Tuesday, 1 September '09: Happy Spring Day from My World

Today we celebrate the first day of spring although the vernal equinox is still about three weeks away. This year, after a particularly chilly winter, Spring Day in My World has dawned warm and sunny with a high of 30 degrees Celsius predicted. Straight out of the winter woollies into sandals and short sleeves! Spring means my garden is transformed into a spectacle of orange as the indigenous clivia miniata bloom and the tiny lilac blossoms on the buddlia draw the bees.

I divided the clumps of clivia in autumn and have made several new beds. Some gardeners say clivia take four years to bloom again after division. Not mine!

Watering began early this morning.

I live on a busy street - who would guess?

This is better than the gloomy underworld, isn't it Persephone?

Primulas add a note of purple.

The roses are shooting and the compost is rich and home-made.

Visit others in other climes at My World Tuesday.

Thursday, 6 August '09: Jasmine: the first scent of spring

What smell heralds spring in my experience? Undoubtedly, it is the sweet almost cloying scent of the jasmine. Those of us living in Guateng were shocked out of our complacency this year as we consistently experienced the coldest weather we have had for some years. Early mornings the lows hovered around zero; the days, sunny and clear, only reached 15 or 16 degrees. So I was overjoyed to see the first pinkish-white blossoms on the fence around the bowling club in William Drive. The blossoms from this little twig fill my kitchen with powerful perfume. And I know spring can't be far off.

10 October, 2008: Cloudless skywatching over Pretoria

Cloudless skies over the geometric shapes of the buildings of my alma mater and the university where I have been teaching for twenty-two years. The University of South Africa, fondly known as UNISA to hundreds of thousands of alumni, including Nelson Mandela.

The admin block at Unisa. Teaching is done through distance education (mainly print, but rapidly changing to hi-tech).

Pretoria lies in a mauve haze as the jakaranda trees flaunt their glorious blossoms in honour of Persephone. In the far distance are the stately sandstone Union Buildings, the seat of the administrative section of the government of South Africa.

The skyline of down town Pretoria where shoppers bustle under mauve pools of shade.

The view from the 10th floor of the Theo van Wjik Building at Unisa.

Now what to do under skies so blue? Gal finds working tedious on such a magnificent day and takes to the pool in Thatchwick's backgarden for a little exercise.

Not true to his water-loving breed, Trist prefers to look on with just a hint of a tolerant smile.

Thank you all Skywatchers and good blog friends for popping in to enjoy my part of the world! Now I am off to enjoy yours!

Monday, 15 September: Blue Monday ecetera

A ground cover in the garden welcomes Monday with its little blue flowers. The air is heady with perfume - flowering trees and shrubs are everywhere. Here on the Highveld, it is dry, dry, dry. We are more or less entirely dependent on rain to fill the dams and provide water. Yet the dusty landscape has just come alive, more or less, without a drop of rain since April.

First the syringas blossom - the lilac blooms enchant and give the allergy-prone folk the most awful hayfever.

Marais Street a block away from Thatchwick and part of my dogwalk route. The bare jakarandas touch branches. In just a week or two this grey canopy of twigs will be purple-mauve blossoms.

Ever seen buttercups growing on a tree? The tippuana tipu at Uncle Tim's. All these trees are non-indigeneous, unfortunately.

Thank you to all the great bloggers who visited me in the last week. I am hopelessly behind in answering blog comments. Will get there! But now for the poems promised. For Willow and Lavinia who confessed their quirks, two fun poems by Ogden Nash.

The porcupine

Any hound a porcupine nudges

Can't be blamed for harbouring grudges

I know one hound that laughed all winter

At a porcupine that sat on a splinter.

The shark

How many scientists have written

The shark is as gentle as a kitten!

Yet I know about the shark:

His bite is worser than his bark.

For Pamela and her princely Edward, Robert Louis Stevenson on invisible friends:

The unseen playmate

When children are playing alone on the green

In comes the playmate that never was seen.

When children are happy and lonely and good,

The Friend of the children comes out of the woood.

Nobody heard him and nobody saw,

His is a picture you never could draw,

But he's sure to be present, abroad or at home,
When children are happy and playing alone.

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,

Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;

'Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin

That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed

Bids you do to your sleep and not trouble your head

For wherever they're lying in cupboard or shelf,

'Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

Saturday, 30 August: Spring today, summer tomorrow

Suddenly bougainvillas blaze red, purple, brick, white.

Coral trees (Erythina caffra) burst into red flame. Clivias delight but only for a few short weeks.

My oak is too impatient for the last withered leaf to fall. The tender green leaves unfurl overnight, pushing the dry foilage off the branches, littering the courtyard.

Petunia trees line streets in more delicate pink and white. By mid morning the blue sky is hazy with fine dust swirled around by late August winds.

Last weekend I was in winter woolies; this Saturday I am in sandals, camisoles and cotton skirts. Pass the suncream, darl!

Soon it will be the jakarandas and the breathless wait for the early rains.

Nothing in South Africa comes in half measures - the bad and the good; the ugly and the glorious; the hope and the sometimes despair. That is why those of us who have chosen the beloved country as our forever home love it so much with old-fashioned passion, commitment and faith.

God bless South Africa and grant her and her people peace!
N'kosi sikelele, Africa!

Written in exile from South Africa

Hibiscus was red

(It grew by my window)

And salvia,

Pointsettias

The spikes of aloes,

And the coral tree

In flaring splendour.

Here there are flowers,

Frail lives of loveliest name,

Daffodils, primroses, daisies,

Fritillaries, buttercups.

But nowhere in England,

That pagan colour,

Nowhere that red

That flamed by my window.

by Charles Ould.