WORTH TURNING A YEAR OLDER

Spent my birthday arvie last Saturday with family and the evening with close friends. What better way to celebrate than that?

Deer Park Café in Vredehoek, at the foot of Table Mountain, is a delightful, open-air restaurant that caters primarily for children and spills out onto rolling lawns where the kids can swing, climb and crawl up jumpin' jacks and down foofy slides. Which is exactly what these cousins did while the moms drank lattes, vino bianca and munched on chips and chocs.

The vibe at Mamma Mia in Steenberg is somewhat more adulterous - if you know what I mean Having placed orders for veal all round with attentive Debbi, Keith, Mike, Roy, Jill (with whom I share a birthday, although there's a year's difference between us - in her favour!) Moi and Kevin settled in for an evening of catch-up, having been friends for 30 years.

A great way to spend my (sorry, Jill, our) birthday and ta to all who remembered it by calling, emailing, SMSing and, yes, those luverly pressies Mwah x

THIS POOR CREATURE NOT HAVING A WHALE OF A TIME

The call went out around midday September 19th to save a stranded Dwarf Sperm Whale Kogia sima – identified from photographs by marine expert Mike Meyer - that had beached near the slipway in Britannia Bay.

MCM inspectors and volunteers worked to stabilise the animal, which was still breathing, keeping it upright and cool. Other than a few scratches, caused probably when rolling in over the shallow reef, it appeared to be unharmed. Meyer explains that the so-called pool of blood in which the animal was swimming was in fact a cloud of reddish-brown faeces that the creature releases when frightened at the surface.

It was dragged back into the water where it rolled and floundered for a couple of hours before washing up once more. Again it was pushed back into the sea, but it considered unlikely the creature will survive and anyone coming across the animal is asked to call Bernie Pols on 083 425 7678.

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Dave and Ena had stayed with me before, but on this occasion Ena's daughter, Cheryl, and friend Matthew also spent two nights at Dolphin B&B+S/C, theIR intention: to see Cheryl's newly built house - all done via email from her career home in Saudi Arabia. Now that's what I call project management and with an excellent architect and local builder Steve Misplon (Pride's Buildings) the result is simply stunning.

Cheryl has every reason to be proud of what she's achieved and says she was like a child under a Christmas tree opening the boxes of personal effects that will adorn the shelves of her new West coast home.

Welcome to this very special part of the world, Cheryl; lovely to have you as a neighbour, which is essence means I also get to see more of the Hiblings too.