Visitors to South Africa during the World Cup should be warned:  the residents of this country have two crucial failings. 

Firstly, they have no clue about how long it takes to get from A to B; and secondly, any weather always takes them completely by surprise. Let me explain.   This weekend I was invited to visit a hotel, a very nice hotel.  The printed directions to the venue contained this confident assertion:  “two-hour drive.’ Well, after two hours of travelling (and I must add that I was driving with considerable vim) I was still looking vainly for the turn-off to the mountain road.  It took me another hour to reach my destination. Never, ever ask a South African how long it takes to travel anywhere.  Alternatively, you can ask, but then double their answer.  If the ad says the guest house is twenty minutes from the airport, assume that this is twenty minutes at high speed.  Add to that the amount of time you will be stopped at robots, paused at intersections, waiting in queues to get out of the parking lot, slowing down to avoid taxis, looking at the scenery and wondering what that great big stone building is, oh look, they’re selling beaded agapanthus on the street corners – in other words, a l-o-o-o-o-t longer. I don’t know why South Africans are so coy about distances.  Either we are ashamed of the fact that we live in a relatively spacious country (compared to Europe), or we assume that everyone drives like an armed response unit, or alternatively we look at the map and calculate the distance as the crow flies, and take it from there.  Or perhaps we just don’t want to give our visitors any bad news. Although, why it would put off a visitor to this country to be told that they must budget an hour from the train station, and must look out for rush-hour congestion, remains a mystery. The Americans, on the other hand, who really do live in big country, are rather proud of that fact.  A few years ago I borrowed a friend’s car and decided quite recklessly to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles down the spine of California – a mere 800 miles or so.  I knew that America was big, but perhaps I did not realise how big. When I announced my intention I got doubtful looks and the comments:  “Are you sure ? It’s a long way.”  “Of course,” I replied airily.  After all, the map showed a country that looked about the size of the Free State, which I could do in an afternoon.  The trip took, in fact, more than a week. And after I had gone through Los Angeles (which incidentally, despite all its glamour and reputation is as tacky and unattractive as Durban), I got the strangest apprehension that if I headed any further south I would fall off the edge of the earth. In America the landscape is also big.  You start the day’s drive with a looming mountain range in the distance.  Seven hours later that mountain range is still looming at exactly the same size.  In South Africa, seven hours of driving would put you in a different geological era.   So – why not be realistic and say how long a journey is going to take?  I have never got used to this habit, and therefore I usually arrive at midnight when I have promised to be there for supper.  I don’t drive particularly slowly, but I never seem to arrive when people insist I should. And then there’s the question of weather.  Why is it that any weather less than story-book perfect takes us completely by surprise?  Winter arrives every year, at roughly the same time, but yet it always appears to catch everyone unawares.  The first cold snap sees a mad scramble for the woollies.  People go around blowing on their hands and stamping their feet and saying things like:  “Sjoe, but it’s cold hey?”  Well, this is winter.  What did you expect? And when the spring rains start, people going round exclaiming:  “Wow, it’s raining!” in tones of terminal surprise.  If the weather should get particularly lively, such as a storm, the comments take on an aggrieved tone.  Bad weather is seen as a personal insult – a cold affront, if you like.  Especially if said weather has interrupted a sporting event or outdoor occasion. I can only draw the conclusion that we South Africans are conditioned to take perfect weather for granted, and see it as a most unexpected blow if the elements don’t perform as expected. In England, where they don’t have pavement cafes because it would take forever to finish your soup, you can see crowds huddled out at open-air events, sheltered under umbrellas and raincoats while some diva sings her heart out in the pouring rain. So – admit it, South Africans, admit that we are enviably spoilt when it comes to the great outdoors.  We expect things to be closer than they are.  And we expect that weather to be a permanent balmy summer’s day. And when it isn’t – we just pretend it is.