Red and Yellow and Pink and Green,

Purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow …

This song has been running around and around in my head since I arrived. The houses in Cape Town are sometimes white … but they’re also blue and purple and pink and yellow and green and combinations of all of these.

In fact the local taste for eye-popping wall paint reminds me of pubs in Irish towns. Perhaps many Irish pub keepers lived in Cape Town in a past life? But if they’re trying to keep their African dreams alive, I have a gentle suggestion to make.

A Hint to the Publicans of Ireland: painting your building orange with purple accents only really works in sunshine.

Just look at this yellow house. What lucky person lives here? (Here’s a clue: begins with ‘m’ and end with ‘e’.)

This isn’t a house but it is the outreach project that Mexican Ana, a visiting artist at Greatmore, has been working on. She, like me, loves the colours here.

(Plus – don’t you like the way the colours of the buildings are complemented by the lurid paint jobs of the cars?)