File under things that make me happy

Last weekend, I went second-hand shopping and bought a box. The next day, I bought vegetables and herbs to plant in it. Today, I raided a friend's compost heap and brought back enough soil to fill the box and plant our treasures. Here it is, with chillies, rocket, thyme, basil, and lettuce. And a few roses just for fun.

Sometimes, memories are just that

As I was approaching Chicago's iconic public library last week, my camera battery died. I was devastated. I learned a hard lesson that day: it was the first time in ages that I was just taking in the sights for myself, rather than documenting them to show to other people. It reminded me of an article I read a while ago about creating our 'virtual shadow':

"My concern is that we seem more and more focused on creating these anchors of memory – FourSquare check-ins, status updates, and so on. Unfortunately, the tools we use to create our modern anchors of memory, like the smartphone, require a level of multitasking that takes us away from the very experience we’re trying so hard to capture! It is the ultimate irony."

Sobering words and definitely worth remembering when you're travelling. Sometimes, memories are just for the traveller. 

It happened, we promise

I'm in the USA at the moment for two and a half weeks of lectures and library tours. 

A few friends and I were touring DC on foot a few days ago when we came across a fox. Having walked for hours, we were fairly hysterical with exhaustion, so at first we thought that our eyes were deceiving us. You don't see foxes where we come from. You surely shouldn't see foxes in the city in the US? Who knows. We decided to document the evidence by taking a pic. 

This is the result:

Appreciation

Today's pic taken with my Blackberry.

I spent three mornings last week attending a training course on middle campus. I work on upper campus, so I took the opportunity to walk there and back. I think everyone at UCT should be required to do this once in a while. I studied here and I've worked here for almost 20 years, but I'll never get tired of just how stunning it is.

Jasmine

Time was, when people talked about their gardens, I'd go into screensaver mode. Gardens didn't excite me. What possible enjoyment could you get from watching grass grow?

Times have changed. My garden is my haven. It's lush and green and often produces things we can eat. I get very excited about it now and probably bore a lot of people talking about it.

This picture makes me very happy. The smell of jasmine reminds me of my childhood. On the way to school, we used to walk past a garden that had a jasmine bush and around September, the smell of it would reach us long before we even got to that garden. I'd pick a few flowers and have them on my desk to cheer me up.

I'd tried for years (granted, half-heartedly) to grow jasmine, but never quite succeeded. The jasmine bush in this picture has taken off and is thriving right next to my front door. On sunny, calm days, we can leave the door open and the smell drifts through the house. Very happy-making.

Snakes in a house

Saw this while walking around Muizenberg over the weekend. I'm getting the impression that these people don't want imposters on their property...

Celebration

This is Belinda, my best friend in the world. She also happens to be my sister. When we were kids, we hated each other sometimes and had physical fights. My dad has said that he could never quite understand our relationship when we were younger, because at times it sounded like we were about to kill each other and just as he was about to intervene, he'd walk in and we'd be giggling madly at something.

It's pretty much the same now.

Belinda has been battling a horrible illness for the past 3 years. She's been through hell with it and so have I. You'd never have said it last night, though. Last night, we celebrated her mmmph7th birthday. She got all dressed up and looked gorgeous (obviously) and we laughed madly at stupid stuff.

Happy birthday, mad sis. There's no one in the world quite like you.