La vie est bonne.

My Friday the 13^th flight passed without incident, apart from an hour-long delay due to lightning once again being in the vicinity. On arrival I collected my Nissan Micra from Avis and zipped off to the guesthouse which, at first impression, was a tiny bit disappointing.

Somehow the website had managed to convey an aura of rustic Cape Dutch charm, when in fact the establishment turned out to be a suburban face-brick villa.

Also, if you’re going to give your face-brick B&B a wanky french wine-related name, at least have ‘Le Petit Whatever’ helpfully inscribed on a sign somewhere outside. I spent 10 minutes at the kerb rifling through my documents, convinced Tomtom had led me to some random false address.

My hostess turned out to be a bit on the creepy side. She was accompanied by a plump dachshund and reminded me of the woman in that Roald Dahl story, ‘The Landlady’, who turns out to have killed and stuffed all her tenants.  Not to mention her pet DACSCHUND.

She was explaining how to set the burglar alarm for my room when I cut in with 'I'm sure that won't be necessary, will it?' She gave me a long, thoughtful look and said 'Well, I don't know...'

I’ve warmed to the place though, after a scoffing down a very tasty breakfast outside my room this morning at my own little table, with a panoramic view of the mountain opposite.

I had also feared the worst of the Celeb endorsement TV shoot, but it turned out to be unexpectedly pleasant. The shoot took place on location, in the kitchen of an absolutely amazing millionaire’s gaff halfway up a mountainside in Tokai. 

There was a huge glass-enclosed sun room, an infinity pool and an epic view. Strangely, in the garden the eccentric millionaires were keeping several aggressive chickens, some turkeys, a large pig and a couple of dogs, the smaller of which saw off a huge male baboon that invaded the garden during filming.

The celeb in question (Sam Cowen) turned out to be quite nice, although her celebrity status was lost on me as I haven’t listened to the radio since mp3’s were invented, and had only the very vaguest idea of who she was.

I can report that she was extremely spotty though, having recently gone on some kind of lemon-based detox. Praise the Lord for the miracle of make-up.