Carol’s Column

Sardines in the sand

NEW YEAR comes and goes for everyone — why is it that for me it takes so much longer in coming?

"I've got a surprise for you," said my husband wickedly winking his beetled brow. The spaghetti I'd been consuming with lust, did an interior war dance with the garlic sauce and my kidneys. That's the effect my husband's surprises always have on me.

"We're going to Cape Town for a week. All that sunshine, beaches, the wine route, Robben Island, a climb up Table Mountain — we'll do it all."

Do you know that in the 18 hours it takes to drive to Cape Town one could be in New York — or almost anywhere else in the world? Which is why nobody drives to Cape Town these days, especially for a week's holiday.

"We'll drive down," said Jody Scheckter-the-second, wiping the egg-yolk off his chin.

And so we did because let nobody accuse us of being a normal, sane family like any other.

There was drama outside Strydenburg, a low-down dot on a thin strip map.

"Whaddya mean the wheel's running along side us?" yelled my husband, cool curls perspiring in the thick Karoo heat. His spectacles flew into the flat distance as he craned his head out of the window to watch the wheel overtake us.

We ground to a rakish halt in the hot afternoon sun.

And that was the beginning of our super holiday.

By some happy mischance, the spare wheel had a puncture which left us wheelless-in-nowhere.

The man of action in my life, rolled up his shirt sleeves and said: "I'll organise things. You hitch to the nearest town and I'll see what I can do here," and immediately opened an iced coke.

They have very little in Strydenburg other than sheep everywhere, including at the local garage.

After much pleading and negotiation, we found ourselves Capeward-bound like the best of them.

Wrong, the best of them fly or go by train.

I tied the kids to the roof rack and 18 hours later we limped into the Mother City which hasn't changed at all. That wonderful mountain's still standing, as are the "Whites Only" beach signs, and the thousands of up-country visitors.

We literally flew to Muizenberg for a dip in the brine as the locals say.

Armed with towels and spears, we secured a hole on the beach among the other prone bodies.

"This is living," said my man as he lifted his arms to inhale the healthy sea air and got a mouthful of hairspray from the titian-tinted Joburg chic in the black plunge costume, re-arranging her hairdo into layers.

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"Ma, why are her boobs falling out of her costume?" asked my observant six-year-old daughter, strident voice high above the hordes, "They're wobbly, just like yours."

Jamie was having the time of his life, playing hide-and-seek among the bodies.

As the tide came in, the hordes moved up. I found myself embroiled in conversations with people I'd never seen before in my life.

A strange woman kissed me hello and told me I looked just like the late Beikie-may-she-rest-in-peace.

The kids had disappeared and it was only when I saw somebody place a towel on top of my husband and lie down on him, that I said something.

"Don't you think it's getting a little crowded here?" I remarked.

Rob couldn't speak because a grandmother of 87 in a purple cat suit, was using his head as a back-rest and had hung her keys on his nose.

Jamie solved the over-crowding problem by throwing a little sand here and there and talking loudly about Nicky's chicken-pox which hadn't yet faded. While David Rajak's mumpy cheeks cleared quite a nice little spot for the kids nearer the sea.

We did everything in a week. The wine route, which was extremely pleasant other than the one estate who asked us to leave after we'd spent four hours tasting their various wines.

"I can't understand what the hurry was," said Rob hiccuping his way to the car.

We drove kilometres to restaurants that had lost our booking. Like the Camel Rock at Kommetjie. "I have a table for eight under the name 'Jeeves'," said the friendly proprietress.

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