Home sweet home

I have returned to my parents' home for a few weeks while I get my plans ready for my overseas adventure. Oh yes, haven't mentioned that yet. I am going away until further notice. The primary reason for the birth of this blog actually. Staying at home has been a reflective time, since it's the place where my first relationship started, and now it's the place I came to after my longest relationship ended. Funny that. It's a place for drawing, full of my mother's watercolours, snoozing pets, soft fabrics, a mix of African masks, Russian icons and Indian relics, collected over the years from my parents' travels, and a healthy population of rock pigeons nesting in all the possible nook and crannies available to them. A place that I will always come back to.

The hues of Beaulieu

I had to move from a cottage I called home a week ago. It truly had a healing presence and it broke my quiet heart a little to leave it behind. Soft hues, quiet walks and morning shades I woke up to. How I will miss them.

Butterflies and roses

"If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies." A quaint thought as I visited Ludwig's Roses the other day, on the way to Polokwane. Such a hidden-away gem, where I came across newly-born butterflies, rose mojitos, rosehip, mint and hibiscus infused tea with gingerale and grenadine (nom!), rose condiments and of course, roses.. 

Gazing maven ponders..

 Via piccsy

Gazing Maven says:

Love life, not stuff.

I came across this interesting read from Zen Habits recently, as I am currently downsizing my life of things, as I plan to backpack for a few month. When you have made the decision to uproot, store your things, and travel, you discover and learn the need to keep only the most important things and discard/give away/donate the rest (usually to the SPCA or Sungardens Hospice). It has been liberating, although hard at times, coming from a line of collectors in the family.

Cute as a button

Guess who I met the other day.. The cutest, smallest, pocket-sized pony aptly named Shrimp. Never far away was his big brother, alongside lazy chickens, dogs, geese and tail-wagging ducks. Have you ever seen anything cuter? And that fringe. I'm finished! What a treasure this home is. Thank you Marcelle for letting me meet some of your beautiful family members :-)

Welcome winter

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."