JUST ME :: and a stack of blank pages

:: Living creatively ::

About me

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is. I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Echeveria imbricata


Ink sketch and watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour sketch-book – 8″ × 5″

I’m absolutely mad about Echeverias and have a small section in my garden set aside just for them. My collection started off in the late 70’s when my father gave me three rosettes in a pot, which I transplanted into a rockery and soon they covered the whole area. Since then I have given away hundreds to friends, the geese got out of the pond area and made a hearty meal of them and they’ve survived many of the severe frosts we get in our area.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Autumn reds


Black ink sketch with colour wash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Autumn – The colourful month of May filled with red daisies and orange leaves.


Monday, February 8, 2016

Spring splendour


Black ink sketch with colourwash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book
It is somehow extremely satisfying doodling with ink and colour!

Spring is always a celebration of new light green leaves on the Celtis africana (Stinkwood tree) and sunny Euryops daisies.





Saturday, February 6, 2016

Fickle (and no, it’s not a plant!)

I sit here before the world, a very fickle person. Somehow I thought that I would be able to quit having so many blogs (I’ve got 28!), keeping only those important to me and deleting the rest. In stead, I make most “private” every now and then, but just for a while before making it public again, confusing the hell out of Google Analytics! On and off. On and off.

The problem is, I can’t stand to see a “public” blog just lying there, with the last post being a year ago. One of my pet peeves is finding a wonderful blog, only to discover that it has been abandoned. I know that one changes, that one loses interest in a certain topic. That’s life. Life changes constantly and what I was interested in five years ago might not be applicable now anymore. But why don’t people then just delete it? Why don’t I just delete it, especially those that don’t get many hits and don’t seem to interest anybody?

One reason could be that I want to keep the blog URL. Once you delete it, it’s gone forever. Another reason is that I just LOVE designing blog templates. I get great pleasure out of designing and manipulating the html code to see what I can come up with. And once I come up with something I like, I don’t want to let go of it! Another problem is, I have s-o-o-o-o-o-o many interests. Art, nature, gardening, jewelry making, collecting aloes and succulents, books and reading, insects, cooking (only of late), animals and wildlife, birds, my chickens, and thoughts on the Universe as a whole. And I’ve got enough thoughts and experiences for each topic to warrant its own blog. I’ve thought of putting everything on just one blog, but I’ve been told that blog readers are very specific. They have their topics and interests, and only want to read about that. So if you’re a chicken-lover and there are many other posts on all sorts of other random topics, they don’t return to that blog.

Another part of the problem as to why I can’t delete any blogs might also be that, in real life, I’m a hoarder. Don’t get me wrong, not as in those “Hoarders” TV programmes, but as in “collecting” things - feathers, stones, pebbles, pieces of driftwood, shells, notebooks, journals, fountain pens, crystals, pieces of wire and wood (there’s always some building project going on somewhere here on the smallholding, so just in case I need it), even cardboard boxes, in case I need to pack something away.

In the décor of my home I’m quite disciplined - I won’t display too much at one time, rather pack away a few things and bring out something new for a change. So there I’m OK, but my MAC is groaning under the weight of files, images, blogs and other useless information that I’ve collected over the years. A lot of it is necessary, like business and personal files, and as for the rest, it’s time for a clean-up. Fairly easy to do, just a bit time-consuming, but then, the internet is so full of wonderful stuff that needs collecting again! Thank heavens Blogger allows you 100 free blogs! lol!

Would you like to see all sorts of other random topics on this gardening blog…? Let me have your thoughts, thanks!

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Friday, February 5, 2016

Daisy love in Spring

Watercolour in my Moleskine 200gsm watercolour paper Nature Journal 

FLOWERS ARE ONE OF THE GREATEST INSPIRATIONS FROM NATURE!

Every Spring I revel in the masses of daisies that appear in one corner of my garden – no matter how cold the Winter has been, they’re the first to welcome the warmer weather with their beautiful colours!