A Saturday morning at The Commons, Muizenberg

I am sitting outside on the balcony – the smell of cigarette and cigar smoke tantalizing and annoying. There is an underlying tang of the salt rich sea. A scratchy record of blues jazz playing in my ear – I’m too lazy to ask for the name of the song or the artist. It feels a little bit like a holiday, but I am not on holiday, just trying to reclaim some space for me.

The car park is full, but cars keep driving around and around hoping for a space to open. The sea, dotted with surfers and swimmers, looks like a giant raisin bun, the waves icing on the top. A flag hangs limply on a pole. Yellow flowers. Balls kicked by children on a patch of grass. A woman getting dressed under a towel. Surfers washing off salt and sand in a bucket of water. A bus load of children are going for a walk. Dogs on the beach chasing sticks. And the sitters, perched on the edge of the walkway and looking out to sea. A murky mist covers the horizon.

There is no purpose to this writing, no deeper meaning. Just a moment of bluesy jazz and a chill wind and my pen; and the world out there.