Many moons ago I lived in the western suburbs of Cape Town, affectionately known back then as the Muesli Belt. It consisted of a few quaint neighbourhoods on the shores of False Bay, about thirty clicks from the city centre.

For the most part, those were kind times. Being an eternal twelve-year-old sulking in a man’s body, I was slowly getting my shit together. I was rising through the ranks as a photographer and for the first time in my life I was renting a proper house, nestled against the mountain. It had a plunge pool in the front and a garden in the back. At first, having all that space to myself had me howling like a junkyard dog in Suburbian Pastures yet unknown. It was a sharp step up from the innercity bedsits I was forced to share with my poems up to that point, but I settled soon enough.