Cape Town Apartment Chronicles

Making Do in Cape Town

As a writer of blogs, I could write a review and start a travelogue of all the apartments we have stayed in, the restaurants we have visited, and other venues, whether for tourists or not. However, I suspect you are more interested in your holiday than in a commentary, especially about things not going right.

We checked out early from a place in Rugby to take another apartment in Pinelands. This is something we usually do: splitting our living arrangements in two and having an overlapping day to move from one location to another. Only once have we not done this, because the new place was just 200 metres away and the host had agreed to an early check-in.

The Rugby Apartment

The place in Rugby was one we liked after a few adjustments, including a visit from the host to try to make amends. However, the critical issue, as Brian noted, was that the place lacked a feminine touch. Broadly, it offered just the practical things for essential apartment living. For days, this niggled until the microwave played up and I had to use a mug to scoop food into another pot.

So, I wrote to the host to highlight the issues rather than complain, and this reflects some of what we have experienced with apartments in Cape Town.

Hello, I'm staying at your apartment with my partner. At first, I thought we could manage, but I need to inform you of a few things before I write a very honest review of our experience. It is a lovely place; we are comfortable and feel safe. However, you cannot manage a property from a lock box.

We are very domesticated people and are usually in Cape Town twice a year, sometimes for more than a month, staying in places as varied as Camps Bay, Sea Point, Foreshore, Muizenberg, and Bloubergstrand since 2019. We have a good idea about apartments, service, and the quality of accommodation.

First, we asked for a spare set of keys, which, as I informed you, we have always had with other places. Then, the size of the apartment is about half the over 600 square feet advertised on Booking.com.

Basic stuff: not enough hangers in the bedroom, many crooked. That's manageable. You have a kitchen but no kitchen knife; we bought one yesterday, just as there are no kitchen scissors. The Power Defrost and Power Level buttons are not working on the microwave. This was the last straw for me, because the prawns for our stir-fry ended up cooked, or we would have had to wait hours for a proper thaw.

The clothes rack should have been replaced; it is full of rust, and we can't hang clothes on it. We could use the clothesline, but we are strangers here. There is a litany of things I could list about the homeliness of your place, but we can manage. As I have said, you will need to visit your apartment to see that things work or are right. Having a lock box is not a substitute for that responsibility. Thank you.

We ended up buying a proper kitchen knife, and this is the third time we have had to do this. It could have happened many more times if Brian had forgotten to bring the typical kitchen utensils we had acquired over time: spatulas, a sauce ladle, and some deep bowls.

When the host came to visit, some 30 minutes behind schedule, he brought a set of ten hangers and a bottle of plonk that might have passed for cooking wine, if Brian's taste for alcohol had not got the better of him.

Moving to Pinelands

After church yesterday, we packed up for this new place in Pinelands, which backs onto a Jewish cemetery just about 150 metres away and is clearly visible from the seventh-floor window. You can bet my vivid imagination is under serious curtailment, and I hope the rational will overwhelm the irrational, as I do not intend to lose my mind in the process.

We encountered the usual issues again. People do not cook, hence the kitchen setup is lacking. Once, we had to buy a pot, and this place has just one pot for cooking. There is no kitchen knife, but we already have one. Surprise: there is a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer.

There is a thriving takeaway and fast-food culture in South Africa, where ingredients for food can be organic, fresh, and healthy, but people are not cooking, except when they have a braai.

Two bedrooms, not really the size that was advertised, but that is a minor point. There is a worktable from where I am typing, but no centre table in the living room, as if we should eat off our laps. In the fire escape, we found two stools and a floor mat that matched the one in the apartment. I think we can consider ourselves resourceful.

Making the Space Work

We had to change the orientation of the bed, as it was just wrong. When our hostess returned that afternoon, she agreed that the realignment was better. However, what I cannot understand is the dearth of sockets in these apartments. We had to get extension leads with dual sockets to have somewhere to plug in our devices.

She cannot remember the Wi-Fi password, as the two she provided did not work. Meanwhile, I found a way around the issue. The Google TV box connected to the television has a Wi-Fi hotspot feature, but when switched on, it disables the Wi-Fi connection. Usually, the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) button on the router should work, but we failed to get a link.

I connected the Google TV box to the router with an Ethernet cable and set up the Wi-Fi hotspot. That way, we have Internet connectivity without the fuss, or we would have had to wait until Tuesday to get that sorted.

Meeting Miranda Priestly

We joined her in the lift and, whilst she understandably refused entry to another resident with a shopping trolley (though there was enough space for all of us), it was the mother holding a baby that she barred, which left us stunned. Her explanation: "I am the Miranda Priestly of this apartment block." The funny thing is, on my first visit to South Africa in May 2015, I did watch The Devil Wears Prada on my outward flight. I did not expect to meet her in real life.

We have different panoramic views of Table Mountain, and just a glimpse of the sea, even though it is almost seven miles away. For that alone, I am not so forlorn this far inland in Cape Town.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Walking the time tunnel of gay youth

To London without a cat

London was a destination over the weekend by reason of an error in my hotel booking last month where I had inadvertently made a non-refundable hotel booking for March when I was planning for February. A situation not helped by the fact that the first 28 days in a non-leap year are the same for both months, you have to be alert, or you will be caught out.

It reminds me of a time when I booked a flight to depart in the third week of the month and the website automatically presented the next month for my return that when I finally saw what I had booked, I was going away for 5 weeks instead of a week. Were it not that I had booked a ticket that allowed for alterations, I would have been paying through the nose to sort it out.

Shorn a sandal to scandal

Now, I only discovered I had booked a hotel for the wrong dates when I was checking for the address to give a black cab at London Euston Station, it came up that my booking was in 28 days. There wasn’t much I could do than to immediately make another booking for that weekend whilst planning that I would return to London in 4 weeks.

As I told the black cab driver, I was going to Dolphin Square, he did not need giving any directions, it was until later that I realised I was going to a place of political scandal and notoriety, famous for the Profumo Affair amongst other notable controversies. If it once housed 70 MPs and 10 Lords, you only needed to speak the language of the walls to hear some intriguing and hair-raising stories. O was not planning on contributing to the list of ignominy.

The apartment was quite well-proportioned, with sash windows, no air conditioning, or modern conveniences as a dishwasher or a washing machine. There were flat-screen televisions in the living room and the bedroom, ample storage space, but wireless internet came on one voucher for one device. I had to tether other devices off my mobile phone. It was at best a bachelor’s pad on the fifth floor.

To memories of youth wasted

Its proximity to the north bank of the Thames made for an easy route for my walking exercises as I walked up Grosvenor Road then crossed Chelsea Bridge to the south bank onto the Thames path to Battersea Power Station to veer off onto Nine Elms Lane, past the US Embassy and to my left I was surprised that despite all the new developments there were parts of an old gay haunt still standing strong.

About 30 years ago, on Sundays, we attended the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to watch drag acts including Lily Savage, until the pub closed at 2:00 PM and off we went to Market Tavern for the afternoon, a darkened venue that served a Sunday lunch of chilli-con-carne and rice whilst we danced away until the pubs opened again at 7:00 PM. Whilst the Market Tavern has long since gone, the memories did come flooding back.

To memories of lives wasted

Then I walked past Vauxhall and the MI6 headquarters where for the first time, I did see someone, a lady, leave the building. You always had the feeling the workers there secreted themselves into the building by some secret passageway, but that would be a little farfetched, it is people like us who work there, not an alien lifeform.

Walking on toward the St Thomas’ Hospital where the wall facing the Thames hosts the National COVID Memorial Wall and a veritable sign of government ineptitude in the handling of this pandemic that has to date claimed 162,738 lives.

I took my turn back over the Westminster Bridge, by the Houses of Parliament at Westminster Palace, the scaffolding was now taken off the bell tower of Big Ben and wended my way to my accommodations to start my day of social events. My 10,000 steps done and a bit more too.

Training for London

Holly was a doggie

Boarding the train, the train manager announced with an all too familiar accent, quite probably Nigerian, especially with the way he said shop, with a b sound at the end. Meanwhile, I feared we would have to endure the frequent coughing of the man sat almost opposite me, especially in these pandemic times when everyone appears to have dispensed with their face masks.

Thankfully, he alighted at Stoke on Trent, just around the time he was becoming a nuisance, as not only had he forgotten a rather essential facemask, but he should also have brought his headphones too. My reserved seat was occupied when I made it on the carriage, I gestured to the lady as I looked for a place to put my luggage, little did I know that she was occupying two seats because of her dog.

The dog, and I know nothing about dogs was Pomsky, a crossbreed between a Pomeranian and a Siberian Husky, quite presentably nice looking and friendly, her name was Holly, and I am pleased she did not see me as prickly as ivy.

A rather senior moment

On arriving at London Euston Station, I did some shopping and made to check for the address of the hotel where I was staying. My shock at the realisation that I had been caught by the February-March paradox of non-leap-years, as my booking glared at me with the notice, ‘In 28 days’. I had booked for March and what to do?

I could not beat myself up in the things I had allowed apart from having booked a deal I could not cancel, I simply logged on my app ignoring the predictive screen that appears to present the next rather than the current month, in the assumption you do not make urgent bookings and scanned through the list of outrageously expensive to generally affordable deals to book another stay, for the two nights I was in London.

Holly is my host

The black cab driver was unusually helpful and consequently engaging, he came round to help me with my luggage, and we talked at length about how London had changed from about 30 years ago. Quite good banter it was places that had changed hands or been lost to history or his brushes with the challenges to his Knowledge of London, it is amazing how the obscure can be revealing.

On getting to my apartment hotel, the ladies at the reception were helpful and friendly, and at this hotel, they are known as hosts, I had even had my accommodations upgraded, what do I know? She helped me to the lift and gave me the room card, her name, Holly. Fancy that!

Cape Town reflections: Feathering the nest

But for a love nest

We aim to create home away from home when we meet up in Cape Town that has become our city of choice in South Africa. This requires we have suitable domestic arrangements beyond what obtains in a hotel, and so certain things need to be taken into consideration.

I have used Airbnb once before and, in many ways, I did not enjoy the experience as the upfront costs can be quite high in terms of deposits and I was not sure on the dispute resolution process. With Hotels.com, whilst we cannot make bookings more than 28 nights, there are other benefits as it is part of the larger Expedia Group and for even 10 nights you book, we get an average cost reward night, I have been quite happy with the rewards of almost 9 years of loyalty.

When seeking accommodation, we look for fully-furnished apartments with certain requirements, this demands apartment block information and the apartment inventory are detailed and frequently updated as things do change and sadly, this not always the case. We would rarely book a place where we are not sure of what the apartment contains on the main booking page or in the small print.

Things we note

We can probably trade-off on unlimited Wi-Fi as we have once had to use a Mi-Fi (mobile wireless Internet) when the landlord forgot to keep up with their Internet Service Provider subscription, however, the apartment must have a washing machine, probably with a dryer, a fully kitted kitchen with cooking plates, an oven, a microwave oven, utensils, crockery, cutlery, and other essential elements to make for a homely setting.

Sometimes, the inventory would not suffice and we are left with scrutinising the pictures of the apartment and views from it to see how it is furnished, the general layout, what and where things are installed and gleaning subtle detail as fixed showerheads or those on hoses, the furniture and the bathroom.

On location, Cape Town

Location is obviously important, we try to be within walking distance of the V & A Waterfront, and though we first stayed in the Foreshore area, we have tried out the Gardens, Mouille Point, Green Point and Sea Point. The apartment at the Gardens near the District Six Museum was quite spacious on the second floor, but the area seemed a bit precarious and unsafe, even if it was just 6 blocks up from a main police station. It has a draw, but we have not been persuaded to return.

Obviously, Mouille Point gave us the best views of the sea looking all the way to Robben Island, but the apartment needed some cleaning up before we could move in. The overworked manager who is desperately in need of help but probably too parsimonious to spend on the need to modernise and maintain his portfolio of apartments could do with some aspects of personal hygiene too, our first meeting left me quite crestfallen, I was afraid the last 17 nights of our stay would be in a hovel.

Just to get it right

We lodged our most complaints in a choice of 7 apartments at Sea Point and it was dire. Information on booking page suggested there was no lift in the apartment block and there was. I could have in the absence of a lift for a 3^rd floor accommodation decided on somewhere else. How whoever took the inventory missed the bathtub in the bathroom is totally beyond me.

Then, in the kitchen, there was no microwave oven, like whoever had stayed there before had never spent more than a couple of nights or did not have any inclination to order takeaways or warm meals, surely. Then when trying to cut some kitchen, I found there was no kitchen knife and then we had to go shopping for a knife after 8:00 PM on a Sunday night and we just about got a something slightly longer than a penknife.

The pots were aluminium bowls with handles for the pots or the lids, we needed a laundry basket and a clothesline, we should have asked for a table fan as there was no air-conditioning installed, though there was a gas heater; for Cape Town? I guess I too Northern hemisphere to think winter is Cape Town demands heating.

For convenience always

For our first 28 nights, we were not going to endure the absence of these essential things and it was 6 nights on before we got a useful pot, the microwave oven, a laundry basket and a dozen clothes hangars to supplement the mere 3 in the wardrobes.

When moving to another apartment we have an overlapping day, to check-in the day before we checkout where we are. It gives us time to move apart from allows us to make essential arrangements if necessary. The option to extend always exists, but we have found that for the third time moving apartments during our rendezvous helps give us a feel of the Cape Town and prepare us for our eventual move there.

Shopping down the wire

I flew British Midland

I think it was April 1995 when I went online through Compuserve and bought an air ticket from British Midland to Amsterdam from London on the aptly named http://iflyBritishMidland.com website.

Since then I have bought books, goods, and electronics online without much worry, though a good friend did inform me over the weekend that he was a victim of credit card fraud but thankfully his bank was alert enough to see the irregularities and contact him to repudiate transactions made in his name by some other unauthorised person.

Assumptions clouding alertness

However, recently, I have been wondering if Internet Shopping is anymore the fun it used to be where you had choices, options and the flexibility of not having to explain yourself too many times to get something done.

I noticed that when I book air tickets on the KLM site, if it was towards the end of the month there was the possibility that the return date would be presented as month hence even though one just wanted a couple of days.

For instance, I wanted to travel on the 26th and return on the 29th, it was when I was checking in online that I found that the 29th return date was a month hence rather than the same month.

This has happened to me to before and I have to pay for another full fare ticket to correct the mistake, this time my ticket was flexible, I could change it if I wanted.

Fewer choices on the Internet

In fact, I would think if I had bought the ticket at a counter, it would be nigh on impossible to end up with the wrong return date, the teller would probably have asked if I really wanted to spend 34 days away instead of 3 – Methinks this kind of logic is necessary on the website.

The ticket was flexible which meant I could change it, but using the Internet facility for ticket alteration offered to charge me the full whack for the ticket, however, when I made a phone call to customer services, the change was effected without additional charge – what relief.

Ich bin leider

Then, using the flexibility of being able to book journeys between countries which the German Railways bahn.de site offers as opposed to the rigidity of other country railway sites, I booked a ticket to Geneva.

The site could not offer me a price but I got an acknowledgement of my request, usually, when an air ticket is booked, you get a confirmation of the request, a confirmation of the order and the cost of the transaction in minutes, you get that with hotels too.

German efficiency went up the creek for that, for days, I heard or saw nothing for 8 days, I had to call customer services, meanwhile earlier in the day I had emailed them to determine if my tickets would be sent.

I was informed they were sent that very day, but it took the best part of 4 working days for the tickets to traverse the humongous cavern between Germany and the Netherlands.

I was none the wiser about the cost of the ticket or whether it had really been sorted for the intervening period.

Schrecklicher Kundendienst

A reply arrived which simply said if I did not get the tickets before the day of travel, I should buy the tickets on the day of travel and then ask for a reimbursement.

These people still deliver 21 days to deliver my tickets and had already given up on giving me any service – I was gobsmacked – I was travelling around Easter, I might not get a seat and the tickets might cost twice over for a 12 hour journey – at which point I really regretted not going to a ticket counter, queuing up for maybe an hour and arranging my travel over 30 minutes for a booking fee.

I gave up on trying to remonstrate and waited – eventually the tickets arrived like I said, but there was much lost in customer service that could only be termed deplorable and beyond the pale.

Press the flesh

I doubt if I would be quick to book certain things on the Internet soon again, the need for human interaction with the warts and foibles might just be what one needs.

Surely, do your research and help the teller along with the information required for your transaction but keep your credit card in your pocket when sat behind that inanimate screen and take a walk down to the shop, the store or the ticket counter and make social conversation.

Obviously, when I said what is 2 inches between friends to the assistant the other day when trying to buy a television and talking about size, you should have seen his face go bright red, I would suppose he was adding colour to the conversation – the things that go on in people’s minds, unspeakable.

You cannot call computers stupid, but it is strange what you can call human beings when you have the right temperament.

Gosh! I'm in London again

London incognito

My sojourn to London this time is somewhat impromptu and unannounced; even though one had opportunity to announce long before time, spontaneity depending on scheduling and time allowing might just bring me in contact to the realists of my blog world.

Air travel never ceases to amaze, I have been through a time of flying as a kid, getting irrationally scared of air travel to the extent that I forsook my plane at the air for a 7-hour train journey to a point where I can better manage my anxiety, it does not bother me that much anymore.

I'm like a bird

However, when I think of the daring, genius and tenacity that made men put big metal vehicles in the air, take advantage of the air to traverse places and use the same to stop the aircraft, I am just too impressed for words.

Generally, I belong to the jet engine generation; there is no way you will get me to get in a turbo-prop even if I had to escape the savages of King Solomon's Mines, well, it might get me thinking.

But one thing I have noticed about Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is whilst it can be friendly to the elderly, handicapped or parents with young children, in that they can order a concourse vehicle to cart them around the airport, those with canes find that the elevators do not go to the connecting floors and we are not called forward to board flights first.

John Steed, I'm not.

I once had one long cane with a ivory ball for the handle, then acquired another which is quite versatile because I can take it apart - 4 bits that go into the customs check system - mercifully and thankfully, I do not have to take off my shoes.

It makes the cane easy to pack into my bag. So, when we landed at Heathrow and taxied around the runways till we all thought we were lost for 15 minutes we came to a standstill, when usually the impatient cannot wait for the seat-belt sign to go off before they open overhead bins and spill the contents on the sitting party.

I finally got my bag, took out the 4 pieces of cane and proceeded to put them together when another passenger surmised, good weapon - I had to remonstrate vehemently, it is my cane, nobody carries weapons onto planes and please do not get me into deep serious trouble.

Some people have been watching too much monochrome Avengers, that is not helped that I also wear a hat, this time, not my bowler hat, though.

Sign for me properly

Then, the beauty of reading English properly written - Please have your passports ready for inspection as opposed to the literal translation in Schiphol which reads Please keep your passport ready - it narks me off when these foreigners cannot avail themselves of native speakers such that I do not have to be welcomed in London.

I got to my hotel which is beside the British Library, one should walk in and have a look, and much has been said about the architecture and more.

Stranger in my room

Just as I settled in my room, I had a shower, dried off and wist not that I was unclothed because I was covered with glory when my door opened.

Stranger: Oh!

Moi: What are you doing in my room?

Stranger: Reception, gave me this room.

Moi: Well as you can see, it is not your room, it is mine, this is outrageous.

Stranger tries to divert my vitriol to blame the reception for a sloppy job, I am having none of it.

Moi: Please close the door now; make sure you are not sent back here.

Stranger, scolded and angry walks away closing the door rather than slamming it, well, that would have been the end of him as he would have been defenestrated.

Why did I go for the stranger, well, I wanted to make sure he doubly expressed his displeasure at the reception, such that they do not mess it up again?

20 minutes later, my television goes off and a name; not mine appears on the screen, my second call to reception would not hear of the excuses that the system is down, I am having none of this nonsense in a 4-star hotel, it just does no augur well for my custom and their brand.

When I show my face at reception, well, maybe, it is best to leave out the tip when checking out.

What would we do without computer systems, what makes us thorough and meticulous has been lost that excuses suffice for unforgivable simple mistakes - not good, not good at all.