September....2014...Beijing

I wanted to do this in 1st September but....I don't know...".time waits for no man" or woman in this instance...

In the South of this planet...the 1st September is the first day of SPRING! New beginnings....alas in the North of this planet (where I find myself now) it means winter is on its way.....:-(

I am really dreading the winter, it is so bleak and it saddens the soul....however in all this gloom there is a bright sunny sunflower of warmth as I will be spending Christmas with this little man and his Mommy and Daddy in the land of my birth.....

My grandson born 21st July 2014.....

Passwords.....

A necessary inconvenience but when it has been forgotten so difficult to remember.....at last however I have managed to sort out a new one....so here I am back in blogger land and blogging from the other side of the the world.....in the land of the rising sun.....

This is post 130...

...13days to go until we leave.....looking forward to what the rest of 2013 holds....

After the rain…..

….a couple of days ago we had the most violent storm…tragedy everywhere..venturing out of the house I noticed this…

while focusing on this I was distracted by a movement on the leaf above….

this little chap was giving me the beady eye….

on closer inspection….I just love the smiley face and the long lash on the second set of eyes….

Window on Wednesday

this picture was taken a couple of years in Montague, Cape, South Africa…on holiday with the new love of my life who is now my husband….

….very fond memories….

Space vs. Home?

….reading Jude’s post on space has got me thinking about home…an elusive space for me…

I think I was born a nomad..I was always on the move when I was young… even when I wasn't..in my youth I travelled in my mind, through books and documentary programs…my feet itched as my mind wandered to destinations beyond my reach…but life, as I chose it, kept me chained to a home…

 

…this is where my wanderlust began in 1968…the garden was expansive….. and….. we had a swimming pool…my imagination ran riot…I also learned to ride a bicycle in this garden (beyond the house we had half an acre of ground)…for the first time we had animals…two dogs…Lassie (an Alsatian) and Twinkle (a Pointer)….i watched this house grow from the ground…to me this was “our dream home”….how wrong could a family be…….my mother left this house….without so much as a goodbye…my life was turned upside-down…my father burned all my childhood memories on the “heap” at the far end of the garden…saving an envelope filled with guilt memories which he sent to my grandmother (my mother’s mother)….at least that’s what I think…because years later going through old photographs in my mothers new house with her new family…i came across this and other pictures…i took them and for a long time brooded over them….looking for “the dream home” that she shattered on the day she left….

…but looking at the house then and now (by courtesy of Google earth)…life moves on and looking at this has made me realise….it is about flipping time i did too….sometimes one needs to see it in pictures….I'm that kind of person….

this is not home…this is not my home space….

(mmm something just occurred to me…my father made security gates for the house and once they were erected i remember a conversation he had with a fellow neighbour in the local supermarket…the neighbour had commented that our house now looked like “Fort Knox”….i wonder what he would make of all the barbed wire on the gate and fence today)

a break in the rain….

Aberdeen is visible again…clean…sparkly…looking like a new pin….

just look at this day….one can hardly believe that yesterday it was so dark in my studio, I had to have the light on…the window is open today…the sound of the gardeners busy in the garden is bombarding my eardrums…they are cutting the grass. I always wait to smell the sweet smell of freshly cut grass….but am always disappointed because there is no smell at all…

this is a jasmine plant…plenty of flowers but no fragrance not even in the evening…just look how the gardener has hacked it with his machete…no matter how many times I tell them not to touch it this is what they do…defiance! The consolation is that in a month that will have grown back with interest so I don’t let it bother me….too much….anymore….!

Window on a very wet Wednesday….

…..view from the window of my “studio”….

It started to rain last night and has not stopped….Aberdeen is cloaked in a shroud of rain…those are burglar bars not prison bars…although sometimes…like today….I feel imprisoned….

….241 days to Beijing….

Window on Wednesday

…decorated by the elements…
…..259 days to Beijing…..

Going potty….

..is one way of using up scraps or “minestrone” as Kaite you can see more minestrone here…

Some weeks ago I finished crocheting a blanket using bamboo yarn….

I really enjoyed working with this yarn…sadly there was not much yarn left over….

….. but enough to inspire these little pots….

my pot collection is growing rapidly as I am on a “minestrone” clear out drive….we have recently heard that our next posting is Beijing ….so I have to reduce my stash before we leave in April next year…

Caught in a web….

…..at first glance I thought this was a single butterfly already consumed by the spider and what i was seeing was it remains….but further observation revealed….

that there were indeed two butterflies….I felt really sad….lovers caught in a web…..