The morning started with a low, fast cloud sprinkling rainbow drops into the rising sun. Lion’s Head sunk behind shreds of white cloud flying over Kloof Nek. It wasn't bonny sunny weather and it was not a day for yodelling. It was a day for walking in soft rain. A blog without exclamation marks.The sun and rain raced each other over the city and the sky, streaking past each other in stripes of light and shade, strobing over the mountain.
Kloof Corner is one of my favourite spots on the mountain; it stands there like the corner of a big family heirloom cupboard. To one side lies the city and the front of Table Mountain, to the other side the Twelve Apostles march away in single file, and today white clouds gathered around their heads.
It was the end of the long hot months and the mountain was as dry as a brown leaf that had fallen off a tree. It took a while for the stones to start shining in the rain, for the raw smell of damp ground to rise and the peppery fragrance of wet fynbos to fill the air.
Drop by diamond drop the rain fell like a very slow dance, a dance where the man holds the woman close. Drops slid off blades of grass, shone like pearls on the pink velvet petals of proteas and made small shiny puddles around stones.
Where Kloof Corner meets the contour path in big, flat rocks I huddled under an overhang and drank some coffee.
And then I walked back. Walking in soft rain.
