February flowers: small things

Lenten rose and crocus.

Witch hazels tomorrow...

Other lives

Photo: Bevan Christie

A while ago I received an email from my friend Bevan, in Istanbul. It made me very hungry. He gave me his permission to post it. So that others could be made hungry, too.

The pictures are of his "hokkie" (Afrikaans for cage - the kind of thing we kept our rabbits in when we were little), actually a shepherd's cottage in the south of Turkey, near Fethiye, that he restored for himself - since he usually restores for others - and to which he retreats when retreat is necessary. I saw it one year when it was all falling down and quite uninhabitable. It is different now. It is still in the middle of an olive grove.

"Lovely time in London with R and H who love eating even more than you and I.

"Notable foods: fried sweetbreads mixed with baby green beans and mint; mallard with red cabbage and lentils (it is winter); Spanish broken eggs which contained potatoes, chorizo and prawns; rhubarb trifle; eel with beetroot; quince sorbet with rhubarb; and a beautiful dish of risotto with squid ink and bits of sea animals embedded.

"...Here at a newly found kebabci had a salad of stoned little green olives, walnuts, shredded red peppers and heaps of parsley with pomegranate syrup, and one of just parsley, very little blanched onion, slivered red peppers and loads of sumac accompanying a mince kebab, the mince containing finely chopped garlic, red peppers (hot) onion and parsley.

"Last night made a dish of red baked quinces to be eaten with buffalo cream. Tomorrow going to my hokkie in the country for a week, to eat other things."

Sob.

Photo: Bevan Christie

And of the rose with archaeological finds: "The rose is one of those impossibly heavily scented ones that the locals make jam of."

And this just a couple of weeks ago. Impossibly heavily scented Turkish roses.

Witch hazel and friends

Off to the BBG to look for witch- and winter hazels, and winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima). I incorporated quite a few into designs for gardens last year and like to see when exactly they bloom in the ground (as opposed to the roof/terrace garden). Pity there's no snow. They look so good in snow.

This is last year at the Brooklyn foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, at the end of Cadman Plaza.

Tuesdays are free admission (or donation) days at the BBG.

Dawn on the terrace

Dune 45

We drove back into Sossusvlei late one afternoon, to see the dunes in a different, un-dawn light; through the gates near camp, handing our permit to the perennially suspicious guard. The same man who checked us in pre-dawn the previous day was the man on duty late this afternoon - a very long shift if he'd been on duty all day. The gates only close at 8.30pm.

This was an odd thing: whenever any permit was inspected, great suspicion rose in almost visible layers from the person reading the document. In the end I decided that the problem was one of literacy. Or its lack. It was very strange.

A small gang of bokkies welcomed us.

And off we went, having reached the (too?) accessible dune. There were a couple of people ahead of us. But I have read that "in season" in winter, there may 100 ahead of you. God. It makes you not want to climb in those footsteps, which is an amazing arrogance, in its way. It's OK for me to be here, but not for you. Even if you're Spanish and drove all the way from Spain. 'Strue.

The leg of my husband. It's a nice leg.

I sat down once we reached the summit. My shoes were full of sand again and I was wobbly: afraid of heights, you see. So I sent him on while I sat at sandblasting level and tried to take pictures without ruining my lens.

The sand is very soft, and very pleasant to touch, when it isn't stinging. I felt very bad to be messing it up. Thinking of all sorts of ecological setbacks we might be causing.

But, wow. The beauty.

I can't wait to see Vincent's pictures. He was so happy. Having dreamed about this place since he was a boy.

Photographing the oldest desert in the world.

I sat for quite a long time.

And decided to take a sideways route down. I could have skiied.

On the dune's flanks, grasses like fur.

Lizard tracks - tail in the middle.

The dune's foot.

Vince charging down, while I mixed our G&T's at the car.

We sipped, tasting quinine and juniper and lemon and ice, and watched the sand colouring anew as the sun set. We managed to break both our glasses by balancing them on the car's running board and opening the doors.

And headed home to a braai, the barking geckos, and a jackal in the firelight.

Misty Cliffs

One day in Cape Town we drove from home to Misty Cliffs, about 35 minutes away, on a beautiful stretch of the peninsula where the water is always intensely turquoise. Pounding breakers and some mountain effect create a salt haze in the air, seen from a distance. Hence the Misty part of the Cliffs.

We timed our arrival for low tide, because we wanted to collect mussels from the rocks. I'd even bought a proper permit at the post office. In previous years I'm afraid I just helped myself.

Apart from the mussels we became fascinated by the other life on the rocks. There were massive colonies of sea anemones, all tight shut and looking like sanded donuts on the rock sides. The tide, when it started to come in, came in fast, and so we saw our mussel area transform from sand to swirling pools, and the inert anemones slowly come to life, one neon tentacle at a time.

Our collection spots, so accessible before, became completely covered by strong sea, so we retreated with a full bucket with sea water to keep the poor mussels cool, and climbed back up to the road to the hot VW bus, our ride when not in the Landcruiser in the desert.

Down the road a bit is Scarborough, another small settlement billing itself as a Conservation Village with summer and year round houses and another lovely beach, and we stopped just ahead of it to explore more rock pools that looked promising.

On a hot summer day there was no one else in sight.

The mussels, once scrubbed and added to a white wine and a mire poix stock, were very good. This is a picture of them just after I added them to the pot.

Album Cover

m.heart's post inspired, and it's a lot of fun, and quite spooky, if you want it to be.

To create your own band name and album cover, do the following, per her instructions:

1. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

What is Solum? Per Wikipedia entry:

"The solum (plural, sola) in soil science consists of the surface and subsoil layers that have undergone the same soil forming conditions. The base of the solum is the relatively unweathered parent material, termed substratum."

Flickr pic here.

Now I just have to write the music.