Change In Plans

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Greetings from Cape Town.  This short post is about celebrating our son’s ninth birthday in style.

On Friday morning, we drove up to Tulbagh, which is a small village north and east of Cape Town.  Incidentally, the drive to Tulbagh is almost exactly the same distance as the drive from Agra to Delhi (150 km), but it took an hour and half, instead of six hours.

Our friends, Paul and Lucille, have a wine farm on the western slopes of the Tulbagh Valley.  The farm is only 200 meters or so above the valley floor, but has spectacular, 20-kilometer views across to the low mountain range on the other side.  It is an amazingly beautiful and peaceful place.  They have owned the farm for nine years, and I think we have gone up to spend the night in all but one or two of those years.

The mid-summer weather, as always, was sunny and very hot.  We spent most of Friday afternoon playing in the pool, which looks out over the long views.  The pool water was slightly warmer than body temperature, so kids could literally stay in for hours. 

Being Irish, Paul likes the game of hurling, and has a bunch of hurleys at his house.  Hurleys are the crude, war-club looking sticks used to play this ancient Gaelic game.  Paul and I spent a couple of hours playing the hurling equivalent of catch, which meant standing 40-50 meters apart and whacking the hard, fist-sized hurling ball back and forth to each other.  

In the late afternoon, Per and Nada, other old friends Cape Town, arrived with their boys.  Between the three families, the posse of kids had grown to six: Tallulah and Sienna who both just turned four, Luca who is six, Zola and Alec who are both nine, and Ashlyn who is twelve.  Zola loves Alec, and immediately started with “Dude, let’s go swimming.” and “Dude, did you bring your DS?”  

Due to some wonderful and unexplained social dynamic (Ashlyn’s calm presence setting the tone), the kids all played happily together with minimal adult supervision.  This left the adults alone to build big big fires, cook, and drink wine.

Per and Nada had brought a small restaurant’s worth of exotic meats: smoked kudu, dried biltong, enormous beefsteaks, boerewors sausage.  We added a small chicken, and had a proper South African braai, cooking it all over an open fire.  Zola got to open a few presents, even though it was still the day before his birthday: a long-coveted Swiss Army knife with seventeen attachments, some other camping/survival tools, and a few books.   

After dinner, we sat around the fire until late in the evening, swapping stories of travel and work, talking about living in South Africa, and generally catching up.  Paul went off for an hour to entertain the littler kids with an elaborate story of fairies and princesses and naughty children living in a forest.  Much later, when kids and wives had all gone to sleep, the conversation had moved on to topics like free will and fate and aspirations and mortality. Paul, Per and I opened a bottle of Vin de Constance.  This is the same sweet dessert wine, from the same Cape Town vineyard, that Napoleon drank during his great campaigns, and (reputedly) that he requested on his deathbed.  It was a noble end to a fun evening.

The next morning was Zola’s birthday, and he was up early to start celebrating.  Before breakfast, all of the kids were in the pool, playing a game which involved hitting each other with foam balls and racing from wall to wall.  At Zola’s request, I cooked bacon and dozens of pancakes, which the kids ate with Nutella and with jam and whipped cream.  As the adults lingered at the table, or out in the sunshine, the kids went back in the pool.  The conversations of the night before picked up again.  Zola opened a few more presents.  At some point, a loose baby tooth that he had been wiggling for the last few weeks fell out, and he presented it proudly to us all.

India made a Nutella-frosted chocolate cake, and the little girls helped to decorate it with sprinkles, and candy and chocolate chips.  We all sang, and Zola blew out the candles.  After devouring the cake, the kids all leapt back into the pool, to continue the never-ending foam ball and lap-swimming game.  Paul and I went back out to the garden and to the hurleys.  

THE 2008 TULBAGH HURLING TEAM

Eventually, Per and Nada and their kids drove back to the city.  Paul and India spent some time taking photos of the little girls together, trying to replicate a picture they had taken two years earlier.  When we finally packed up and left, Tallulah fell asleep before we had driven out of the long driveway.

Back at our rented house in Llandudno, Zola opened up the rest of his presents.  India got him two elaborate Star Wars Lego sets, which may provide countless hours of quality Dad and son time.  He also got some more books, and some cool surfer clothes.  I ran down to the beach for a quick swim in the freezing water.

At Zola’s request, we went out for pizza in Hout Bay, a few miles away.  We sat out on the deck, watching the clouds chase in over the low mountains.  When dessert came, the waiters sang an elaborate cadence-style birthday song, leading into the more traditional “Happy Birthday to You.”  Tallulah explained that because he was getting a second birthday cake, he was no longer nine, and had advanced to ten.  At least she is consistent in applying the algorithm which advanced her own age to seven.

After so much sun, and swimming, and playing and cake, both kids are completely exhausted.  Tomorrow is the longest day of the year, so we hope to be surfing and boogie boarding and enjoying the sun.  I think Zola had a very happy birthday.