I’m about to experience summer in Cape Town for the first time in a decade. Cape Town in summer has a special quality of light, heat, and colour – a beauty that is unbearable at times. I’ve come to understand it as one of the reasons why I decided to leave.

But now I’m back. And this morning, out on the rocks, I admired the first whales to arrive from Antarctica – lifting their pectoral fins above the surface, holding it there for a few seconds, before slapping it down. They remind me of my grandmother, who one day, long ago, managed to get my grandfather out of his workshop to drive her in his beach buggy to the spot where she found whale bones on her morning walk. The huge bleached vertebrae was a feature at their house, and of my childhood.

Standing beside me, holding my hand, was my five year old son. I wondered if he’ll remember that moment, one day, in the future.