What a start

Could there have been a better start to our trip. Thańks to John and Coral we arrived at Heathrow in good time but took off a little late. We slept fitfully through the night but Virgin came up trumps with both the food and the bottle of very nice champagne as compensation for Heather's seat disintegrating before her eyes and both our seat-back screens being pretty ropey. Did we really care? Not a lot. And a lot less after they sent us off with the bottle of bubbly!

We were greeted by our Avis chauffeur to be driven to our amazing apartment in Camps Bay, just outside Cape Town, where the delightful receptionist with whom I'd exchanged emails last week had indeed upgraded us to a larger apartment in recognition of Heather's birthday on Friday.

Taking the advice we had had from several people we sussed the weather and decided to head for Table Mountain, about a five minute cab ride from the apartment. The sky was brilliant blue, the cloud nonexistent, the temperature in the twenties and the cable car bloody scary!

This was taken through the window of the car going up. Not quite sharp because of the knees shaking, the car rotating (I kid you not) and Heather squeezing any available part of my anatomy in her heroic determination to keep her eyes open.

But it's worth it. Some apparently come to Cape Town and miss the mountain because of the weather but we were blessed - much like our luck in Hong Kong - and the views of Cape Town below are fabulous.

It was the perfect end to a day which could easily have been nothing but travel and could not have got the trip off to a better start.