Monkeytime

It was to celebrate the acquisition of a fine pair of boots that the executive body of signwithane.com (that would be me, and my webmaster-philosopher-betrothed) went off for the night to the valley of monkeys, situated close to one famously long beach in Cape Town. We saw no live monkeys, but we did park next to a stone version, set as sentinel outside the Baboon Cottage. No such protection for us in the Bumble Bee Cottage, but the view was good enough to recompense.

It was all delightful, with much monkeying about, especially once the local troubadour started strumming nostalgic numbers from the eighties (and even obliged a request for Lady in Red, forever close to my teenage heart).

The food was what it should be in a treehouse with a fireplace: homemade bread to get you going, followed by kingklip and steak that had thankfully little pretension of gourmet.

It was good, as always, to be out of realtime; the familiar strokes of days punctuated by computers and coffee and the occasional wringing of necks. But however much we need the getaways, we also need to know that we are coming back, and that the computers and coffee are still there, ready to connect us to the rest. It makes this plea, from Monkey Valley, all the more pertinent: