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….

Window on Wednesday

Actually today it is a house as well as the window…I love everything about this house….I would have loved to visit the inside….but I imagine what it may be like…

Window on Wednesday

…at the slave fort on Bunce island….

Some information about the island and the fort:

Bunce Island is located about 20miles upriver from Freetown and is the site of an 18th century British slave castle. Although a small island only about 1650 feet long and 350 feet wide, its strategic position at the limit of navigation in Africa's largest natural harbour made it an ideal base for European slave merchants and was the largest British slave castle on the Rice Coast. African farmers with rice-growing skills were kidnapped from inland areas were sold at the castle or at one of its many "outfactories" (trading posts) along the coast before being transported to North America. Several thousand slaves from Bunce Island were taken to the ports of Charleston (South Carolina) and Savannah (Georgia) during the second half of the 18th century.

Sadly the site of the old fort is in a very sad state and there is absolutely no visible evidence of the old town and new town shown as on the map above. The cemetery not shown on the map is just a sandy opening in the quite dense bush. One or two head stones have “survived” and lay in pieces scattered on what were once graves. We were able to make out on one of the head stones; a Governor at the fort had arrived when he was 35, he died aged 60…we wondered if he ever returned to England for a break…we came to the conclusion that perhaps he did not…

a collage of what remains…

Window on Wednesday

looking into the light……

Stumbling…..

I seem to do a lot of this lately…sometimes the stumble ends in disaster and injury and sometimes it is pure pleasure….tranquillity…inspiration…colours…peace….

just look at that door in the background….

The Grand Bazar - Turkey

A symphony of colour….

Window on Wednesday - Turkey

…a little window looking out on a terrace….

Window on Wednesday….reflections in Salisbury Cathedral

 

We have had the most wonderful two weeks wondering around the UK….the weather has been sunny and warm…one of our stops was the Salisbury Cathedral…This water font in the centre of the cathedral caught my imagination….I love water in doors as well as out….I especially like the very stillness of this water creating a wonderful mirror reflection the stained glass window above….

My Ghana bead stash…

Before I left for Ghana a friend told me about the huge bead market that assembles outside a town called Koforidua…upon my arrival in Ghana I started making enquiries about this market…some people did not know what I was talking about ….some people said yes they had heard of this market but did not know how to get there and then there was the information from the High Commission driver who informed me that to take a taxi to this market was going to cost a lot of money…he said I could take the buss but in view of the fact that I was new to Ghana and did not know where I was going he was not sure I should venture out on my own…so sadly the bead market will have to wait for another visit…maybe….
But with beads on my mind I did venture into town where I found some beads being sold by vendors on the pavements…I also visited the craft village somewhere near the hotel we were staying in and have to say that I was ripped off totally…the long string of blue “disc” shaped beads set me back £30 where as the selection of other beads picture here cost me less than £10….but I am happy with my little stash and the mind is racing with ideas of what to do with them….

Accra Ghana…..

Today we were retracing foot steps….my dearly beloved’s foot steps…we visited the Aburi Botanical gardens…where as a very young boy, he and his parents would visit for a day out….now nearly fifty years later…nothing is familiar and yet everything is familiar….

 

Red and green... beautiful African colours....

Survival of the fittest or in this case the persistant....

A wonderful morning spent wandering around the gardens...

......only in Africa!