Lavender Cottage, Franschhoek

Another dismal day weather-wise, however we happily passed the morning indoors at the shopping mall spending money, eating pastries and drinking hazelnut lattes. A quick tidy-up in the apartment - well, to be totally truthful the maids did that - and then off to pick up the hired car - a Nissan X Trail, four wheel drive, don't mind if I do. After a bit of a kerfuffle, when the hired car company claimed that they had no notification of our booking, we were off to Franschhoek.

Got a bit held-up in the evening commuter traffic and, with the early sunset, it was dark for most of our journey. Arrived at Lavender Cottage, our home for the next two days, set and lit a fire, opened a bottle of wine, put the dinner in the oven and all was at peace with the world.

The cottage is beautiful, built in a colonial style with double height living spaces, wooden floors, pine furniture, white bed linen, a porched verandah and all the home comforts, including a receipt from the armed response unit to say they had attended an alarm call but that there was nothing to report..