Lazy Sunday

It’s Sunday morning and I’m lying in bed.  Here, under the duvet, I’m feeling warm and lazy.

But outside the rain beats down and mist hangs over the mountain. It takes my mind back three years to when my sister, Anne, and I were training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

It had been an impulsive decision to take on Africa’s highest peak, spurred on by my adventurous friend Binny. I’d idly been building my “bucket list” – all those things I want to do before I die. When I mentioned Kilimanjaro, she jumped in and offered to join me.

I asked Anne along because it seemed right to journey together back to East Africa. We’d grown up on a farm in Kenya and once glimpsed that iconic snowy outline of Kili’s summit while on a family holiday. It had never seriously entered my mind to climb it, but suddenly the plan was in place.

We had five months to prepare ourselves, so Anne and I set aside every Saturday for a long mountain walk together. The thing about living in Cape Town is that we’re surrounded by mountains and spoilt for choice.

Many times we chose to climb our beloved Table Mountain. Those Saturdays became adventures in themselves, for we set ourselves to discover as many paths across the back table as possible.

It was like reliving our childhood on a grand scale. Instead of roaming our garden, climbing trees and playing hide-and-seek among the canna lilies, we were roaming mountains. More than 40 years melted away and we delighted in our companionship.

As winter set in, the weather became more unpredictable. We learned the special joy of walking in the rain, when few ventured out and we could go for hours without seeing another soul. Then we’d find a small cave or overhang where we could shelter and eat lunch.

Food somehow tastes so much better when you’ve worked for it. We’d scoff our wholewheat sandwiches like they were a royal feast and follow up with crunchy Cape apples that filled our mouths with sweet tanginess. But the very best we saved till last.

Hot chocolate. Oh my. If you’ve never sipped hot chocolate in a dripping cave in the mountains and watched the rain driving down on a gusty wintry wind, you haven’t lived.

One day we were hunched in a tiny cave just off the path on the Twelve Apostles savouring mugs of hot chocolate. Suddenly, out of the mist four poncho-covered figures appeared, walking in single file. Heads down against the rain, they silently walked past without even realising that we were there.

I was telling my husband, Siegie, that story and how special we had felt when we walked in the mountains in the rain. “Come on then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Mmmmm. It’s so warm here, under my duvet, and it looks so cold and so wet outside. Part of me wants to go, but another part wants to stay exactly where she is.

The latter part wins – for now.