we've been abandoned...

Let me rephrase, Timmy is up at the telescope doing great science and the Boo and I have been left behind to suffer through 4 Timmy-less days in Cape Town. Yeah, there are definitely worse places to suffer in (see tag for "complaining when you have nothing to complain about"...) so I know you are not feeling too sorry for us.

Anyways, since the routine was shot I figured a little more shake up wouldn't hurt anyone. So when I picked up the Boo from preschool instead of taking him right back home as was our usual plan, I told him we had a job to do. Nothing gets the Boo's attention like a job ;) The "job" was to finish up our Christmas shopping so we headed down in to the City Bowl.

The Boo suffered through the shopping with promises of playgrounds on the beach. So, once Santa was satisfied, we rolled on down the hill and landed at one of our favorite places - Mouille Point. Our opening photograph is the Mouille Point playground we touched on briefly in an earlier post with Signal Hill off to the left and the Boo in his orange shirt somewhere left of center.

We did some tree climbing:


We did some playground peeking:


We had ice cream (Mama had iced coffee...mmmm....South Africa's version of a frapuccino) at one of our favorite cafes, Cafe Neo, while we gazed at the lighthouse, blue water and large container ship off the coast:


We went back to play some more:

Eventually the Boo got tired and we were ready to go but it was now a little after 5pm. On a previous outing to this part of town we made the mistake of leaving right at 5pm and what should have been a 15 minute drive turned into an hour-long slog through less-then-fun traffic.  Again, we may be slow but we do learn, so instead of fighting traffic we hopped a little ways up the coast to the Waterfront, one of our favorite haunts.  There are many Boo-friendly eateries there and watching the boats come and go never gets old.

Of course, best laid plans and all....the Boo fell asleep in the car and was pretty much down for the count.  Now, I would rather sit on the Waterfront then sit in traffic, so I muscled the sleeping child out of the carpark and up to the daylight.  And since I've always been more lucky then good, we walked right in to a free outdoor concert.  So while the Boo slept on my shoulder, I was able to get off my feet and enjoy an excellent concert by a band from Stellenbosch that played all sorts of different "traditional" songs as long as violin, accordion and percussion were involved in the tradition.  The amphitheater was packed and the crowd was really in to the music.


The Boo woke up about 10 minutes after the concert was over and we enjoyed our dinner overlooking the docks and the boats.  Right before we left, he hugged me and said, "Thank you for bringing me here, Mommy."  So a good time was had by all.... at least until we got home and the Boo realized Daddy was "having a sleepover at the telescope."  But that is a story for another day...