Bloggers block.

To anyone who might follow my blog from time to time, my apologies,
I am stuck well and truly in my right brain.
The artist in me has rampaged through my thoughts and I am consumed with
creative projects. Like autumn leaves the ideas are whipping and flying around
me and my studio is filling up literally and figuratively with ‘stuff’.

Paper Mache, silver wire, leaves and seedpods, flowers…
it is just overwhelming but lovely, just not conducive to posting coherently!

We have a wonderful woman, Thandi who comes twice a month to help make
order in this crazy home filled with all of the above and more!
Thandi is a Zulu woman and pure magic at creating order. She arrives
wrapped up in boundless energy and leaves (sorry!) reluctantly
having worked her miracles. Last week, with her pure honesty,
she asked me if I was a Sangoma (an African healer/homeopath)
because that is the only way she can make sense of all my nature-given ‘clutter’.

Today, whilst walking in contemplative mode I realized again
how small we all are in this big universe,
(if you have flown in an airplane on a clear day
and looked down at the earth, nothing is really detectable, least of all people)
I also thought about how little impact we really make as one person
but how big the impact becomes when we become a care less group.
And so I try, through the mediums I know best, to make some coherent sense
using my creative energy, which at the moment is like a dandelion in the wind.
So back to hands on right brain… and quiet contemplation, which goes with the territory.

I’ve hung up my broomstick!

How to celebrate?
In the space of one year I have made it to 50…
50 posts, and I admit I am so chuffed!

I had to put my broomstick and ‘wooden’ (my broomstick companion for years) into temporary retirement, give up coffee dates in the sky… and learn to use a sophisticated computer and WordPress.
What a fun journey it has been so far, I love thinking about the next post,
taking my new traveling partner(canon) with me on my sojourns (apologies to ‘wooden’)
and walking shoes have replaced my broomstick for now.

With eyes wide open I will undertake another year and hopefully
50 more posts, because what would life be like without a little fantasy
and a bit of fun?
Let’s share some happiness and positive stories!

(Wooden was named years ago by my friend Bo,
who commented on him when she spotted him for the first time.
My son told her my cat was wooden to which she responded
“Hello Wooden!” and so it remained.)

Nursery to Skeleton..

From Nursery ravine to Skeleton gorge and beyond,
we are at the start of a year of centenary celebrations
in Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens.
100 years of hard work, dedication and teams of remarkable people
who have created one of the world’s most spectacular gardens.

And it shows, there are gardeners everywhere, clearing and grooming.
Streams of tour groups march through like army ants,
on a mission to experience every great smell, sight, sound and touch.

But as ever, Tuesday’s is free entrance day for senior citizens
and it seem even more pertinent that during this centennial year we are able
to celebrate this magical garden with our elders.
I have said it before but this is a new year and a centenary one
and so I think it’s o.k. to say it once more,
I love the tranquility that senior society brings with them to this Cape pearl.

Everything Botanical, over 100 years old or older, is labelled with a centenarian plaque,
including various alien trees such as pine, oak and camphor trees
planted originally to meet the ever growing early settlers need for timber.

The Camphor Tree avenue, one of the original wagon routes
used in the peninsular is a wonderfully shaded reprieve for our heat in summer.
Although also alien, these trees are magnificent.

Look for the 100 year olds..
Woods cycad, Ginko tree, wild fig, Atlas cedar, European oak,
Outeniqua yellowwood, forest bell bush and wild almond, to mention a few!

Or watch the lazy Francolin, even they go into low gear on Tuesdays,
maybe also feeling the calm before the storm of events due to unravel over this year’s
celebrations, guided walks, concerts and exhibitions.
There is so much to celebrate between nursery, skeleton and beyond, I too would like a plaque around my neck if I get to be 100!

So many thanks.

This time of the year historically (though often hysterically!)
brings families together, reunites friends and often introduces new loved ones into the family/friendship circle.

Add to the mix full on summer in the Southern hemisphere, long lazy days, the sun rising at 5 a.m. and setting at 8.30p.m.
Walks on beaches, leisurely meals lasting for hours around a table groaning with good cheer, great food and wonderful Cape wines.

And offspring!

Like so many families today, most of my children live and work abroad part-time or full-time, this seems the norm with the majority of our contemporaries but it still doesn’t make it any easier, it just makes for frequent happy/sad moments at Cape Town International airport, though the happy always outshines the sad.

I love living in a city that everyone wants to visit,
to have a home that can expand and shrink, a table that can do the same,
but most of all I perpetually say a little prayer of thanks for all family connections,
for surrogate children, ‘borrowed’ sisters and ‘on loan’ grandchildren…

But most of all, my children.

So many, many thanks for them.
They are the wealth that keeps my heart full.