The Color Purple To The Power Of 5 Is Called Jacaranda

A street in Southernwood in East London

You can say these are just purple petals.

But on the other hand I think it's a completely mystical experience in bright day-light to walk under these trees when in blossom.

My Companion

You might have noticed a slight change in scenery lately. After 5 years in Africa, without having been to the Old World, I spent a holiday of six weeks in Europe. 

One week and one day for every year spent in the South. 

This was my beloved companion. The 30 year old orange Peugeot bicycle of my mother. It was released from it's uncomfortable and dusty position under the garage roof, where it has been tied up for decades. My brother's friend Olli gave him tender love and care. Bless you Olli !

My companion was allowed to roam free again.

You could almost hear him sigh.

And believe me: to what places of wild and un-tamed beauty I was driven !

Into the woods and over the land.!

Where the trees are known to someone by their very own personal name

A STRONG DESIRE

A strong desire to go up can not be suppressed.

And must be satisfied

no matter the cost

IN A TIGHT EMBRACE

I Learned To Look Closer

I do not like to combine things in pairs and create symmetry. But I like those two raindrops. They compliment each other.

A friend asked me the other day: Where to you get all these motifs from for your photos? How do you see all these things ? 

The answer is easy. I have traveled all my life and lived in different countries. And I have enjoyed this tremendously. It was my daily bread and I have treasured each and every experience.
Since I have set up my own business I have no more time to travel like before and all the income earned is re-channeled into the business.

So I said to myself: Let's go and look what there is to see!. Let's go and see what there is right in front of  my eyes. !

And there is so much just in front of my eyes. I only had to walk ten meters to see amazing things.

I LEARNED TO LOOK CLOSER BECAUSE I COULD NOT GO SO FAR ANYMORE. 

And in the end that was the best thing that could happen. Cause now I can see.

Botticellis's Clouds

I was very lucky to be in  the right place at the right time to see the clouds of Botticelli's paintings.A couple of days ago I saw them right in front of my eyes on a stormy African afternoon. I am a lucky soul because I love Botticelli and I love clouds.

This was a sky like in a picture book with a renaissance flair to it. Beauty overload. 

This photograph is not digitally enhanced. The curve of clouds had exactly the same orange fiery red color as in the photo.

You can buy my prints in my Etsy shop as well:   Chocolat Negro Recycled Design and Art

MY OLD CASSUARINA TREE

Of the Cassuarina Tree they say that if you take in a boat with you a piece of it, be it ever so small contrary winds will arise to impede your journey or storms to imperil your life.

They say also that if you stand in its shadow by the light of the full moon you will hear, whispered mysteriously in its dark ramage, the secrets of the future.

These facts have been never disputed; but they say also that when in the wide estuaries the mangrove has in due time reclaimed the swampy land from the water the Cassuarina Tree plants itself and in its turn settles, solidifies and fertilizes the soil till it is ripe for more varied and luxuriant growth; and then having done its work, dies down before the ruthless encroachment of the myriad denizens of the jungle.

(William Somerset Maugham introduction to his novel The Cassuarina Tree)

These are very old Cassuarina Trees in Cape Vidal Nature Reserve in the St.Lucia Wetlands Park in South-Africa close to the border of Mozambique. It was there in that exact place that I have seen them for the first time and I did not know their name. A friend from Brazil told me their beautiful melodic name " Cassuarina ".

Trees are like big brothers and I have always felt they give you energy when you lean with your back against them or sit under them.

They always have their arms wide open for you like this old wild fig tree in a dried up river bed in Umfolozi Game Reserve in South-Africa.

Soon the rivers will fill with water and will run wild but this tree will stand another season and another and another...... with arms wide open for you

Arms wide open giving you shade...

Impressions of an hour

La Vie est belle souvent, mais tu dois regarder...
( I was told by a friend in Mauritania)

From time to time I like to do a little experiment. I sit back and imagine a friend had called me and requested that I show him the wonders of life in just an hour's time. I invite you to come with us today. Let me show you what I found.

At first I would show my friend this night-moth comfortably resting on my window since the early morning hours. A lucid light turquoise colored beauty.

Then, the wind breathing clouds onto the bright-blue canvas of the sky. The blue of the sky is sometimes so strong and bright that it can make you dizzy.

Until the blue has lost and it's color has been weakened and is shining through only occasionally through a crocheted-like cloud cloth.

Freshly cooked steaming hot pasta is one of the greatest wonders of life for me. Bless Italy. With oil, garlic and Parmesan. Perfect.

A while ago a big old beautiful tree had been cut in one of the alleys of my town. I took some of the cut-off rings home and painted them white. They have now a new life as rests for books and cups and glasses. But one wanted more. A seed has found new life in old matter.

I would not forget to show my friend the roots of a giant tree in my garden.

An adventurous and exhausted beetle caught on his back in a glass vase. The extended breath of god has saved him in the form of my hand.

A cat-child in deep and peaceful sleep on my couch.

Child or Cat? Cat-child. Peace from within.

And the last thing my friend has to see in this hour are the new swallow-nests in some old dusty enamel pots stored on a shelf on the veranda. It is the second year that the swallows have been using these pots as nests.

There are 8 swallows nests all over the house.

And You Have To Talk To Them

This is one of the coolest places, a living room outside in nature with a Bougainvillae and Flamboyant roof of blinding violet and red where most of the meals are taken in summer if it is not raining.

 

Sometimes a ray of sunshine comes through

The living room roof

Further down in the garden..

It's summer now, thanks, my favourite time of the year, and while I am sitting here and uploading theses pictures I am listening to Just Ginger and their song Shallow Waters on the radio while the cat Lucinda Engele is lying in front of me on my desk blocking the keyboard with her head and looking at me with watery green eyes. It's a perfect song for this hot day. A perfect day for a cat as well.

I am blessed with an exceptional old unmanicured lush garden that ressembles a jungle in many places. The trees and plants are decades old, unique organic characters and when the wind goes it seems like as if they are whispering and in constant interaction with each other. When the sun is breaking through the branches it's like a magic secret place.

My father says always : you have to speak to them. I don't do that very often . But they grow without me very well because they like this spot.

AND BY NO COINCIDENCE I found a fascinating book the other day in a junk shop called " The Secret life of plants" by Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird.

It teaches you that they, the old characters, have the ability to communicate with man. That they adapt to human wishes, respond to music, that they have curative powers. It is fascinating account of the physical, emotional and spiritual relations between plants and man.
That they even anticipate and know before when their branches are being cut.
I hope they don't mind me playing Aerosmith in the morning when everbody is gone.

My Father's Flowers Are Always With Me

This is the chair everybody is ready to fight for. It stands right at the edge of the verandah overlooking the green valley. It is a dreamer's place and it has two beautiful arm-rests to place a cup of coffee or a glass of wine on top. It is my father's chair.

Once a year my father comes from a colder Northern country to visit me. He knows the secret life of plants.

Once here, he plants and replants, transfers flowers and bushes from one place to another, talks to them and convinces them that they should grow where he places their roots in the grounds. He heals and cures the damage inflicted to the plants through my neglect during the year.

He made the lavender and roses grow into giants in the shortest of time.

My father's flowers are always there and remind me of him when he's gone.

I found these little fellows in a junk shop in town.

My family and the friends, who have been staying in December with me for a while know him or her well. The Flamboyant in my garden "called Auguste ". Him or her, because somebody explained to me that this tree can be male and female at the same time. Not a bad choice I think. But I like to think of Auguste as a male.
Every year when the South African summer approaches, after windy and stormy days, he delivers the same spectacular show. Auguste, against an azure-blue sky becomes blindingly beautiful in his bright red flower dress. He enchants us.

Auguste is particular about the way he blossoms. Starting on one side, he blossoms in a very orderly manner from one side to the other. No, it is not a simple tree like the others. It's Auguste. He takes all the time that is necessay to become beautiful.