in the African night

On Sunday evening I did a most beautiful thing with a dearest friend. 

Another outdoor movie. This time on a picnic blanket in the magnificent Kirstenbosch Gardens, still one of my favourite places in the world. 

This time Out of Africa, possibly one of my most watched films of all time. But not for years.

Out of Africa is so precious that I'd trust few people to watch it with me. I will not tolerate any eye-rolling, sighing at its length or critical analysis of its historical facts. You must be invested, all in, to share this cinematic experience with me and as the opening credits rolled and we both snuggled down on our blanket with instantly dewy eyes, there was no other place in the world I would rather have been.

The dreaded South Easter wind had been howling in Cape Town for 10 solid days. The end of year pressure of school and work and Xmas madness mounting. The 4th wave, Omicron, travel bans looming. Friends in distress and friends in despair. Loss and betrayal. It had been a really tough week.

But the wind dropped that evening. The velvety-darkness fell as that haunting opening music rolled across the lawn towards us. 

And as I watched, past versions of myself crept out from between the scenes bringing with them memories - of outfits I constructed in my childhood bedroom to dress like Karen Blixen (the white cotton blouse, buttoned at the neck and pinned with a brooch, the striped African print scarf tied over one shoulder, the khaki skirt I rolled at the waist to get just the right length on my shin), of standing on the dewy lawn in Swaziland in 1994 looking out at the mist lying in the valleys and channeling Meryl Streep, of years and years and years of yelling 'Hello the house!' when arriving at my bestie's (she who lay next to me watching this now). The way that music had always made me feel, the yearning for adventure and the happiness of thinking that even if I wasn't living her life, I lived in Africa already and that was a good start. 

As the film rolled on the sky got darker and more dramatic, and I found myself gazing away from the screen to take in the enormity and beauty of it, and have one of those lucid moments of perfect clarity one occasionally has, where you can stop within an experience, to realise that this is one of the best things you'll do in your life.

Time slowed and exhaled, we wept and laughed. On screen the sound of crickets chirping filled the African night, as around us in the gardens the sounds of crickets chirping, filled the African night.

Bliss.

5 (random) favourite things meme

Get this: I made up a meme. Yup, all on my lonesome. Why shouldn't I, I thought? Who are these 'gods of memes' who circulate them around the blogosphere? Why shouldn't a mere mortal such as myself start my own one? Ha!

So here it is. Long may it travel.

I've always had the problem of not being able to pick a favourite. I don't have one favourite movie or one favourite book, or one favourite food. Life's just a bit more complex than that for me. I'm 75% Gemini  - go figure.
So the idea here is that you list 5 items in each category, a favourite 5 - but not necessarily in order of favouriteness - to show the diversity/similarity/hilarity/polarity/ or extreme same-ness of your personal likes.

And then tag 5 peeps to do the same. And feel free to add or subtract categories as you like.
Down with meme imperialism!

Herewith the first 5 (Random) Favourite Things Meme:

5 Favourite Songs:
1. Hey Jude - The Beatles
2. We Are Going - Burning Spear
3. Feel Good - Gorillaz
4. Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Gueva - Buena Vista Social Club
5. Gold Digger - Kanye West

5 Favourite Films:
1. Love Actually
2. Room With a View
3. Toy Story
4. Lost in Translation
5. Out of Africa

5 Favourite Books:
1. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenigger
2. Saturday - Ian McEwan
3. On the Shores of Silver Lake - Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

5 Favourite Crushes:
1. George Clooney
2. Buzz Lightyear
3. Snoop Dogg (saw him in concert, was as surprised as anyone by his total shag-worthiness - who knew?!)
4. Cate Blanchett
5. Benecio del Toro

5 Favourite (Random) Things:
1. Sneakers
2. Post-Its
3. Fridays
4. Curry
5. Giggling

So without further ado, I hereby tag 5 random favourite bloggers:
Extranjera - What Will I Ever Do With My Life?
and just to see if their answers are different ...
Vancouver's Enviro Girl - The (mis)Adventures of Veg
Seaside Girl - Seaside Stories
Spudballoo - Chez Spud
and Superfi 

room with a view

Aside: it must be one of my favourite movies.... Helena Bonham-Carter was such a fresh-faced English rose, one of Maggie Smith's best roles ever (and that's saying something because she's wonderful in so much), and the source of some fantastic lines, many of which are still quoted in our family.

But I digress....

Our latest DIY project is to build a window seat in the gorgeous bay window in our bedroom. We have such a lovely mountain view from there and it's the room which gets the best afternoon sun. A comfy window seat would be just the thing.
I've been doing some WBR (web based research) to try and find some inspiring ideas, hoping to find an assortment of gorgeous and clever designs to work from and you know, so far I've found.... NOTHING. Seriously, not even one lovely idea. It's all chintz and heavy drapes and net curtains (shudder of revulsion) and twee cabinets and over-stuffed floral phooeyness or hard cold minimalism (and not in a nice clean Scandinavian way, in a boring unimaginative student broke kind of way). Flickr has failed me, Apartment Therapy has failed me, I'm on page 4 of Google search and I'm still uninspired.
(And working on the theory that past page 5 on Google is total dead space, I'm not very hopeful.)

But what Apartment Therapy did give me, and I think I'm cursing it as a result, was this look inside my all-time favourite Haldane Martin's lovely home. God this man's furniture is too beautiful, that Riempie Couch would look perfect in my bay window : (

But those ostrich feather chandeliers make me wanna sneeze and I don't need anymore encouragement in that department right now.

Ai-chooo!

s'not funny

36 degrees.
Throbbing head cold (mine).
Child pouring snot which in colour, texture and elasticity reminds me of those gimmick gel hands you can buy which you throw against a surface 'til the hand sticks and then streeeeeeeetch the arm out to impossible lengths.
Did I mention 36 degrees Celsius?
Sparkly blue pool taunts us through the window.
But it was bad parenting which got us into this mess (yes, I performed the cardinal sin of Allowing my Child to play with a Snotty Child so that I could Lie Around and Drink Tea with Mother of this Snotty Child) and I'm not going to add Allowing my Snotty Child to Swim to my list of misdemeanours.

So instead we took our throbbing snot heads off to ramble around the local Design School's (air-conditioned) end of year exhibition. The Jewellery section was closed which was the main reason I went, but we saw some other fun, and strange, things.

Hanging paper-mache hat with a cityscape and an AK-47 on the brim anyone?

Nice branding for a fabric range...

Gorgeous paper cut-outs...

Converse inspired hair-dryer - love it!

And my favourite, very cool table lamp.

(tap not included, just an odd choice of display area)

And in other news, this evening I finally watched Little Miss Sunshine. Am I the only person on the planet to get round to it now? And why exactly did it take me this long? What a gorgeous little film to wrap my weary snot-filled brain around, off to bed to do just that.