🎓 Maybe your child shouldn’t go to university...

Instagram wellness: Wake at 5am. Cold plunge. Meditate. Journal. Protein breakfast. Gym. Red-light therapy. All before the children wake up.

Parent wellness:

5:01am: Small shadowy figure appears next to your bed asking for toast. Cortisol immediately activated.

5:15am: Cold plunge. Except it’s a 45-second shower while a child stands next to you explaining something incredibly urgent about a dinosaur.

7:05am: Intermittent fasting. Not intentionally. You made three different breakfasts, begged everyone to eat them, packed lunches and forgot to feed yourself.

8:55am: Mental-health walk. Intended to lower cortisol. Child refuses to walk, another wants to be carried, someone has lost a shoe. Cortisol now at personal-best levels.

10:10am: Mindfulness session in the car while transporting children to their activities and listening to them argue about who looked at whom.

11:45am: Twenty-minute wellness retreat. Sitting alone in the driveway after arriving home because you’re not quite ready to go inside.

12:05pm: Healthy lunch. Mostly cheese, crackers and pieces of your children’s food eaten while standing at the kitchen counter.

12:20pm: Couple’s workout. One parent exercises for 20 minutes while the other prevents the house from burning down. Swap. Both feel like professional athletes.

No sauna. No ice bath. No two-hour morning routine.

Just 20 minutes of exercise and occasionally hiding from your children in a parked car.

Health. ✨

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Stellenbosch will welcome 17 young mountain bikers later this month after they qualified for the 2026 SA Schools MTB National Championships, taking place here from 26 September to 4 October.

Thirteen of the riders come from the iThuba MTB Academy and four from Pretoria South Lions Cycling Club, with youngsters travelling from communities including Krugersdorp, Roodepoort, Cosmo City, Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Ga-Rankuwa. For iThuba, it’s the largest group they’ve ever sent to nationals.

And getting here is no small undertaking. The team will travel more than 1,400km to Stellenbosch, with the total trip expected to cost around R205,875. The academy is fundraising to help cover transport, accommodation, meals, race entries and getting all those bikes down to the Cape.

A pretty cool reminder that while we might take Stellenbosch’s incredible cycling trails for granted, for these youngsters, coming here means competing on the national stage. 🚵🇿🇦

In news that you probably didn’t realise needed an official announcement, Stellenbosch Municipality has confirmed that our tap water is safe to drink. It meets national drinking-water standards and is regularly tested, including independent laboratory testing.

Apparently some residents have noticed the water looking slightly... Stellenbosch rosé after heavy rain. 🍷

The Municipality says the occasional tint comes from naturally occurring tannins released by plant material like fynbos after rainfall, and it doesn’t make the water unsafe.

So relax. Your tap water is safe.

Although this is Stellenbosch, so presumably someone in a neighbourhood WhatsApp group will still have it independently tested, write a 14-page report and ask whether a public participation process was followed. 😂

If spending a Saturday afternoon in the Stellenbosch vineyards drinking some of SA’s best Cap Classique sounds like your sort of thing, Simonsig’s Cap Classique Affair is back on Saturday, 7 November.

From 11am–4pm, you’ll be able to taste bubbles from Graham Beck, Kleine Zalze, Villiera, Spier, Haute Cabrière, Simonsig and plenty more, with oysters, pizza, burgers and bagels available to keep things responsible-ish.

This year’s theme is “Perfected by Time”, with a Modern Vintage dress code, live entertainment and DJs throughout the afternoon.

🥂 Where: Simonsig Family Vineyards
📅 When: Saturday, 7 November | 11am–4pm
🎟️ Early bird: R450 including 20 tasting tokens (23 Sept–2 Oct)
🎟️ General: R495 including 20 tasting tokens

Basically, dress nicely, arrive hungry and let someone else drive home.

I have a belief that South Africa needs to seriously rethink the idea that university is the correct path for everyone.

Too many young people are being pushed toward degrees they don’t really want, for jobs that may not even exist by the time they graduate.

And I’ll say something controversial:

A large percentage of people currently at university probably should not be there.

Not because they are unintelligent.

But because many would be far better suited learning:
• plumbing
• tiling
• painting
• electrical work
• carpentry
• bricklaying
• welding
• mechanics
• construction
• woodworking

We have somehow created a culture where working with your hands is viewed as “less successful” than sitting behind a laptop.

Meanwhile many people finish matric, go study because they feel they have to, then struggle to find work afterwards.

So they study more.

Then still can’t find a job.

So they collect another qualification.

And before long, they have years of debt, multiple certificates, and still no clear direction.

Meanwhile someone else spent those same years:
• learning a trade
• gaining real-world experience
• building a client base
• earning an income
• and developing a skill society actually needs

South Africa does not only need more graduates.

We desperately need more people who can build, fix, install, repair and create things.

Because when a country loses practical skills, eventually nothing works properly anymore.

And the interesting part?

Many trades can eventually lead to business ownership far faster than traditional corporate careers.

The electrician becomes an electrical contractor.

The plumber builds a plumbing company.

The carpenter opens a workshop.

Not everyone is supposed to sit in meetings replying to emails all day.

Some people are builders by nature.

And there should be absolutely no shame in that.

🧼 Carpet tip: Most carpets should be professionally cleaned every 8–12 months, or every 6 months if you have pets, young kids or lots of foot traffic. Don’t wait until they look dirty, by then, dirt and grime are already sitting deep in the fibres.

There are some people who seem to find the negative in absolutely everything.

Tell them about an idea and they’ll tell you why it won’t work. Share something you’re excited about and they’ll point out the problem. Do something differently and they’ll explain, often rather condescendingly, why you’re doing it wrong.

After a while, negativity becomes more than a mood. It becomes a lens through which they see the world.

And perhaps the most dangerous version is the victim mentality. When everything that happens is someone else’s fault, when the world is permanently unfair, and when responsibility always belongs somewhere else, you slowly give away the one thing you actually control: what you do next.

It’s worth checking ourselves occasionally.

Am I always looking for what’s wrong?
Do I secretly enjoy correcting people?
Do I complain about situations I could actually change?
When someone shares good news, is my instinct to encourage them or bring them back down to earth?

Because nobody wakes up one morning and decides to become a bitter, pessimistic person. I suspect it happens gradually. One complaint, one cynical comment and one grievance at a time.

Personally, I’ve become increasingly careful about who I spend my time with. Not because I expect everyone to be relentlessly positive, life is far too complicated for that. But there is a big difference between someone going through a difficult season and someone who has made negativity their personality.

Spend enough time around people who see a problem in every opportunity and eventually you start seeing them too.

I'd rather be around people who take responsibility, laugh easily, encourage others and, when life knocks them over, ask:

“Okay. What can I do about it?”

Spring is clearly still negotiating its contract. We’re going from thunderstorms to sunshine, back to rain, and then a chilly Sunday. Forecasts can still shift, especially around the rain later in the week.

⛈️ Wednesday: 23°C / 16°C
Cooler with broken cloud and a chance of thunderstorms in parts of the area.

🌤️ Thursday: 27°C / 15°C
Heritage Day warms up nicely. A possible morning thunderstorm, followed by sunny spells and a much more pleasant afternoon.

🌧️ Friday: 20°C / 15°C
The temperature drops again, with increasing cloud and rain developing during the afternoon.

🌦️ Saturday: 19°C / 14°C
A cool start with showers possible in the morning, then some sunshine trying to break through later.

🌧️ Sunday: 21°C / 12°C
A little morning rain is possible, otherwise mostly cloudy and noticeably cooler overnight.

As always, thanks for reading. If you spot something in town worth knowing, reply and tell us. Half the best Stellenbosch stories begin that way.

See you around town,
Stellenbosch Brief

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