I took Dorje up the mountain today. I try to go most weekends that I have him. It was, thankfully, after all the fires, a slightly drizzly day, and perfect for walking.

We left bright and early at 12am. I did quite well making breakfast, and dragging him away from smothering more pink fingerpaint on the paper. He insisted on taking some cars with though, but after intensive negotiations we could leave the large green one behind.

And you wonder why I never got to take him to school. It was quite an early morning (8am, compared to 9h15 the previous day), though both evenings were quite late (about 21h15) – the first when I was subjected me to Flushed Away, and the second after a visit to his 2nd cousins

We went up the path towards Elsies Peak, starting from Black Hill, and turned off on the path just before the ‘eye’. Our only close encounters were with a few ants (Dorje still remembers too well being bitten by an ant walking in Hermanus, so the ants didn’t join us for long), and a few ‘slugs’ in the water pools on top of the rocks.

He can climb quite well now – I’m sure if anyone saw us on the rocks there’d be another Michael Jackson incident. I finally understand my mother’s concern whenever I used to go caving or climbing – myself plummeting to my death never particularly concerned me, but there were times today when Dorje, centimetres from the edge above a 10 metre drop, got my heart racing.

He understands his boundaries well (thanks perhaps to our earlier responsible parenting of bringing him up in a mountain house with a balcony and no railing), and asks or help if he needs it.

Unfortunately he doesn’t understand my boundaries that well, and thinking I’m immortal, combined with his current craze for fighting (beating me with a sword, hitting or pushing me) doesn’t work so well when I’m perched on the edge.

Anyway, we both live to tell the tale, and the most frightening moment for Dorje came when the thunder got too close, and we decided to head back before the rain set in. I must take him upcountry sometime – if he finds Cape Town thunder frightening what hope a real Joburg thunderstorm.