THE woman was writing her postcards with the attitude of one who had been asked to break stones on a hot day.
"It's impossible to know what to say, she sighed.
Her husband was reading she Cape Times without huge satisfaction: it was low in what he thought of as real news.
"You could say we're having a great time," he said helpfully.
"Oh they'll know that," she said.
"Or that it's very hot?"
"They'll know that too," she complained.
His input was over; he gave a qeep, deep shrug that sort of started at his knees and went to the top of his head. "Well, I'm sure you'll think of something, dear," he said.
I yearned to ask her for her list. I could have written to them all saying: "Your friends are here in a cafe on the waterfront. It's a real live working harbour and a crowd of little sea scouts who are hopelessly out of step are drilling and marching on and off a ship nearby. The fish on the menu is called Line fish and so you ask for it, thinking you've got the hang of the thing, but line fish only means fish caught with a line - you have to specify which sort. Your friends have applied a lot of sun tan lotion but not enough on the upper arms: they wish you well but also wish to gloat that it's February and they are here and you are there. Yours sincerely, Maeve.
It would have been no trouble to do that for her but with the increasing wisdom not to mention blandness of middle age I felt it would not be appropriate, so I left her to it, chewing her pen while he rattled his paper. Sooner or later she would say to him: "They're your friends too.
Stay out of their lives. Let them write their own postcards or not, as the case may he be.
A GROUP of Belfast people who had been in the sunshine for five weeks with their cameras outside the State Opening of Parliament. There were bands and demos and jugglers and street entertainment of every kind as the deputies assembled in their colourful costumes, and President Mandela's speech was relayed by a boomy Tannoy to the crowds outside.
As it happened, the Belfast people were interviewed by SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) as part of a vox pop of members of the crowd, a what do you think of it all programme. When the interviewer heard where they came from, he was utterly delighted at this stroke of luck.
"Do you think you might ever stand and watch such an opening of parliament in your troubled land?" he asked.
All around there were the sights and sounds of jubilation, without triumphalism; some banner protesting about the rights of fishermen, people celebrating a freedom that was both very new and very familiar to them.
The men and women from Northern Ireland didn't hesitate: they didn't check with each other to see what was the right thing to say. They spoke straight to the camera and said it would come one day and they hoped they would be alive and still compos mentis enough to see it. Without saying which particular strand of Northern Irish life they came from, they showed open admiration for a country which had managed to achieve what seemed impossible.
The South Africans watching the news that night must have been impressed and touched. As were the many Irish visitors who saw it also.
AND what about the food then? I don't usually get on the plane home without giving an authoritative run down and a few good places to chomp in. Then you can go armed with some information. And even though I could never be a restaurant critic in any serious way, I always feel very powerful in suggesting a few holiday eating spots. I don't think the endorsement does a huge amount of good in some cases, like the place in Tangiers which had one Irish visitor in 15 years and he demanded his money back because there was no atmosphere. But there was a place in Paris where a lot of you turned up and in fact one of you got engaged to the woman who owned it, but that's a long and different story so forget it.
In Cape Town, the poshest place I went was called Constantia Uitsig. The word uitsig means outlook. It was a beautiful old Cape Dutch farmhouse, in a vineyard out in the Constantia region. You'd need a car or a taxi.
It's a long, low house with colonial furniture and a verandah on which smoking is allowed. You get the feeling you have gone back in a time loop looking at all those heavy wooden sideboards, and old blue and white plate. But the food is very modern, lots of char grilled this and polenta with that. There is a wine list like a small telephone directory, but most people drink the focal product, which is fresh and light and immensely popular among people who want to go a couple of miles out into the country there's also a hotel bit attached to the restaurant, so you could actually spend a weekend there if you were serious about it.
We were guests so I didn't see the bill, but the prices of most starters were around £3 and no main course was over £1. Since you'd have to ring to book anyway, you could ask them how to get there and where to turn off the main road. It doesn't have a proper address or anything, but everyone knows where it is.
A trendy place in town itself is Rosenhof, in the middle of the long, arty Kloof Street, a place full of galleries and restaurants and workshops that you'd enjoy going up and down anyway. Rosenhof is in off the road, in a little garden filled with trees and with a wrought iron gate. It is dead cool and understated inside, with big, airy rooms opening off each other and a lot of serious discussion about how the food is cooked.
I had smoked marlin (£2.50) and kingklip with coriander. Kingklip was the line fish of the night.
And by chance one night we saw this place called Hatfields. It looked bright and cheerful and was on the corner of a street with verandahs and the sight of people deep in chat. This was so inexpensive I had to ask them twice if they hadn't made a mistake. A huge, jolly menu featured mussels and mega salads, and pastas and pizzas. There was also an amazing beef section that would satisfy you with its political incorrectness, where rump steak was offered weighing in at 300 grams or ladies' rump at 200 grams. There was ladies' fillet and ladies' spare ribs too, and plenty of garlic mushroom, brandy or Roquefort sauces with beef of either sex.
The chicken livers in pitta as a starter at £1.80 was such a big dish I couldn't eat the pasta, which was £2.50. This is a place you would love at four times the price.