On this pleasant day of my first meeting with Dr. John Rogers and his wife Phil, I was still suffering from after-effects of a high dose of colchicin used to treat an attack of gout. Crudely speaking, I had to go to the loo a lot.
I barely made it by train from Parow to Capetown before enjoying the first visit at the CT RR station. I then walked around outside and was intercepted by John. (we wore hats to recognize each other, and he interrupted a chat I had with a German student who did not even know that her Leader had just visited here ...)
He took me to Phil who had parked nearby and after a rapid intro we went to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront for lunch. But first....fortunately, John knew just the spot. Sorry, said the attendant in the gleaming bathroom facility: thieves have stolen the plumbing pipes last night, and he showed me semi-sadistically how when you flushed, water would spout out of a hole in the wall.
So I contracted my anatomy and made it to the nice toilet in the restaurant. In fact, it was so nice I went twice, once before and again after the fine seafood lunch with conversation galore and an excellent view.
John offered to take me on short fieldtrip to Sea Point, where we first drank some interesting coffee in a swank hotel, preceded by another visit to the toilet which was interrupted by a stern cleaning lady claiming her own needs.
We then proceeded on a joint driving-walking tour, where sweet Phil acted as driver. I had to climb up and down slippery rocks along the shore - like in the old days -, see and discuss the Bouma sequence and the various offsets, unconformities, etc. while my body worked towards its own liquefying purpose. Hurrah, there was an "outhouse" and I managed to outrun a gay busload of tourists.
It looked like we had a series of fieldtrips punctuated by visits to washrooms. Darwin had been here - bathroom - it had been discovered that from this site and through that street one could see three contacts of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks - bathroom - and so on.
Notwithstanding my suffering, I greatly enjoyed John's enthousiasm and Phil's kind concern. But I certainly hope that on our next meeting I will be able to concentrate better and enjoy the marine geology (e.g. between Sea Point and Robben Island) more than my own anthropologic cycling processes between navel and knee!.