The best thing ever is to be paid to go on holiday. Especially if you get to go down the south coast which is my favourite place. The budget was not large, but I am scared of fancy-pants places. I am French-Irish working class stock - little bit of poshness thrown in, but nevermind that. Tidal pools are the south coast’s answer to the north’s infinity pools and after Richard Carstens, took his thyroid clouds and mushroom ice-cream and headed for the Western Cape, most restaurants offer seafood baskets, ribs and milkshakes. My favourites. My best bit of the weekend was when Jack and I met James Mac. Here is an extract:
‘I come here every day,’ he says. ‘From Maritzburg.’
'For the fishing?’ I ask.
‘I come to heal,’ he replies.
I nod in sympathy. Even on a family-focused weekend, opportunities abound for tired parents to stare into the ocean in a trance of cathartic blankness as their offspring build castles and chuck sand at each other.
‘It’s not for emotional healing,’ he clarifies.
‘It’s my foot. I accidentally hammered a nail all the way through it with a mallet. The salt water is helping the wound.’
Jack and I go for a swim to heal our wounds. The sea is warm and not too rough. There are no shark nets. ‘No one has ever been eaten,’ says a lifeguard."
To read some more you have to buy Getaway in July or else since the next issue is very nearly out, Sonya won't mind if you read it on my Writing page, as long as it makes you buy the next issue instead. Jack went shark cage diving, which you can also read about. And then Teagan came and took photos of us on the beach holding fruit. It was rad.