2010 South Africa – Still Bay
The next day we moved to a bed and breakfast house in the small seaside town of Still Bay. This was a slightly more expensive four-star guesthouse and I had never stayed anywhere where the owner has spent so much trouble on making sure her guests had everything they needed. The furniture was immaculate to the point where we felt a little uncomfortable in case we damaged anything or even if we left something out of place. I suspected the venture was less about making money than about entertaining people and showing off her lovely house. You couldn’t fault the place but it felt more like we were staying with someone which I didn’t like doing, even if it was with friends. My independence was precious to me. Our host and her husband occupied the bottom half of the house and the guests were in the top half. The woman was very friendly but very difficult to get away from. I never had any problem extracting myself from people but Federika was much more polite and tended to get dragged into long boring conversations. They were chatting for nearly an hour during which time Federika learnt the woman’s entire life history.
The house was on the edge of a lovely sandy beach but there was a cool wind blowing which had been bothering the inhabitants for most of the summer. We were given beach towels, chairs and an umbrella and we would normally have sat there happily all day but the wind made it impossible.
The next day we returned to Betty’s Bay which by now was like a second home. Boris was pleased to see us but limited his exertion to raising his eyes and lifting one paw an inch off the ground. Everything was such an effort for the poor old dog and what energy he did have, he put into his snoring.
2010 South Africa
