I’ve been attacked by an end-of-year malaise. My blogging motivation — and motivation in general — has flagged. So I thought I’d return to my quick-and-easy Instagram for Art’s Sake project today.
Blooming.
The agapanthus is one of my favorite indigenous summer flowers in South Africa. I love the word, too. So exotic.
This lone agapanthus bloomed in my backyard last week. I took several photos of it but this is the only shot I’m happy with.
Instagram for Art’s Sake: All shot this evening at sunset, at the Lucky 5 Star.
Tomorrow is Heritage Day, a South African public holiday.
South Africa has lots of public holidays. I have trouble keeping track of them and what they mean. Heritage Day is pretty simple though — it’s a day to celebrate South Africa’s heritage. This can mean basically anything, because South Africa, like the United States, is a very diverse place with lots of different heritages. So basically, Heritage Day is an excuse to take the day off from work and do fun cultural things. Heritage Day falls on a Monday this year, which means we have a whole long weekend of cultural celebrations to choose from.
Today, my friend Horst and I celebrated Heritage Day weekend by going on a tour of private gardens in Upper Houghton, sponsored by a local charity called Gardens of the Golden City. Continue Reading
Yesterday I had a picnic with the girls in the rose garden at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens.
Under a tree in the rose garden on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. It was the perfect picnic spot.
I’ve been to the rose garden many times and I wrote a post about it once, a million years ago. I hadn’t planned to blog about yesterday’s outing. But it was such an enjoyable experience that I decided it was blog-worthy. Especially because, for the first time ever, I got some decent photos of the amazing roses there. Continue Reading
I shot some photos in the garden the other day. All were snapped within a 10-foot radius of each other, although I shot half while looking down and the other half while looking up. The ‘down’ shots were taken in the middle of the afternoon and the ‘up’ shots were taken at sunset.
There’s no need to search high and low for beauty around here. It’s everywhere you look.
LOW
Tiny wildflower.
This post was supposed to be about a photowalk. Most of you know that I’m part of the Joburg Photowalkers; last Saturday we did a walk around St. John’s College, the oldest prep school in Jozi. It’s a beautiful campus — very Dead Poets Society. It was a lovely place to explore and I enjoyed it.
The courtyard at St. John’s. It was a Saturday, unfortunately, so there were no cute high school boys walking around in jackets and ties.
As I edited through my pictures of St. John’s, I realized this post should be about something else. Or rather someone else. This post is about Joe. Continue Reading
Part 3 of a 3-part series about the Cederberg Heritage Route. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
When I left off, my travel companions and I had spent a magical evening in the village of Hugel-Bugel (a.k.a. Heuningvlei). We awoke early the next morning for the final installment of our Cederberg adventure: a hike across Krakadouw Pass.
Our guide for the day was Abraham, an ageless, salt-of-the-earth kind of man. Abraham has lived in Heuningvlei all his life. He has worked tirelessly to encourage conservation and responsible tourism in the Cederberg.
Abraham.
Flowers bloom easily and frequently in Joburg. But they don’t always bloom for long.
The blooms on wild irises, also known as Dietes grandiflora, open gloriously for one day. The next day the blossom is shriveling, and the day after that it’s completely gone.
We have several large clumps of wild irises in our back garden and yesterday they all bloomed at once. I had my camera ready. Continue Reading
I’m leaving town for a few days and probably won’t have internet access. Before I go, I want to share a few recent pictures from the garden at the Lucky 5 Star.
Before moving to South Africa, the only aloes I’d ever seen were aloe vera plants — droopy house plants that people keep around for when they burn themselves.
Here there are hundreds of different kinds of aloes, ranging from small, cabbage-sized plants to massive trees. I’ve also recently learned that aloes grow tall, flaming orange blooms in early winter. Continue Reading
Joe and I needed a to get away. But we didn’t have much money or time to get away with.
So last weekend we decided to take a short trip to Magaliesburg, just an hour or so from Joburg, and spend the night at a B&B. I was excited at the prospect of getting away from the city, albeit for a short while, to relax in the sunshine and frolic in grassy mountain meadows.
We awoke on Saturday morning to leaden gray skies and chilly pouring rain. Ew. The weather forecast predicted little change for the rest of the weekend. We nearly opted not to go at all, but we’d already put down a deposit. So we went and I’m glad we did. Continue Reading
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