I <3 Tulbagh

I took an impulsive, unscheduled break in beautiful Tulbagh this week. I am home now, but I think I left part of my soul behind.

This is what I found there:

1. A wonderful friend with a wonderful cottage in the middle of nowhere, a sleeper couch, peace and quiet.

2. A lot of cows. Early in the morning, this one didn’t seem to want to have her photo taken. But I was intrepid.

I felt like a genuine wildlife photographer getting this shot. I’d silently tracked her a good 10 metres along the garden fence, and was rewarded by this split-second itch-scratch.

3. Apparently I was being tracked myself. Mia kept a beady eye on me from the roof.

4. A thousand mountains.

(Don’t worry, I won’t show you them all).

5. A little girl called Lila-Raine, for whom I made a quick headband:

 

6. A peacock who, with a display like this, must have mistaken me for a peahen. I was flattered.

7.  Garden creatures that had my heart stopping with horror when I first laid eyes on them. Tina assured me they were grasshoppers, but they looked like prehistoric human eyeball-suckers to me.  I kept my car windows tightly wound up at all times for fear that one of these things would fly or jump inside my car.

8. An amazingly gorgeous shop that belongs to Susan, Tina’s sister, in new premises in Buitenkant Street. More about the Marmalade Angel tomorrow.

Now you see why I didn’t want to come home.

To be continued…

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here a plant, there a plant

Skimming through the photos I keep in the folder called “Pics for BLOG”, these jumped out at me this morning, creating a fortuitous plant theme.

The one on the wall is a house in Sea Point, near where Alex’s sister lives. From what I could tell, they are two wooden frames with plastic bottles struck horizontally inside, with each plant coming out of the neck. Alex said she thinks she’s seen something similar at Kirstenbosch (National Gardens, here in Cape Town), so I’ll go and check it out one day.

The bright green succulent in a cement pot was on a table at a restaurant in Stellenbosch. The oddly-formed one (there’s almost something obscene about it but I can’t quite put my finger on it)  in a cream crochet ensemble was bought from Succulent Simon at the River Club Market on Sunday, and now lives on my window sill. I gave the angel-wing begonia in wire cup and saucer to Rob a few weeks ago. His plants don’t usually live long, and I have to send over a new one every couple of months.

Finally, the collection of plants in test tubes was the display in an empty shop window next to Art Source in Observatory. I’d gone to pick up glue supplies and this was so arresting. I have no idea what http://www.farmacy.co.za is, nor have I ever looked it up. I’m still not going to, but you can if you want.

To be continued…