Roberta Writes – Esther Chilton’s Writing prompt: Treasure and a visit to the Botanical Art Exhibition #writing #art #photograpy

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Esther Chilton’s writing challenge for this week is Treasure. You can join in here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/05/21/writing-prompts-66/

One Man’s Treasure

When I was a girl of eight years old and my sister, Cath, was five years old, we moved into a new house in a suburb in Cape Town. The house was newly built, so it had no garden whatsoever. My father, a landscaper, took on the project of creating a garden and building a swimming pool in his spare time. To this end, he had a huge pile of sand delivered which was dumped unceremoniously in the front yard. I was thrilled with this sand pile and quickly learned that if I soaked the sand with the hosepipe, I could create castles, houses, tunnels and all sorts of other buildings from wet sand.

My parents befriended the family next door, and this led to my mother inviting them to our house one evening for a braai. A braai is a traditional outdoor meat cooking method in South Africa which makes use of an open wood or charcoal fire and seasoning. South African men all have their own ‘secret’ seasoning and take great pride in producing it at braais to stun all the guests with their culinary expertise. My dad was no exception, and he had a large glass jar of his special recipe, much treasured yellow braai meat seasoning. To me, castle constructor extraordinaire, that yellow powder was gun powder. And so, I borrowed the jar after my father had finished using the seasoning.

That evening, I led my sister and the two neighbouring children in a huge war construction project. Each child had their own castle with a walled moat, a drawbridge, towers, and a dungeon. Each castle also had gunpowder deposits. Large ones, with big staches of yellow gun powder.

My dad didn’t notice the missing jar until the following morning. The lidless and empty jar caught his eye when he was meticulously cleaning his braai. He was livid and demanded to know what I had done with the contents. I did manage to find most of the gun powder deposits in the sand pile. Sadly, however, the gun powder had mixed with the sand and was rendered quite inedible.

one man’s seasoning

is another’s gun powder

imagination

has the power to transform

simple into amazing

Botanical Art Exhibition

On Saturday, I took Michael and his friend to a Botanical Art Exhibition. The art works were watercolours of mainly local flora and were amazingly detailed. It was quite different from the style of watercolours I am learning at the monthly workshops I attend.

Picture caption: The entrance to the art exhibition

The following three photographs are of my favourite art works in the exhibition:

Picture caption: I really liked this African themed mosaic picture
Picture caption: This skull on an old book interested me
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Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

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74 thoughts on “Roberta Writes – Esther Chilton’s Writing prompt: Treasure and a visit to the Botanical Art Exhibition #writing #art #photograpy”

  1. I love this story of your dad’s treasure. That word has such a different meaning to everyone. I love your imagination as a child; so creative. A super poem to go with it. I hope you enjoyed the exhibition. It looks really interesting.

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  5. Lol Robbie , so you’ve always been an imaginative creature even as a child… I love that story . You obviously have always been a leader and a story teller. The art is certainly lovely . What did the boys make of the expo? 💜💜☺️

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  19. I love your childhood memories! I imagine your dad was not pleased when he found out his special seasoning was in the sand. Your imagination was ripe already back then. xo

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  20. Hahaha! Love this story Robbie. Your dad sounds like a patient man, although he was livid. I hope he appreciated your imagination. I sure do.

    The 3 botanical paintings are wonderful. There’s a bunch in my Making Her Mark series I haven’t posted, yet. So much art, so little time!

    The mosaic is fabulous.The skull is interesting. There were 4-5 paintings by Rembrandt’s pupils at at a Rembrandt exhibit at the AGO. They looked like he had painted them, as they were 100% in his style: dark/black background, face lit through the dark, all men’s faces, chest or shoulders up and all were contemplating a skull.

    It seemed I was in the graveyard with Hamlet, as he pondered Yorick’s skull.

    There is a lot to be contemplated looking at a skull.

    Thanks Robbie!

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    1. Hi Resa, skulls are of great interest to artists and writers. I liked the botanical art but I enjoyed the vibey mosaic most. My dad encouraged my creativity a great deal. He showed me how to build with mud and create with clay. His mother, my Granny Joan, showed me a lot of other artistic things too. He could hardly judge when my imagination ran away with me – smile!

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  24. Botanical art is a very special skill. Those examples are lovely.

    I’m sure all of us made use of things as children that were not intended or appreciated. The sand might have added an interesting flavor though. (K)

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  26. What fun you had with the pile of sand. I can picture those castles and the firing of ‘gunpowder.’

    I love your poem describing it. So evocative of childhood memories.

    the botanical watercolours are amazing. I admire those who can produce such realistic pictures, but the mosaic is so powerful.

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    1. Hi Viv, I also admire the detail of the watercolours but somehow, the detail seems to detract from their beauty in a way. It moves the focus of the eye from the overarching impression to the detail of each tiny line. Well, for me anyhow.

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