Continued from the second instalment…
So, quite a bit of time has elapsed – almost a month and a half, in fact. The final of Euro2008 has come and gone (my team won, of course, at last), and I really want to blog about other things now; but I can’t very well leave the story hanging in mid-rant, can I?
So, here’s a quick run-down of what transpired after we left Tygervalley Centre on that fateful night in June: First we drove up the road to Eastwoods. Eastwoods is a sports bar and restaurant. Eastwoods was closed. It’s a sports bar. But it was closed. Are you seeing the problem yet, or should I repeat that again? Apparently the oddity of this situation was entirely lost on the manager(s), because exactly one week later, on the night of the final, they were closed too. That’s right. The biggest sports bar in the area failed to open on the night of the final of Euro2008. (And people wonder why I’m not always brimming with enthusiasm about living in the northern suburbs…)
So in a greater huff than I’d been in at Tygervalley, I persuaded Paul to go back down the road to the Willowbridge Dros.
We arrived at the Dros, pleased to see that there were still a few cars outside, and a couple of people in the restaurant. We rushed up to the big wooden doors, and found them… locked. Not to be deterred, we rushed around to the glass doors in front. These too were closed. I gestured to the barman that we’d like to come in and watch the rest of the football, but he shook his head and mouthed what I initially took to be “Weird clothes.” I thought that was a bit of an odd thing to say, since I was wearing jeans and a fairly ordinary long-sleeved top, but then Paul pointed out that it was actually even weirder that that: apparently the barman was saying, “We’re closed.” Totally bizarre, I know.
By this time I was ready to break down his flimsy-looking glass doors, but fortunately good sense prevailed. Also fortunately, there was actually a TV outside the restaurant, showing the football, with the sound turned up nice and loud. So we made ourselves sort of comfortable and watched the rest of extra time as well as the nailbiting penalty shoot-out (I do mean that literally – I chew my fingers during penalty shoot-outs and games in which the Proteas have to score 435 runs to win) outside the Dros. It was very kind of them to let us watch their TV, without expecting us to buy anything. That barman ought to have the price of my potential double-whiskey and Paul’s potential beer docked from his pay, though. I mean, would it have been such a big deal for him to come out to us and say, “Hey, we’re actually closed, but if you guys just want to have a couple of drinks and stay till the end of the football, we’re fine with that, since we’ll BE HERE ANYWAY”?
Anyway, I got to see the game, my team beat the Italians, and it all turned out okay. I watched the semi-final with a real flesh-and-blood Spaniard (at Beleza – leaving nothing to chance), and then we returned to the place of our former rejection, the Dros at Willowbridge, for the final. This time they actually let us sit inside, which was nice. We had to buy drinks though. 
I’ve walked through vineyards, forests and rose gardens, and I’ve driven along undulating roads bordered by fields of wheat and bright yellow canola. I’ve bounded through multi-coloured carpets of wild flowers in springtime on the West Coast, and I’ve hiked mountain paths lined with proteas, ericas and indigenous bulbs.
I’ve watched the sun rise over the distant Boland mountains, with their outlines crisp and purple and their tips covered in snow. I’ve watched the sun set over the ocean from Clifton 4th beach, and seen the fire-dancers turn the beach into a wonderland after dark.
I’ve tasted the sweet, delicious, fresh water of a mountain stream in the Cederberg, and the rich, heady wines of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl.
I’ve said “Oh wow,â€, “Isn’t that awesome?â€, “Look at that!â€, and “I don’t have words to express how beautiful that is,†more times than I can recall.