the return

until last week, i'd never been up the cape west coast before.

at least not further than silverstroom, which i only visited once for an unmemorable UCT rag party.

in first year.

so until last week, i'd never really thought much about going there.

but on christmas eve, we left cape town, fetched granny in gordon's bay and drove up the R27 to paternoster, for our six-month-in-advance-planned family christmas getaway.

after my brother russell and sister-in-law ilze spent their first anniversary there.

and couldn't wait to get back.

but even with their eager anticipation, and after hearing about all of their positive experiences, i couldn't picture what it would be like, having nothing else but their photographs as a frame of reference.

and a few stories from friends about the loved-up weekends they'd spent there.

so when we arrived, after driving for about 90km on the tar, surrounded by nothing else except for dense and low lying dune shrub, with some take-away steers burger stains on our shirts, we drove into the mainly-white painted fisherman's hamlet.

our first stop was the paternoster express for stock update, a basic general goods store complete with a near-till melissa's condiment stand, to cater for the influx of differently suffixed number plates.

including ours.

our accommodation was the gabled two story cottage just behind the noisy oyster restaurant, which, judging from the towering pine-like tree in the centre of our slight-hillside porch, was one of the oldest houses in the village.

that, and the fact that this towering tree was actually the only one in the village.

something that made our house easy to spot from further up the coast, when we took a 15km walk to the point and back, while hordes of southern black-backed seagulls flew in horseshoe shapes around us, keee-aaak squawking, to avoid our approach.

and, when we weren't walking, we were were eating.

everything from afternoon fried seafood at voorstrand to a fish braai christmas lunch for thirteen around our dining room table.

from bites of secret stash cookies and melissa's vanilla fudge to snacks on the concrete furniture on the brick-paved patio, dodging downfalls of detached spiky fruit from above, and watching the surprisingly fast bow-legged gait of hand-sized angulate tortoises across the lawn.

and, on the odd occasion that the wind wasn't blowing, we'd go down to the beach to swim, or try to stand up on my brother russell's rented yellow stand up paddling (SUP) board.

which i did manage to stand up on, and fall off, several times.

but often the wind was too gusty, so walked, more, taking in the variety of differently painted shuttered homes on either side of the town, and watched other families lazing and lounging on the porches of their own white cottages, with names like hoekie and koestertyd.

while their dogs, if they had them, huddled at the hip-height gates, not sure whether to bark or growl, obviously not immune to the general feel of small town friendliness.

which unfortunately did not extend to many of the ladies behind the counter at die winkel op paternoster, or 'oep ve koep', whose interesting pickles, soaps and locally made store items almost made up for their vague, distant greetings.

something that might have bothered us more if we weren't based right behind aptly named but inviting and colourful noisy oyster, which blared everything from bob marley to late 80's synth pop until about midnight every night.

with the audible garbled shouts of intermittent drunken-appreciation in between playlists.

and when we weren't listening to that, we listened to the strange and incomprehensible lyrics of a bizarre chinese toy contraption with shifting and sliding plastic dolphins, or megan's ipod, which thankfully played less annoying music for ambience in the lounge, or for distraction in the kitchen as we took turns to prepare food, or clean.

living with ten other people is something i haven't done in a while.

my two eldest brothers are both married, so the number is growing, and is set to increase further with the addition of nieces and nephews, in-laws and other family.

so actually, this is probably one of the last times my family was together as i know it.

and all the mild discomfort of attic rooms and steep, hazardous stairs was definitely worth it.

over a week of sharing everything from bathrooms and living space with them made me realize how rarely we do all get to share space with each other.

space we shared so much of in the past as a once seven-strong family, something i've forgotten as more and more birthdays have past, and we've all moved on and moved out.

but it's a way of living i like to remember, and appreciate every time we do manage to recreate it.

with all the current and highly anticipated new additions to the family photographs.