Feeding the Squirrels

After getting to bed WAY too late after the auction on Saturday night, Sunday morning was spent sleeping, reading and drinking coffee - all in bed. :) Bliss.

The sun was out, which has not been a common occurance in Cape Town for the past few weeks, so by lunch time we felt obliged to get up and do something.

We took some old bread and headed off to the Company Gardens in town. There to feed the Squirrels!
and birds...
The whole garden and goverment avenue is teeming with Cape Grey Squirrels. They are pretty tame and have no qualms about taking food right out of your hand. There are also hoardes of pigeons and sea gulls. The pigeons will also happilly accept food from an outstretched hand, while the gulls can adeptly grab food flung in mid-air.

It can be a bit intimidating feeding the birds at first as once you start you get mobbed by what feels like hundreds of birds, but it is fun, and I like it.

Now that the kids have rats they are desensitised enough that they too enjoy feeding the birds and squirrels directly now. Quinn even bought some packaged R1-a- bag peanuts with his pocket money for Griffin and himself to feed to the squirrels.

There are some wild rats to be found scuttling around too, and we threw some nuts for them too, but I am not keen on touching those...

Quinn hand feeding a Squirrel

Griffin hand feeding a Squirrel

As we arrived at the gardens we passed a group of vagrants - affectionately/derogatorily know as 'Bergies' or mountain people. They are known for drinking and being a bit of a nuisance but are mostly harmless. As we passed them Quinn announced loudly, 'Look there are some Baggies'**. I was momentarily horrified, but one rather tipsy woman closest to us packed up laughing and started telling her freinds what he had said, and found it terribly amusing. I am so gald they didn't take offense!

**The word Bergie is technically pronounced in the Dutch way which does sound quite a lot like baggie actually, but has an r sounds a throat clearing sound too. I can't figure out how to write it phonetically. You'd say 'Bar' as in baron, and then Ghee, to sound like a cat hissing I guess. ;)

After feeding all the local wild-life we went to the Company Tea Garden and had tea and toasted chicken sandwiches. Quinn found a bamboo grove and was playing in it. After a while he came to us and said, 'That's the Hundred Duiker Woods'. (For non south African's a Duiker is a small local buck). I thought that was a nice local take on Winnie-the-Pooh's 'Hundred Acre Woods'. :)

It was great to be out and feel the sunshine and to see everything damp and turning green after being dry for quite a while.