Cape Town might be pretentious, but ...

… I love living here because:

The clouds move. It’s kind of crazy — you can look up at a mountain (OK, the mountain) and watch clouds rushing over it and concealing it. One second it’s sunshine and blue skies; the next it’s totally cloudy and cool. It keeps you on your toes.

The sun only sets at 8.30pm. Which might not seem like such a big deal, except it means that there’s three hours of workable sunshine after a full working day. Which means walks on the promenade, picnics on the beach or just dinner outside in the fading sunlight. It helps to make every day feel like a bit of a holiday.

If it’s a beautiful day, there’s a traffic jam around 6pm going up Kloofnek Road and over to the beaches, and it’s not a tourist traffic jam. It’s locals heading to the beach for sundowners or picnics. My kind of people!

There is a profusion of bakeries and bookstores.

You can walk around! As a single woman (within reason, of course — dodgy areas are to be avoided). But it is possible to walk places.

It’s not actually that pretentious if you know which pretension hot spots to avoid. Really. I promise.