Skywatch Friday, still on the road!

Hope you are not already bored out of your skulls with our trip to Lesotho! On the way back, we took a different route back through the Eastern Cape. I never realised we lived in such a varied and picturesque province, it was a real eye opener.

It began raining as we stood in line at the Border Post to leave Lesotho, and continued most of the way to our next overnight stop. We travelled through quite a few mountain passes as we left the Mountain Kingdom and descended back to sea level, which gave great panoramic views of countryside and stormy skies.

Approaching Queenstown, all was serene, with a faint rainbow to mark the end of the rain.

Then only 10 minutes later, we rounded a bend to see these dramatic clouds, as the sun headed off over the horizon.

We got into town as it was getting dark, spotted a sign for a B&B, and followed it to a delightful place called Justine's, where a farmer's wife, well practiced in the art of gracious hospitality, has set up an award winning guesthouse. Our room had all the comforts we could want (at an extremely reasonable price) and breakfast the next morning was the kind of meal that leaves you feeling good all day!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! And to see lots of fascinating skies, hop across to Tom's friendly spot at Wiggers World.

PS I just looked outside and had to add one more pic, because it is not such a shabby view from here either!

this 'n that #?

Hi, it's been a manic time lately (where have you heard that before?) as I had to paint for 3 exhibitions opening within a few days of each other.

The first one, which opened last night, is a very popular annual event at the Cuyler Street Gallery. It is called the same size, same price, unsigned exhibition, and is exactly that. People love it and literally queue at the door for the opening, because you can buy work by a student, or a very well established artist, but as all works are unsigned, there is an element of taking a gamble about it. As the prices are set reasonably low, in relation to what a well known artist would charge (but probably higher than an average student would charge) this adds to the fun. If you really know your art, you can pick up a bargain from a well known artist, but if you make a mistake, you could be paying a premium for student work.

Then tomorrow a beautiful exhibition opens. It is being held in a private home, a recently built stunning house that really lends itself to being used as a gallery. The owner invited 5 painters and a ceramicist to exhibit, and I was delighted to be one of them, as I love the work of the others, and our work goes so well together. In addition, she has taken a musician under her wing, because he does not have enough money to continue his studies at University, but is really talented. So on Friday and Saturday evenings, she will combine the art exhibition with a music recital, which will be a benefit concert for this young man. We will have dinner and listen to him performing Classical Guitar works, with some of his fellow students.

Then next week an exhibition entitled "Beacons" opens at the Khune Boekkooi Gallery. It is a nice topic and I am having fun interpreting it in different ways.


Yesterday would have been my mom's 80th birthday. I am not usually one to mark this sort of anniversary or dwell on past losses, but yesterday I thought of her a lot. She died of lung cancer in October 2000, not too surprising since she smoked up to 2 packs of 30 a day since she was about 15 years old! She was a model in her youth, and was always very young looking for her age, and very elegant. She was amazing, when she was told she had inoperable lung and liver cancer, she said that was fine, she'd had a good life and didn't fancy getting really old. She went through all her things, and made sure that each person who was special to her (family and friends) got at least one of her personal items, such as pieces of her jewellery etc. She wrapped each one, and wrote little personal notes to accompany them. As time passed, she even decided how her funeral should be, and wrote a note for me to read to all her loved ones. To the very end, she handled the whole thing with her usual dignity and grace. She would have hated being 80! Happy birthday mom!

And tomorrow my 90 year old father arrives for a 5 week visit. I'm afraid he has not aged as graciously as mom did, and is extremely demanding and difficult, so I may be a bit scarce for a while! On the other hand, I might find the need to escape into blogland frequently.... we'll have to see how it turns out!

Felicity Update

It's hard to believe that 3 and a half months have fled by since a sick and scared little bundle of feline fur arrived in our care. It took a while for her to get used to people, having been abandoned on a rubbish dump when she was way too young to leave her mom, contracting feline sniffles, being rescued and spending a week in a vet's hospital having needles stuck in her and pills rammed down her tiny throat. Max did a post about her first day here.

We were a little hesitant about introducing such a vulnerable little creaure into our household, because our white cat, DeeDee is a complete and utter dragon when it comes to new kittens on her turf. And she is stone deaf, so you can't even shout at her when she is attacking them. She gave poor Fergussen a hideous time when he was little. But Felicity cat had to remain isolated for at least 10 days after arriving here, so that she did not infect our cats with her sniffles, and in that time she got quite bold.

We introduced her to Fergs first, and after a bit of a sulk on his part, they have become friends.

She now rules the roost, and yesterday I even came across her and DeeDee curled up together asleep on the couch, so I guess all is well!

She is at the gawky teenager stage already, and is growing into a very adorable but very stripey looking Siamese with a long body and short legs. And a giant personality! We are completely besotted.

As I try and type this, she is snuggling in her favourite place, in the crook of my left elbow, making it necessary for me to do everything with one hand. She is watching the movement of letters and cursor on ths screen with great fascination. Every now and then she can't resist the urge to take a closer look and I have to delete the extra words that result. Oh good, she's just spotted Max putting on his socks and gone off to attack them!

contrasts

In Port Elizabeth, we don't experience the clearly defined seasonal changes that occur in higher latitudes. There is a marked difference in the length of daylight between summer and winter, here at 34 degrees South, compared to the fairly even days I experienced growing up in the tropics (in Harare, Zimbabwe.) But we don't get wonderful Autumn displays, because it is too warm, we never get snow, and it is warm enough throughout winter that many plants continue to blossom, so spring does not arrive with the same drama as it does in colder climates.

However, that is not to say that there is a boring sameness about our weather. It is just not necessarily seasonal. It is a well worn old saying that in PE, you can get 4 seasons in one day.

As an example, let me share with you some pictures of sunrise two days ago, and sunrise this morning.

This was how it looked from our dining room window on Wednesday.

And here was the not too successful attempt at the sun showing its face this morning!

As you must know by now if you have been around this blog for any length of time, I adore this old church that is just down the road from us, and it features in many of my photos.

The bright patch you can see in the bottom right hand corner is a glimpse of the bay, with the dunes on the opposite side.

A few leaves are still clinging tenaciously to the plane trees in the park across the road from us, but winter is on its way!

Skywatch Friday ... Malealea, Lesotho

I guess, because we live on the coast, the air is relatively warm, and planes flying over us are usually at low altitude (mostly just landing or taking off.) So for us, seeing con-trails is a rarity. We were fascinated, while staying up in the high mountains of Lesotho, to see the sky constantly littered with con-trails , particularly around sunrise. From the directions of the lines, we could identify the Port Elizabeth to Joburg plane, Joburg to Capetown, as well as the Durban to PE plane. We particulary enjoyed the feeling of disjointed unreality it gave us, roughing it up in the isolated wilds with no phones or electricity, yet seeing all this hi-tech machinery scooting along above us, connecting hubs of industry and crowds. It made us even more grateful to be there, and heightened the feeling that we had somehow dropped off the planet!

Camping in Malealea, freezing our butts off in our ricketty tent, we woke up both mornings to wonderful skies, with a sunrise on one side, crescent moon overhead, and jets painting lines all over the place! Here is a selection of the variety we saw on those magical mornings.

Speaking of Malealea, if you want to read a really inspiring story, about a subsistance farmer who lived on a piece of land that was unusable because it was so badly eroded, and covered in huge bare gullies, and who turned it into a model of productivity, with no capital or farm equipment, just a vision and sheer hard manual labour, follow the Malealea link above.

In there, I mentioned that his fondest wish is to own a small old tractor, to help reduce the manual labour. I have had several responses, from people who are not in a position to buy one, but would like to contribute. I am in communication with Malealea Lodge, and awaiting a response so we can work out the logistics of how to go about it. I'll give you updates as we go along.

To see more wonderul Skywatch photos, visit our genial host Tom for a list of links.
Have a great weekend everyone!