Sunshine Spotted Briefly — Then Moved Elsewhere
A period of genuine, warm and entirely convincing sunshine appeared over the Helderberg at 2h03 on Tuesday afternoon, illuminating the mountain in a manner that several residents noted made it look “particularly itself” and warming the Strand beachfront to a temperature that a woman sitting on the wall near the promenade described as “almost enough.”
The sunshine lasted seventeen minutes. It then departed, apparently satisfied with the impression it had made, without announcement or warning, leaving conditions that were not cold but were no longer warm and which several people who had come outside specifically in response to the sunshine experienced as a personal rebuke.
“I saw it from my window and went to sit in the garden,” one Somerset West resident reported. “By the time I’d found my sunglasses it was gone. I sat outside for a while anyway because I’d made the effort. It was fine. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for.”
Those who had not responded to the sunshine and had remained inside doing practical things were later told about it and expressed appropriate regret. A couple who happened to be driving along the R44 at the time got the best of it, the road being well positioned to catch the light as it came across the vineyards and they have mentioned this several times since. The sunshine has not returned as of press time but is expected to make further brief appearances as the season develops, each one slightly tantalising and slightly insufficient and all of them remembered more fondly in retrospect than they merited in the moment.