KALK BAY and FISH HOEK, South Africa, October 6, 2005 — Beattie is taking me shopping in Kalk Bay. It is a cute little place. It is close enough to Fish Hoek to walk there but I haven't done it. Every time we drive through I think how cute it is with its little shops and its steep streets going up the hill that ends in the ocean.

When Beattie arrives she is exclaiming over how the sea looked as she came over Boise Road. "It's several beautiful colors in stripes," she says or something like that.

So we we drive around stopping and taking pictures of how beautiful the sea is today.

In Kalk Bay we go to a quay-side place and have fish and chips. We choose Red Roman. But they have a lot of kinds of fish. Actually, Beattie chooses it and I follow. It is good but boney.

After our meal, Beattie talks to a guy on the quay who is cleaning fish. Someone told Mags and I there is a neat time when Rock Lobster boats come in. She speaks to the guy in Afrikaans. But he says it isn't the season.

We shop the little main street. There are antique shops, a secondhand book and print store (I resist). At a secondhand kitchen gadget store, Beattie finds a grater like one she has that everyone admires. It is in sad shape but she hopes to restore it by cleaning and getting someone to fabricate a missing handle.

We stop for an ice cream. (I have coffee...the only kind of ice cream that really attracts me.)

Beattie tells me stories. How the fishing cottages up the hill belonged to mixed race fisherman who were the first to settle here. During the worst of apartheid the white community refused to allow the government to relocate them. This wasn't true in places like Simon's Town. I've been reading about an exhibition there about the relocated communities. As we drive away, Beattie shows me that some of the streets rising steeply behind the main road are cobble-stoned and quite old.

In the evening, Mags and I walked around the neighborhood. But she wasn't feeling too well. I opened a bottle of wine I bought and we settled in for TV. I finished my book about Nancy Wake.