazed chemical signals that results in:
walking person + approach + unknown variable = bite bite bite bite bite!
I haven't been able to establish a pattern in her list of victims, which includes but are not restricted to a) an old couple strolling past our yard, b) a jogger in the national park and c) my neighbor who was helping me push-start my car. Oi, never has the flame of embarrassment burned so brightly.
But despite our somewhat rocky relationship road, I have to admit that one will never find a more willing and enthusiastic participant upon uttering the words:
"Let's go for a walk!"

Travel blues... and greens, and reds

So there I was, bags all packed and ready to go to Durban to do some official sand sampling.
Stop sniggering.
Really.
Honestly, it's a valid occupation for an oceanographer. And no, it wasn't collected while sipping a cocktail and lying on the beautiful warm sands of South Africa's East Coast.

Travel blues:
We arrived at the new King Shaka international airport, all bright eyed, bushy tailed and armed with the latest Googlemaps printouts to get us to our destination.
Things were going swimmingly until we entered the city area itself - MAJOR Googlemap failure. Someone should tell them that the silly people who call themselves South Africa's government had spent valuable tax money changing all major street names in Durban.
It makes it rather challenging if not bloody well impossible to 'turn right into Smith'. We could turn right into a vehicle that might be owned by a Mr Smith, or run down a pedestrian named Mr Smith, but no-sirree, no Smith street anymore.
My colleague was doing the driving, and was by this stage seriously contemplating pedestrian ten-pin knockdown. They have absolutely no regard for cars, which don't have any regard for each other, regardless of race, colour, creed or belief. Hey, maybe that's the ultimate anti-discrimination example! After dodging our umpteenth suicidal pedestrian - this one armed with a shopping trolley and pushing it against traffic in the fast lane on a 3-lane road - we found ourselves heading out of Durban again.
Whoops.
So there we were, approaching Durban port via Pinetown, which could be likened to travelling from Cape-Town to Jo'burg via Canada. Throwing out the google instructions, we relied on memory and a sense of direction. We decided to head into the centre of Durban until we hit sea-water and then keeping our left tyre in the water, circle around the port to reach our destination.
It worked!

Travel greens:
We were very fortunate and had one perfectly wind-free / low wind day during which we did the majority of our sampling offshore of the Port. With barely a wind ripple on the ocean surface, it gave me ample opportunity to sample the slow rolling swell. Up and down, up and down, sand on-board & into bucket, scientist hanging overboard studiously studying the horizon and trying to catch a hint of the breeze without the glorious diesel fumes of an outboard engine. Apparently my face changed between glorious sea-green and pasty white during our sampling spree. But we got the job done.

Travel reds:
Yes, I have had another b&b run-in. Don't get me wrong - the location, welcome and set-up is fantastic, but I have the knack for experiencing the facilities in a way never quite intended.
The bathroom is beautifully clean and equipped with a lovely little automatic air freshener; y'know the kind that goes 'psssst' at a set time interval, bathing the room in a heavenly scent of lavender, citrus or rose.
Unfortunately this wonderful application of modern science was located on a shelf above the basin, exactly at say, oh, eye-level. Yep, you guessed it - the timing was perfect, the puff of scent smoothly delivered right into my left eye. It hurt like heck, but at least I had a citrus-fresh scented eye for the rest of the evening.

Travel joys:
A big thank you to the manufacturers of my new laptop backpack. I should write them a letter praising the carrying capacity of those nifty bags.
Not only did I have a laptop & the usual assortment of cables in there, but also a handbag, two tupperware containers of left-over braai bits, a camera and a book, but also a bottle of wine! Sometimes less is definitely not more!

De-automation

So there I was, crawling home on a thursday afternoon after a very long year in the office (it certainly felt that way). The dog greeted my return with her usual exuberance and I looked forward to a quick stopover before heading out for the evening.
Walking away from the car I heard a rather disturbing sound.
Psssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Nope, not a deflating tyre, hissing reptile or gas leak in sight.
It came from under the hood, and with more trepidation than a scream-queen running up the stairs to open a mysterious rattlin door, I stood there, eyeing the offensive sound.
But, someone had to face the music, or at least the wind-section of the orchestra and I mosied upstairs to drop my bags.
I returned downstairs and went down on my knees - praying, of course, but also to spot any obvious cause for the overheated engine. While driving I keep an eye on the temperature gauge, and since that had not red-lined, I held out a cautious hope.
There was a growing puddle under the car.
I stretched out my fingers I screamed... the dog had taken use of my prone position to insert a quick doggie kiss into the proceedings.
Thoroughly disgusted, I whiped my ear and reached out to the puddle again. A dirty liquid stained my fingers, but a quick chemical diagnosis (I sniffed at it), revealed that it wasn't oil or petrol.
It was dirty water, which together with the hissing engine pointed at radiator problems. I reached for my keys, stepped up to the driver's door and froze.
Where the point of my key would be there was a definite absence of key. I stared at it mutely for a few moments, trying to process this absence in a logical way. The only thing that kept rising to the front of my thoughts was "please don't let it have broken off in the ignition!" Or the door lock for that reason.
I scurried upstairs again to fetch my spare key and opened the door... not there then
I stuck the key in the ignition...not there either.
Shrugging that off as a minor problem, I opened the hood and had a look.
Now I know about as much about the averag combustion engine as I do about neural surgery. I looked at the engine, it looked at me.
I dialled my nr one on-call mechanic.
"Hi dad. I have a problem."
We talked about the patient, listing the symptoms and attempting some rough diagnosis.
Leaving the car to cool down an hour or so, i started the engine again, pulled it backwards and added water to the radiator to judge how badly things had gone.
It didn't take too much water and I felt confident to drive it to the local mechanic the next day.
Of course, it took mr master mechanic 2 seconds of listening to the engine and fiddling with the pipes to come up with "it's a welsh plug"
Right! Great! Fantastic! A Welsh plug?!? But my car is made in Japan!!! :-D
It's a tiny thing to replace... if you can get to it.
In a Sentra's case, it will probably involve a procedure through the exhaust system.
So here I am, typing away after a house-bound weekend. At least I finally got to spend some time in the garden! But as much as I enjoyed the enforced house-arrest, there's pet-food to be bought tomorrow, oh, and probably some human food too.

Velvet killers

I woke up this morning with the horrible realization that I was sharing my house with 3 serial killers. Sounds like the start to a rather violent Hollywood script, but it's worse... it's reality.
Now before my friends start dialling for police assistance, let me clarify a bit.
I share my house with 3 cats and a dog - we'll chat about the pooch some other time.
You have to give it to those furry balls of killing menace, they've got humans all figured out.
Who else would manage to get free room & board, entertainment and the knowledge that you are adored? That while you are still locking the blood of your latest victim from your whiskers.
And I'm one of those human flunkies.
I've now learnt to recognise the sounds of animal / insectoid distress in the dead of night, and can go from deep sleep to fully awake and armed with towel & plastic container in under 10 seconds.
Of course, for many victims the rescue comes too late. But that doesn't stop me from trying. If the vets were to charge me for all the injured cat-toys I've brought to their offices, they would've made a fortune by now.
But we tolerate this.
Why?
Researchers could spend years on that subject, but I think the gaga-inducing "sub-vocal oscillations" (thank you Data) may be a key factor. This poorly understood vibration-sound has been known to reduce grown men to willing cat pillows. No-one is safe.
And consider the physical aspect as well: velvet fur, large eyes and the ability to softly tap their human for attention with those teddy-bear paws.
Those same paws that hide scimitar-like blades that can do as much damage as the razor sharp teeth. These perfect little killing machines remind me of a sweet smelling venus fly-trap.
'Come closer, look at me, touch me, see how beautiful I am....and die!'

Terry Pratchett seems to understand this strange duality of cats. I'll leave you with two of his quotes while I go and release the latest tail-less gecko.

“They just laughed and stabbed her. She didn’t even try to run away. It was like they were 'playing'.”
For some reason Magrat shot a glance at Greebo, who had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Pointy ears and hair you want to stroke,” she said, vaguely. “And they can fascinate you. And when they’re happy they make a pleasing noise.”
Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
"Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice."
Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Apocryphal architecture

Yep, so there I was, lazing in front of the tv watching one of those quest movies where the heroes inevitably end up in some deviously designed building of doom, and I just had to wonder....
Is there a special school of architecture out there?!?

I mean, your average builder of ancient temples, monuments and palaces obviously had a fairly good grip on basic arithmetic, the concept of solid foundations and so-on, but there seems to have been a very specialised branch of builders out there. Who else would design these grand and imposing buildings dotted around in hidden cracks and valleys just loaded with treasure. Can you imagine the list of building materials? And the cost of transport to these hidden nooks and crannies? No wonder only insanely rich megalomaniacs could afford them. Speaking of which, I'd love to know what polish they used: x-hundred amount of years later, and the precious metals are still gleaming like they've just been buffed!

And then of course, there are the traps. No secret structure would be complete without the obligatory pit of stakes, crushing walls or poison darts. Not only must the architecture have factored in a cunningly twisted route to the treasure room, but also line it with hair-trigger traps that will spring as effectively as the day it was set after years of accumulated dust, rust and insect infestations. You have to admire those guys! And wonder if they practise on their own humble homes. Which might explain why we know nothing about them; any visitor may be prone to disappearing down a bottomless shaft hidden by the welcome mat. That is if you can even find their humble abodes.

For some reason I have this persistent mental image of a newly completed temple, traps all set with hordes of well-trained spiders spinning webs in the passages (not on the treasure, ~not~ on the treasure...bad spider!). Just there, a small unassuming figure with a pencil behind the ear is carefully backing out of the main entrance, the last trap has been set and he can't help the pleased smile as he surveys his handiwork. And then the smile droops ever so slightly as he realizes that he left his lunchbox ~somewhere~ in there. Not sure what would be worse; having a future adventurer discover the incongruous object or having to explain to Mrs Architect why he'd come home without it, our anonymous little architect looks around furtively. Sure that no-one else is around, he scuttles around the side to a small door hidden by a cunning design, marked 'staff only'.

If only heroes would spend 5 minutes looking around before dashing in the front door, they might spare themselves a world of trap-dodging.

Gardening with a quantum cat

If anyone had told me a few years ago that I would enjoy gardening, I would've laughed in their faces. Don't get me wrong, I love nature and grew up in a family that loves gardening. The bug (ha-ha) just never bit me.
Until I became the owner of own patch of earth that is. Now I enjoy scrabbling around in the dirt on all fours, marvelling at the fantastic way in which plants never seem to grow when you watch them closely, and yet one morning you'll wake up and realise a tree is suddenly bigger by quite a few inches.
Perhaps science can explain this strange phenomenon; I certainly can't. You'll watch a clear patch of ground for days, and there'll be no sign of any weeds. Then *poof* all of a sudden a luxurious carpet of unwanted growth springs up virtually overnight. I always thought the time-lapse photography of plants growing was magic... now I believe it is!
Either that or something quantum.
Which explains the attraction my cats have to the garden. No, no, not in the 'depositing parcels' sense, but rather as a playground where they can exercise their own quantum skills.
Take Fatcat for instance (not her official name of course, but then show me any cat that is called by it's given name(s) unless it is being accused of some crime! Hieronymous Kittypuss Fluffyshanks the III, ~what~ is this decapitated mouse doing on my carpet!!! What do you mean historical re-enactment of Marie-Antoinette?!?)
Er, where was I headed? Oh yes, Fatcat...
She is the unofficial feline supervisor in charge of all landscaping activities. Which boils down to appearing in exactly the spot I want to weed. This may not sound as impressive, until you actually watch the scenario unfold.
There I'll be, intent on waging my own private war with the undesirable sprouts from hell while Fatcat loiters nearby. I'll keep an eye on her, shuffling along on my knees with a rapidly filling bucket in tow. I'll pull out a rather stubborn example of weed-dom, deposit it in the bucket and turn back to find that without apparently moving, Fatcat has now materialised on top of the very next patch of weeds.
Helpful cat, I know! Except when she has to move off the weeds so I can get to them. I've resorted to weeding around her in a threatening manner, but she just gives me a lazy yellow-eyed stare and sticks like to her spot like a burr on a blanket. Quite a daring move (or absence of) on her part considering the reputation for gardening-related injuries I've managed to inflict on myself.
I haven't tried levering her off with a spade yet, as by the time I've trekked to the garden shed and back, she will have become either a wave or a particle and vanished.
Until I work my way into another section of the garden again.
Pull weed. Watch cat behind me. Deposit weed in bucket. Look at next weed to find fluffy cat bum instead.
Pure magic I tell you! Or quantum physics.
Probably amounts to the same thing!