March 10, 2008 – Africantapestry

Being in slow motion and double speed at the same time is simply tough. My body is with me back here in France, at home, and moving at double time, inspired to get things done and make changes and take on projects, looking good after being sunkissed and feeling good after all the eating?? and yet, it still remains familiar in the mirror. My spirit is still roaming somewhere in the southern hemisphere, not willing to let go of the long summer days, the lingering evenings, the dew filled mornings, the sound of breaking waves, the call of the cows to their calves, the unquiet silence of breathings in the bush. Not that it is bad being home. It is just getting mind and body to function as one again. In the present. Remembering yesterday, but living today.

The Cape is home to an estimated 7000 species of Cape fynbos of which I only know a handful. The sketches below are not even a glimpse of what there is….life got to too much fun and stopping for a sketch got to too hard – too many friends, too much to do, too little time to sketch. The few sketches that I did manage to get my hand on, were all done in my sketchbook, 19x25cm, with pen and watercolor.

The oak tree is not indigenous, but is synonym with Stellenbosch where they tower in all their majesty and grace. When we lived there years ago, I would frequently walk to town to do my shopping and would bring home an acorn every time. When we left for the UK, I sadly had to let go of many years’ collection of acorns… And of course the Aloe, well known for its health properties.

The protea, our national flower and one of my alltime favorite flowers/shrubs and the graceful Agapanthus, plentiful in every garden.

And then there is the widespread Felicias growing on the coasts, with their small blue flowers, succulents like Tertragonias with their thick glistening leaves, and hyobanches, tinted in deep reds and browns, the abundant Delosperma. And we had our own table by the shore among the flora on the sandshores, where we would sit with a coffee every morning, just taking in every thing that our eye could capture and where the view was never the same.