For those of you that I haven’t bored incess­antly with this nug­get of inform­a­tion over the course of the last year or so, I have recently upped sticks and moved from England’s pleas­ant pas­tures to the world of the Springbok, Protea and braai that will be forever South Africa.

More pre­cisely; Cape Town. Even more pre­cisely; Kenilworth (not that one, Midlands fans).

Having been extremely lucky a few years back in meet­ing up with my gor­geous girl in London, I was then decidedly unlucky in keep­ing her in the same coun­try as me. Visa reg­u­la­tions as they are, meant she had to return to her own coun­try, and for a goodly while to boot — res­ult­ing in a teary good­bye at the air­port and an uncer­tain future for us both as a couple. Being the prag­matic type of chap I am, I decided that this sort of todo is never a good thing, and decided that I will move to her neck of the woods in a monu­mental bit of Mohammad/Mountain inter­fa­cing action.

It took a while to sort out — arran­ging of affairs, cut­ting of ties, admin­is­ter­ing of paper and the like, but after a whole year apart (with a few short vis­its to each other in the middle), Operation Kudu finally kicked into action. On the 16^th of May, with nought but a small bag of pos­ses­sions and a fair-thee-well from my folks, I jet­ted off Southwards.

I’ve been here for around 3 months now, and I can say without any reser­va­tion that it has been an abso­lute blast. Not least because I now get to live with Carrie after a looong time apart, but also because this is without doubt, one of the most enjoy­able places I’ve ever lived.

The scenery is superb, the life­style highly relaxed, the food divine — but it’s the gen­eral atti­tude of the Capetonians, or at least the rep­res­ent­at­ive few I’ve met so far, that I love. It’s a far cry from the high-stress, hustle and bustle of London, and it’s light years away from the gen­er­ally dour view­points of Coventry (go there some­time and tell me I’m a liar). It’s relaxed, it’s fun lov­ing, it’s chilled.

I’m sure that I’ll be writ­ing a lot more about the place as I do my own ‘Englishman over­seas’ equi­val­ent, but for now a few per­tin­ent points:

• Caz and I are incred­ibly happy together. Almost sick­en­ingly so.
• ‘Winter’ is a very sub­ject­ive term. Technically I’ve been in winter since last November as I fol­low it around the globe. However, winter shouldn’t be a time you are able to wear flip flops and shorts.
• Biltong. Jeez, that stuff’s amazing.
• “Robots” = “Traffic Lights”. This is still funny.
• Gran: Just so you know, I’m safe and I’m still eat­ing well, okay?