Needed milk. Apparently it’s Christmas. 🎄

Stellenbosch’s sunshine already helps grow the grapes. Now it’s helping pay the electricity bill too.

Figures from Vergenoegd Löw show that the estate used more than twice as much electricity in February as it did in June. Yet its solar panels generated the equivalent of 63% of February’s electricity needs, helping limit the extra power bought from the grid.

That’s a rather convenient bit of timing. Harvest pushes electricity demand up just when the Cape’s summer sunshine gives solar panels plenty to work with. For once, the busiest time of year comes with something resembling assistance.

There’s a bigger local development too: Stellenbosch has awarded a project for up to 41.9 MW of solar capacity and 14.8 MWh of battery storage. The batteries can help bridge the gap between when sunshine produces electricity and when customers need it. Awarded, though, doesn’t mean already switched on.

The useful lesson is that timing matters as much as totals. Electricity generated during a business’s busiest hours can be particularly valuable.

And if sunshine can help grow the grapes and power the operation, it’s doing considerably more work towards your Friday glass of wine than you are.

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Proton Mail gives you full-featured, private email without surveillance or creepy profiling. It’s email that respects your time, your attention, and your boundaries.

Email doesn’t have to cost your privacy.

Ditch the Gmail data grab

There are few feelings in parenting quite like opening your child’s lunchbox and discovering that they ate everything.

Everything.

You stand at the kitchen counter staring into that empty container like an Olympic athlete looking at their gold medal. Months of training. Countless setbacks. Finally, the nation’s anthem plays.

“They ate the cucumber,” you whisper to your partner. “Even the cucumber.”

For one glorious moment, you have cracked parenting.

Then the next day, the lunchbox comes home looking exactly as it did when you packed it. The sandwich has completed a full day of school and learnt absolutely nothing.

The apple is untouched. The yoghurt is warm. The cheese has started a new life.

“I didn’t like it.”

You liked it yesterday. You specifically requested it this morning. We held a meeting.

And somehow, despite eating nothing all day, they arrive home and immediately announce: “I’m starving.”

Of course you are. Your lunch has just returned from a sightseeing trip.

So tomorrow morning, we try again. Cut the sandwich differently. Pack fewer things. Pack more things. Briefly consider whether a strawberry shaped like a heart might save us.

Because apparently, being a parent means preparing a daily tasting menu for a food critic who sometimes eats sand.

Most towns call it drinking wine in the street. Stellenbosch calls it a soirée. This is why we’re a destination.

The Stellenbosch Street Soirées return to Drostdy Street on Wednesday, 28 October, bringing wine tasting, food stalls, live music and fairy lights to your otherwise fairly ordinary Wednesday evening. Running from 18:00 to 20:00, it’s a very respectable alternative to standing in the kitchen asking what everyone wants for supper.

Tickets cost R280 per person, including a branded glass and 10 wine-tasting tokens. That’s ten opportunities to nod thoughtfully and say “lovely finish” while privately wondering whether you remembered to take the washing off the line. Book through Plankton; organisers warn that tickets sell quickly.

Can’t make the first one? The remaining 2026 dates are 11 November, 25 November and 9 December, with five more evenings scheduled from January to March 2027.

Round up a few friends and make an evening of it. Perhaps book dinner afterwards. We live somewhere people travel halfway around the world to visit. Occasionally, we should leave the house and enjoy it.

You have to hand it to Checkers. They’ve taken something we usually peel off an apple and turned it into a reason to buy more groceries.

Their Stickables campaign features 50 collectible stickers, with Xtra Savings members getting one for every R200 spent. Familiar brands include Oros, Ricoffy and Black Cat. Essentially, little pictures of things already sitting in your cupboard. And somehow, we want them.

Picture the checkout conversation.

“You’re on R387.”

A sensible person pays and leaves.

A sticker parent starts scanning the till area for something worth R13. Chewing gum? Batteries? A single emergency avocado? We cannot leave thirteen rand between this family and greatness.

Then comes the opening ceremony. Everyone gathers around the packet with the anticipation normally reserved for a pregnancy announcement.

Another Oros.

We have six Oroses. Nobody speaks.

And let’s stop pretending this is entirely for the children. The child has wandered off. The parent is still at the kitchen counter, arranging duplicates and considering which relatives might be willing to trade.

“It’s just a bit of fun for the kids,” they say, drafting a message that sounds like a hostage negotiation: “Can offer two Ricoffys and a Bar-One. Need Black Cat. Serious offers only.”

From a marketing perspective, it’s brilliant. Every empty space in the collection becomes unfinished family business. Suddenly, the shopping list has a tiny unpaid sales representative attached to it.

Well played, Checkers.

We went in for bread. We came out with R600 worth of groceries and a sticker of something we couldn’t justify buying the actual version of.

I went into the grocery store for milk and came face to face with Christmas decorations.

Sorry. What?

I’m still mentally somewhere in March. There are things on my to-do list labelled “early this year” that I haven’t started. And now there’s a chocolate Father Christmas next to the till, looking at me like I’m the one behind schedule.

October hasn’t even finished. Can we please deal with one financial crisis at a time?

The shops, of course, are ready. Tinsel up. Gift packs out. Somewhere, Michael Bublé is being defrosted while a store manager tests the speakers.

Soon we’ll hear “All I Want for Christmas Is You” so many times that what we’ll actually want for Christmas is five minutes of silence and a reasonably priced leg of lamb.

But honestly, where did this year go? January was about six weeks long. February happened normally. Then someone apparently sat on the remote and fast-forwarded us straight to festive biscuits.

We started the year with goals. Big plans. This was going to be the year we got organised.

Now our main achievement is remembering which day the bins go out.

And we all know what comes next. “Let’s catch up before things get crazy.” A sentence exchanged by two people who will next see each other in February.

Anyway, I bought the milk.

And some Christmas chocolates.

I’m upset about the principle, but I’m not unreasonable.

Some days, life asks more of you than you feel you have to give. A problem you didn’t expect. A responsibility you never wanted. A situation you can’t see your way through.

Courage doesn’t always feel brave. Sometimes it’s getting out of bed, having the difficult conversation, asking for help or trying again after yesterday went badly.

Whatever you’re facing, try not to let a hard chapter convince you that the whole story is hopeless. You don’t need to solve everything today. Take the next honest step, however small.

And put your trust in God. Tell Him what’s weighing on you, even if your prayer is simply, “I don’t know how to do this. Please help me.”

Faith doesn’t mean everything will happen the way you want. There will still be uncertainty, disappointment and days when you feel exhausted. You can rest. You can change direction. You can lean on others. None of that means you’ve given up.

You don’t have to see the whole road to trust God with the next step.

🌤️ Friday: Sunshine with a few clouds. 15–24°C

☀️ Saturday: Mostly sunny and pleasant. 15–23°C

🌬️ Sunday: Sunshine through high clouds, with a steady afternoon breeze. 15–23°C

☀️ Monday: Plenty of sunshine. 15–24°C

🌤️ Tuesday: A cloudy start, clearing to a warm afternoon. 15–28°C

A lovely weekend for getting outdoors. Tuesday clearly wants us to start taking summer seriously.

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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