Task 51: Visit 5 museums I've never been to before - 3rd post

The Cape Town Diamond Museum could hardly be more different from the South African Police Service Museum in Muizenberg, except that they are both small and specialised.  It is a non-profit organisation created and run by Shimansky, which sources, cuts, polishes and sells South African diamonds and tanzanite.  Not surprisingly it includes a large showroom where you can buy their jewellery and the museum has a distinctly corporate feel to it.  Despite that there is no pressure at all to buy anything and the tour is free.

Having spent a day some years ago exploring Kimberley, where we stayed at the wildly inappropriately named Savoy Hotel, I was interested to see what this museum might add to that experience.  Being small and well-presented, it had the advantage of focusing on the key facts, with a delightful and well-informed guide just for the two of us.  You need to book in advance, and I wish I had known that the on-site diamond polishers and setters are there on weekdays only, until about 3.30pm, whereas the museum itself is open 7 days a week, 9am-9pm.

Amongst the facts that struck me are that it was the Venetians in the fourteenth century who started the diamond cutting industry (described on the museum’s website as “Venice, Rome a widely recognised trade capital”) and that the first diamond given as an engagement ring was in 1477 by the Archduke Maximillian of Austria, when he proposed to Mary of Burgundy.  Until 1867, when diamonds were discovered in South Africa, the only known sources were India and then Brazil.  Within a decade, 95% of all diamonds were coming from South Africa.  It was as late as 1939 when the Gemological Institute of America established The 4Cs system for the grading of diamonds: cut, colour, clarity and carat weight.  Diamond cutting is now done by laser rather than by hand, which is both far faster and more consistently reliable.  Some diamonds have a natural colour - blue, yellow, pink or black - and tend to be more expensive because of their comparative rarity.  Tanzanite - a beautiful blue/violet colour - is found in only one place in the world, in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.  It is 1,000 times rarer than diamonds and the existing source is estimated to last less than 30 more years.

I enjoyed walking through the mock-up of a mining shaft and looking at the replica displays of some of the most famous diamonds in the world:

The individual work stations in the room used for setting the diamonds once they have been cut and polished were surprisingly small, with few tools required:

Then it was time to browse round the showroom, enjoying the brilliance of the stones and the artistry of some of the settings:

None of the items was priced and I didn’t bother either to try anything on or to ask how much they were.  The pleasure was simply in admiring the finished products and thinking of the extraordinary enterprise and resilience shown by the men who risked their lives in the diamond rush of the 1860s, living and working in appalling conditions.  Cecil Rhodes was one of them and he made his fortune there, with arguably world-changing results.

Task 51: Visit 5 museums I've never been to before - 2nd post

The type of museum I most enjoy visiting is a specialised, quirky one with an owner or guide who is passionate about it.  The South African Police Service (SAPS) museum in Muizenberg, south of Cape Town, was spot on.  I came across it while googling unusual museums in the area and found that it had a remarkably low profile - no web site, only 4 reviews on Trip Advisor (one of which said it was closed), and no information on opening hours.  There was, however, a phone number and when I rang the next morning, I was told it was open from 7.30am until 3.30pm Mon-Fri, which sounded encouragingly odd.

Muizenberg itself is an unusual place.  It was established in 1743 and has a population now of about 37,000, with a wide racial mix - 39% black African, 28% white, 26% coloured, 1% Indian/Asian and 6% other.  (Within the Cape, unlike in western countries where it is considered derogatory, the term “coloured” is regarded as a neutral description of people of mixed race ancestry.  The Cape Coloureds are a subset within the coloured population, whose ancestry may include European colonisers, indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa people, and slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar and Mozambique.  The Cape Coloureds are now in a position somewhat akin to the Anglo-Indians after Indian independence.  While black South Africans have been the main beneficiaries of South African social policy initiatives, the Cape Coloureds have been further marginalised.)

The beach at Muizenberg is long and impressive.  The sea is usually a wonderful greenish colour and the waves are spectacular, with white horses whipped up by the fairly constant wind.  It is apparently considered to be the birthplace of surfing in South Africa and Agatha Christie learned to surf there in 1922, when she and her first husband spent a few months in Cape Town.  The water is markedly warmer than in Cape Town which makes swimming more enjoyable, though it also brings with it the hazard of sharks - especially great whites.

The original post office - Het Posthuys - is one of the oldest buildings in the country, dating from about 1743.  It was built by the Dutch East India Company as a toll-house to levy taxes on farmers passing by to sell their produce to ships in Simon’s Bay.  According to Wikipedia, Muizenberg gets its name from one of the earliest post holders, Sergeant Muys (meaning “Mouse”) - rather an appealing thought.  In its time the building was used for a wide variety of purposes, including a police station and a brothel.  The cannons in front of Het Posthuys date from the period of the Muizenberg Battle of 1795, when the British took over control of the Cape from the Dutch.

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Cecil Rhodes had a holiday cottage in the town, on the seafront, where he died in 1902.  It is now a museum, which Peter and I visited a few years ago.

Many of the buildings in Muizenberg date from its heyday as a beach resort in the Art Deco period, when it was particularly popular with Jewish holidaymakers, a significant number of whom settled there.  When Peter and I first started coming to South Africa in 1998, the town looked run down and rather seedy, although the colourful beach huts and the fantastic views across the Bay did give it some appeal.  Now it is better maintained and looks as though it could turn the corner again.

The SAPS Museum is next to the new Post Office and opened in 1990.  It consists of the police station and the adjoining old magistrate’s court, with the cells underneath.  We spent 2-3 hours wandering around and as we were the only visitors, we had the pleasure of being given a personal tour by Andrew, who works there as a guide and educator.  His full name is Andrew Ernest Marshall, which is very unusual in most of the Cape for a non-white person.  The reason is that the British were popular in Muizenberg in the nineteenth century, as they created a pragmatic and effective police force that brought peace and therefore greater prosperity after the lawlessness of the earlier Dutch rule.  Some local people chose to adopt British names as a result.

Andrew lived through the apartheid era and his accounts of what life was like then for a coloured person were fascinating - and shocking, particularly bearing in mind that things were far worse for black people.  His first memorable experience of it was when, aged about eleven, he had to carry a heavy load a long way and decided to take a short cut along the beach.  At that time, the entire beach was reserved for whites only, apart from a small area further along the coast which had dangerous currents and plenty of sharks.  A mounted white police officer saw him and rode after him, intent on bringing him down.  None of the people on the beach intervened, though some did whisper encouragement to Andrew as he ran past.  A mounted coloured police officer moved to cut off his escape but deliberately didn’t catch him and told him to run faster.  Unfortunately he couldn’t, as he was exhausted.  He was caught by the white officer and taken to the police station.  The police went to his home where his father was listening to an All Blacks match on the radio, and brought him back to the station, where they gave him a cane and told him to give Andrew a thrashing - which he did, with a vengeance.

During that period, the police would go round with a large van, looking for any black person who appeared to be “loitering”.  They would be herded into the van and taken to the local “cadet camp” - without their families being informed - which was rather like an extremely tough Borstal.  They would be kept there for months and if they survived, they would often be offered a job and/or training - but at the price of becoming informers in their townships.  There was nowhere they could escape to and if they went back home, they would automatically be regarded as suspect by the community and were likely to be beaten with bicycle chain whips to make them “confess” and would then be necklaced.

As an adult, Andrew managed to get a job at the police station in Muizenberg, tending the garden and doing odd jobs.  The station captain was so racist that rather than address Andrew by name, he would throw a stone at him to get his attention.  Getting to and from work was also a constant reminder of apartheid oppression.  The railway station had two bridges, one for whites only.  The bridge for black and coloured people was always jam-packed, as they relied on the trains for transport and had to cross to the other platform to get a connecting train to the townships.  The bridge for whites usually had only 3 or 4 people on it - plus a policeman to ensure that no non-white person tried to use it.

Every municipal building dating from this period has two separate entrances and staircases - one for whites and a smaller one for non-whites.  The courtroom in Muizenberg had simple benches for the black and coloured people, and - as you can just about see in the right of the photograph at the back, next to the magistrate’s chair - a much more comfortable one for the whites:

The judge would come only once a week, on Wednesdays, from Cape Town or Simon’s Town, and would hear a maximum of 9 cases a day.  If for some reason he didn’t come, the numbers in the cells would pile up.  Conditions there were very basic, with one communal toilet bucket for up to two dozen people.  Sentences for even minor offences were harsh - up to 20 lashes of the cane, which was kept in salt water, followed by 6 months’ hard labour, helping to build the road tunnels through the mountains.  A doctor would always be present at the caning, to strap a cushion over the kidneys before the station sergeant started administering the punishment to the prisoner who was lying on his front, on the bench:

Meanwhile resistance was mounting.  Non-whites were not allowed to have firearms, so they made their own, using whatever they could lay their hands on.  Judging from the display in the museum, some would be more dangerous to the user than to the intended target:

South Africa was on the brink of civil war when Nelson Mandela was released and it was only avoided because of his insistence on peace and reconciliation.  Many white people whose behaviour had been particularly racist, including Andrew’s station captain, were afraid of what might happen to them and started stockpiling huge quantities of tinned food.  They also took out their entire pensions as lump sums and in some cases invested all their money in schemes run by fraudsters.  The captain lost his entire savings this way, as did many others.  Occasionally Andrew sees him in the town and has no qualms in shaking his hand.  He feels that as a Christian and for his own sake, he must forgive him.  Also, as he says, he has a job he loves, a wife and two children who now have opportunities he never had.  He saved hard and was able to pay for his daughter to take a college course in business management, which led to a promising career, and his son is now following the same path.  By contrast, the ex-captain is widowed and destitute.

The most satisfying part of Andrew’s job now is to talk to groups of schoolchildren visiting the museum about the risks of alcohol, drug abuse and gangs. Drug abuse is a major and growing problem in the Cape, especially the use of TIK (crystal meth), which is cheap, easily available and highly addictive.  It fuels violence, including child abuse and rape.  This includes young boys raping their own grandmothers, as well as primary age children themselves being at risk.  The gangs thrive in this environment and encourage children to get their mothers addicted to TIK too.

The display of drug-related items is in the basement and while Peter nipped off to the loo, Andrew took me downstairs to view the pipes, hookahs, hair sprays etc.  Rather than walk down, he explained that "once at an age, better not to use stairs", so he put me in the lift for the disabled and escorted me down.  Peter, meanwhile, had to walk.  I tried to console myself with the thought that he probably just wanted to show off the lift, but there was no way round the fact that he considered me in need of assistance.  Humph....

Task 4: Go zip wiring

Curiously, bearing in mind I'm scared of heights, zip wiring was one of the first challenges I thought of when compiling my list of sixty.  This, I felt, was what Tiggers might like best.  I've no idea why and, as the day approached, it seemed bonkers.  As I read the various websites, I realised it wasn't simply going to be one quick zip through the trees but a whole series of them, lasting over an hour.  Although it should be safe enough, there were a few alarming accounts of wires breaking and people being stuck on tiny platforms for hours, with no obvious means of escape.  

By the time the day dawned, I was feeling pretty scared, though at the same time determined to make the most of it.  I thought I might as well go the whole hog, so I - rather than Peter - did the two hour (120km) drive from Cape Town to Hermanus, where the South African Forest Adventures was based.  Having had to get up at 6.15am to be sure of getting there in time, I was really looking forward to a coffee when we arrived - an hour early - but none was on offer.  Instead, having been told I'd be doing it on my own - with the requisite two guides, one to go ahead to the next platform and the other to see me off safely - two tall youngish South Africans turned up and suddenly we were off.  First stop was getting kitted out in the safety harness and helmet:

Next came the safety briefing and instructions.  Advice which stuck in my mind was that in the event of the wire breaking and our falling, we should aim to land headfirst.  That way the helmet might protect us but if not, at least the end would be quick and preferable to breaking lots of bones.  Assuming all was going well, we should definitely not hold onto the wire as the t-bar handle would slice off our fingers.  For us, the high five at the end with the guides would be only a high two.  I do like the gritty SA sense of humour.

Then it was on to the practice session on a short section of wire, a few feet off the ground:

I managed to land on the wooden step at the end, without cannoning into the tree trunk or getting stuck halfway across.  I was sorely tempted to say that was fine, I'd now done zip wiring and they could keep the money, and I'd give the rest of it a miss.  After all, I hadn't banked on having to land precisely on very small platforms high up in the forest, with nothing except my own use of the t-bar rubber braking mechanism to stop me crashing into a tree.  On the other hand that would be wimpish and there was no way I was going to give up so soon.

So, off we went in the Land Rover, to the jumping off point:

Or so I thought.  In fact it could only take us partway and the rest was a steep scramble up rocks and scree.  The guide realised I was struggling (in my defence, the harness was quite heavy, but I was also finding it difficult with not much sense of balance and sheer drops in places) and kindly gave me a hand.  Both the guides were great fun and very helpful.  Then it was time to tackle the first section.  That blue-helmeted blob is me, trying to remember that this is what Tiggers really like best:

By the time I'd done a few of the sections, my knees had stopped shaking and I was thinking it was nowhere near as bad as going down the giant Orbital slide in the Olympic Park.  A bit further on and I was thoroughly enjoying whizzing through the trees, going really fast:

It was disconcerting to be told that for our final stop, we'd be landing on top of a shipping container - with an ominously large safety net the other side - but it gave me quite a buzz flying onto the little wooden steps and then hopping down to the container roof.  Jubilation all round at the end, as we celebrated a safe return.

It's not something I would choose to do again because of the heights involved, but I'm really glad I did it and I loved the feeling of freedom and speed.

Task 16: Visit the South African Parliament

Despite having spent so much time in South Africa and in the UK Houses of Parliament, neither Peter nor I had ever visited the South African Parliament in Cape Town.  We did try a few years ago but hadn't realised you couldn't simply turn up at the door - you have to apply in advance and come equipped with the relevant form and your passport.  Ironically you can however bring your firearm with you, as long as you leave it with Security at the entrance.

I made a booking by email, which was straightforward.  We had to turn up at 9.30am for a 10am tour (all the tours are free and in principle they run every hour during the working day).  Parking in that area is difficult and unfortunately the multi-storey car park we'd planned to use is entirely reserved for private use during the daytime.  We found an alternative with a space right at the top, but what with that and the unexpectedly heavy traffic, it was already 9.30 by the time we started walking towards the Parliament.

We knew where it was and arrived only about five minutes late, but were told we had to use a specific entrance which was less than a hundred yards away.  The problem was that to get there, we had to go right the way round the entire building as we weren't allowed to access any part of those hundred yards.  It was a hot day - over 30 degrees - and it's a very substantial building, but as we were now definitely late, we had no choice but to run all the way.  I hadn't realised I was so unfit. We presented ourselves, puce and perspiring, to be told that wasn't the correct entrance.  Moreover the one we should use was barred (this became a theme of the whole tour).  Luckily one of the guards took pity on us and let us through.

We were assuming security would be quite tight, but at no point were we asked for the form, our passports or any other form of identity.  My handbag went through a scanner, but no one seemed to be watching to see if it contained anything troubling.  We weren't searched at all.  The guide - a pleasant large Khosa with the beguiling name of Plum - turned up about ten minutes later and asked if we were part of the party of six.  We weren't, and they never did appear, but a bit later a Finn called Tuomo emerged, looking equally hot as he too had had to run.  Eventually two very smartly dressed German women joined us, who were of an age not to have tried scampering, and our group of five - none of whom appeared to have been expected - set off.

Plum began by taking us outside, to admire the impressive bust of Nelson Mandela:

He also pointed out the so-called White House used by the President on the rare occasions he comes to Cape Town, e.g. for the annual State of the Nation Address, which took place last week.  It's the square building in the photo below, beside the palm tree. The Address is one of the rare occasions when the three arms of state - the Legislature, based in Cape Town, the Executive in Pretoria and the Judiciary in Bloemfontein - come together in one place.  It is delivered to a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament (the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces):

We then moved back inside and admired the Art Deco style of the main entrance hall, feeling frustrated that for security reasons, we weren't allowed to take any photos.  We couldn't really understand why not, especially as the proceedings of the Parliament are televised and open to the public, but that had been made clear in the form.  The next stop should have been the main chamber, but it was locked and no one could find the keys. Plum left us to go in search of them and after a while some workmen appeared and went in, so we followed them.  Peter took the opportunity to sneak a couple of photos:

The chamber is large and modern, and I was struck by how much space has been included for civil servants - the three rows of black seats at the far end, next to the Speaker's chair, with another three rows (not visible in the photo) on the other side.  By contrast, the Official Box in the House of Commons has room for only about 6 civil servants, in cramped conditions.  Originally the chamber, created in 1985 during the apartheid era, was used for the tri-cameral Parliament - for whites, coloureds and Indians, with no representation for the majority black population.  Now it is used by the National Assembly - the equivalent of the Commons - and serves the entire country.

What you can't see is the amount of litter everywhere, left over from the Address last week and still not cleared away.  The arm of one of the chairs was broken and we were wondering whether that had been done by one of Malema's supporters, needing it to wield as a club during the fracas, or by one of the heftily built MPs who fell asleep during the Address, lolling against the side of their chair.

At this point Plum found us, having thought he'd lost his entire group, and explained some of the key points about how the Parliament operates.  Although most MPs choose to speak in English, they are entitled to use any of the eleven official languages of South Africa, which makes interpretation costs high.  Elections are held every five years.  Plum broke off suddenly and apologised to the two German women for not having said earlier how lovely they looked.  A few minutes later he added, turning to me, "And even you also". Fair enough, as I was dressed for hiking rather than elegance, but a little crushing.

We moved on to a smaller room that looks almost identical to the Commons chamber - not surprisingly, as it was modelled on it when it was created in 1910 following the Act of Union.  It was originally used for the National Assembly and there was some surprise when the ANC decided, in the 1990s, to use it for their own caucus and committee meetings.  However, for them it underlined the fact that they were now in charge and the old regime had gone.

Plum invited us to take a seat while he spoke about its history.  I chose the nearest and after a while he commented that I was sitting in the very place where Verwoerd, the President and head of apartheid, had been stabbed to death by a messenger.  It was also where Nelson Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma had sat when they were in the chamber.  The seat next to me, occupied by Tuomo, was where Harold Macmillan sat when he made his Winds of Change speech.

We then moved on to the slightly larger third chamber, created in the 1890s for the Cape Parliament - before South Africa became a unified country - and now used by the Provincial Parliaments when they meet in plenary as the National Council of Provinces.

As we left to walk back towards the main entrance, I thought I'd chance my luck and ask whether we could take a photograph of the fine late Victorian chandeliers.  Yes, of course, why not, said Plum.  I had the feeling we could have taken photos throughout the tour, despite the formal ban on doing so, but by then it was too late.  Anyway, here is one of the chandeliers and also a unicorn from the House of Commons, donated in 1935:

When the tour was over, we paused to take some photos of the impressive exterior of the building.  If you look closely at the second one, you can just about make out the statue of Queen Victoria in the garden, to the far right:

It was a very interesting experience and long overdue.  I found it fascinating, having specialised in the Boer War at university, being able to see in physical form the key stages of the political development of modern South Africa.

Task 30: Go on a chocolate-making course - postscript

As I mentioned in my post about the chocolate-making workshop, my partner was the lovely Nana from Ghana.  She very kindly emailed me some photos she took before she had to dash off to catch her flight to Johannesburg and I thought it was worth writing a second post to include the most interesting ones, particularly the cocoa pod and beans:

Although it looks heavy, the pod is reasonably light.  It contains up to 50 seeds or beans, surrounded by a sweet pulp with a lemonade taste, which is edible.  I ate one of the beans and found it didn't have much flavour apart from a general dry bitterness.

Just to prove I did actually do some cooking, here's a photo of me heating and stirring the cream:

I've never tried piping before and had no talent for it at all, as you can see from the miscellaneous sized blobs of ganache that were emerging, watched by the unimpressed tutor:

Luckily the shape doesn't matter much at that stage, as the blobs are later rolled and moulded by hand, between your palms.  It would have been better, though, if they had at least been roughly the same size.  For the future, I think my efforts should definitely focus on eating chocolate rather than making it.

Task 30: Go on a chocolate-making course

There’s no question that one of my favourite foods is, and always has been, chocolate.  It therefore made sense that my food-related challenges should include one that focused on this delectable substance.  Originally I’d intended to take part in a workshop in London or Reigate - the nearest I could find - though they were quite expensive and accommodated up to 30 people per session, including young children provided their parents were present.  That didn’t sound too enticing, as individual time with the tutor would be very limited and I had visions of toddlers running around screaming with excitement and/or hen parties doing much the same.

One day in Franschhoek, however, I noticed that a chocolate shop had opened and asked whether they offered any workshops.  They only provided demonstrations, but they told me about a truffle-making workshop at De Villiers Artisan Chocolate, about an hour’s drive north from Cape Town, in a place called the Spice Route.  I’d never heard of it before but it sounded ideal - only £8, for which you would come away with a box of 9 truffles made during the hour and a half, and a maximum of 12 participants - so I booked a place for 9 February, by which time we’d have moved on to an apartment in Cape Town.

The only downside was that it started at 10am and I’d forgotten that the 9th was the date of President Zuma’s annual State of the Nation address, so the city would be heaving with traffic and security, and some of the main roads would be closed.  To be sure of getting there in time, I had to set the alarm for 6am, which was rather a shock to the system, especially as we’d been up late the night before.  Anyway we groggily munched our cornflakes and toast, and set off.  

It was a beautiful drive as the weather was fine and sunny, and there was a spectacular view across to the mountains in the distance.  Apart from some roadworks, it was a smooth journey and we arrived an hour early, giving us time for a leisurely cappuccino in the courtyard of the coffee roastery that’s part of the Spice Route:

Peter wasn’t interested in taking part in the workshop, so he wandered off to explore the area and take some photos.  It’s a location that is relatively new and still being developed, with the emphasis on small enterprises producing specialist high quality goods, and a sprinkling of restaurants.  The enterprises include a microbrewery making craft beers, a gin and grappa distillery, and a glass blowing studio called Red Hot Glass (more of the studio later):

Meanwhile I went into the chill of the air-conditioned DV Artisan Chocolate building - it was 33 degrees outside and the contrast was striking.  There were 8 of us taking part in the workshop - a friendly South African family of six, who very kindly agreed that it could be held in English rather than Afrikaans, a delightful Ghanaian woman who lives in Johannesburg and is exploring the possibility of setting up a chocolate making business in Ghana, which produces and exports cocoa but not chocolate, and me.  She and I teamed up together and the session started with an interesting introduction by the master chocolatier on the cocoa shell and beans, and how chocolate is made, followed by a demonstration of how to make ganache (the mixture of cream, chocolate and glycerine that forms the heart of truffles):

Then it was our turn to have a go, which went reasonably smoothly until it was time to move to the next stage, of rolling the piped and chilled ganache in our hands to create little balls and coating them in tempered chocolate, and then dipping them in three different toppings.  At that point my team-mate received a text telling her she needed to leave immediately or risk losing her flight to Johannesburg, as the traffic had become so snarled up.  She had no choice but to head off, which meant I had to do the rolling and coating - wearing surgical gloves - as well as the dipping.  The difficulty with that is that the coating has to be done using your fingers, scooping the tempered chocolate over the ganache balls until they are thoroughly covered, but the dipping requires deftness unhindered by dripping molten chocolate everywhere.  Our little work station looked a complete mess by the time I’d finished, with swirls and streaks of chocolate all over the place, whereas the children had kept theirs immaculate.  Happily the end result looked OK in its little presentation box, and they certainly taste all right:

Peter joined me afterwards, was force-fed a truffle and required to admire it, and we wandered off to Red Hot Glass to look at their latest designs.  This was the only building we recognised from what had originally been part of a wine estate.  We have visited it several times over the years and bought two lovely bowls, one of which - a very large red one - sadly didn’t survive the journey back to the UK (our fault, not theirs).   

We had a chat with the chief designer, whose brother we know.  David is a furniture designer and producer in Cape Town, and when we owned a house there some years ago we had bought a number of items from him.  When we decided we needed a few more pieces, he came round to check exactly what we wanted and noticed the bowls, recognising them as his sister’s work.  He commented on the artwork in the house, which was mine, and we agreed a deal - I would produce a huge abstract painting for his showroom (so large that it had to be transported by van as it wouldn’t fit in an estate car), in return for a console table, two sets of floating shelves and a couple of side tables.  The snag was it had to be completed before we returned to the UK in only four days’ time, and at that point I didn’t even have the canvas.  It was rather hairy but it got done and everyone was happy.

It was very nice meeting his sister and admiring her new projects.  Here are just a few examples:

By now we were peckish and went to the Grapperia restaurant for a delicious lunch of carpaccio, pizza made in their wood-fired ovens and a glass of red wine, sitting outside in the shade of an old tree and looking across the vineyards to the mountains in the distance.  What a wonderful way to end another challenge.

Task 39: Have a MAC makeup lesson

Despite the tactful and helpful suggestions on using makeup - including links to various YouTube videos - provided over the years by my friend Rowena, who always looks immaculate, I have never made much of an effort in that direction.  The exception was for my wedding, when I had a half hour makeup lesson at a specialist salon in London and reappeared in the office looking so different that my line manager was amazed.  Telling me I looked lovely was very gratifying and much appreciated.  Saying he hadn't realised it was possible, less so.

I'd experimented with eyeshadow in my teens, armed with my copy of Jackie, but lashings of dark purple, inexpertly applied, was never likely to be successful.  Mascara has always made my eyes water and eyeliner was even worse.  Eyelash curlers were a mystery and lip liner always seemed to end up a bit wide of the mark.  I gave up until my mid twenties, when I realised I needed to smarten my appearance at work.  Lipstick and a bit of blusher helped, with the later addition of some Clinique matte face powder which I applied liberally.  Apart from my wedding, that was how things stayed until now.

When I was compiling my list of 60 challenges and getting stuck for ideas, I remembered Rowena suggesting last year that I should think about having a MAC makeup lesson in Cape Town.  MAC's approach is to have a consultant do one side of your face and then you have to do the other, with the whole process taking an hour and a half.  I reckoned it would be sufficiently different from my previous lesson for it to count as something I'd never done before - especially given the possibility I'd make a real mess of it and have to walk back through the busy tourist shopping centre, looking like a clown.

On Monday morning I duly presented myself at the MAC emporium, wearing no makeup at all:

When I arrived, I was disconcerted to find I'd been allocated a male consultant.  He was charming, however, and thoughtfully asked if I'd like the music turned down.  Feeling rather ancient, I gratefully accepted.  He started by asking which aspect of makeup I'd like to focus on.  "Um, well, all of it really."  I showed him the makeup I use, which obviously didn't take long.  He approved of the blusher - a Clinique freebie - but there wasn't much else he could say.  He asked if I used a bronzer and I had to admit I didn't know what that was.  By that time he had me pretty much sussed and we agreed to aim for the "natural" look.  

It's surprising how much work and how many different products go into creating it.  First there was a hydrating spray, then a moisturising cream, followed (not necessarily in this order - there was a lot to remember) by a sort of setting serum, foundation, concealer, blusher, a serum and primer for the eye area, eyebrow pencil, two shades of eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, highlighter, lip moisturiser, lipstick and finally lip liner.  This was the result of his work:

Then it was my turn.  Fortunately he prompted me at each stage, reminding me of what came next and why.  There was a bewildering array of differently shaped brushes to use, with a range of techniques for each.  Should I dab, sweep, swirl, push, peck or feather?  It was confusing but definitely fun, and I managed not to poke myself in the eye with the mascara brush - or should that be wand?  I was really getting into the swing of it and realised as it came to applying the lip liner that I was almost at the end.  And that's when it went pear shaped.  I wasn't wearing my glasses as they'd have got in the way in the earlier stages and I could only vaguely see the outline of my lips.  Still, no problem, I could simply draw round the edge of the lipstick with a firm hand.  I'm not sure which bit went wrong - maybe all of it - as I couldn't really see what I'd done, but the consultant started giggling and then shaking with laughter.  When I asked where the mistake was, he had to hold onto the wall as he was laughing so much.  Once he'd recovered, he removed all the lip liner, redid it himself and that was that, the completed face:

The whole process had taken two hours and I'd thoroughly enjoyed it.  I decided to splash out on foundation, concealer (my highest priority, to hide the dark rings under my eyes) and the two eye shadows he'd used.  When Peter saw me he approved of the new look but wondered how long it would take me to achieve the same result on my own.  Realistically I'm going to have to invest time and effort practising, and it wasn't encouraging that the next morning my eyes were sore and bloodshot, presumably because they'd reacted to the eyeliner or mascara.  Overall I think it will be interesting and fun, and I can definitely only get better - especially with the lip liner.