We haven’t had wildfires in Johanneburg but I have had scary experiences with wildfires during my lifetime so Terri’s story is close to my heart. I didn’t think I had any photographs to contribute for this topic but then I remembered a couple of photographs I took when we travelled out of Joburg early in the morning a few week ago. The sky was full of pollution from the winter fires people light to keep warm. The pollution in Joburg has become so bad we are planning to retire to the coast. I’m worried about the health effects as we all suffer with coughs, burning eyes and other air pollution nasties.
Picture of a dull gold disc rising above a red, smoke filled sky.A more distant picture of the dull golden disc of the sun rising into a red, smoke filled sky. you can see the traffic on the road.
I had a crazy week and ended up working until 9pm on Thursday which through my week off. I also had to take Dad to the hospital for lung functioning tests. The doctor says there is no deterioration but he’s turned into an old man and is shuffling around using a walking stick. No-one seems to have an answer for his problems. I think its long Covid.
Picture caption: Yellow Banks Roses – I love thesePicture caption: Jasmine buds and blooms. They smell delightful. Picture caption: White plum blossom against a blue skyPicture caption: I like this photograph of a single spray of white plum blossom against a blue sky
Reminder: Sunflower Tanka Anthology submissions are open until 31 August
Picture caption: Beautiful yellow sunflowers
Submissions to the Sunflower Tanka syllabic poetry anthology are open until Monday, 31 August.
Colleen and I look forward to reading your submissions. I am starting to work on the anthology tomorrow.
David is this week’s host and he has asked poets to write about life changes as follows:
Sometimes life changes enough that something familiar becomes new again.
“Think of something you have experienced in the past, are experiencing now, or imagine experiencing in the future: doing an ordinary thing you have done many times before, but under changed circumstances that make it feel like a first time.”
During our trip to the Kruger National Park last week we had the tremendous good luck to see an African fish eagle landing on its nest. It was making its iconic call known as the Sound of Africa.
I am introducing my poem with a video of the cry of the African fish eagle.
Loud, haunting
the yodel-like call
disrupted the music
inside the vehicle
Sound of Africa
ringing forth
evocative and stirring
We jumped. Looked
Encircled by leafy branches
African fish eagle landed
on its messy nest
head thrown backwards
projecting the sound
far across the veld
Picture caption: African fish eagle landing on its nest. I love the encircling tree.Picture caption: The typical calling posture of an African fish eagle with its head thrust forward.
Picture caption: This large safari vehicle has doors. The reason I took the photograph though was the little silhouette on top of the cab. What could it be?
The little creature on top of the cab in the vehicle photograph is a vervet monkey. This are adorable but also little terrorists who will steal very efficiently and effectively. This one had just pinched food out of the vehicle of a family of tourists. The family was quite shocked and horrified at having a bag of treats snatched out of the hands of a small child. Naughty it might be but it was so adorable with its look of complete innocence as it ate its treat.
And for Terri’s golden Sunday Stills a few pictures of Borke’s Luck Potholes. We were so lucky with our timing and the mellow winter sun turned the rocky facings to gold. Have I mentioned that yellow is my favourite colour (grin!)
When I was a girl of nine, I contracted chicken pox. Within a week, my three younger sisters also went down with the virus. There were no vaccinations for chicken pox back then and Laura, aged one year old, and I were both very sick. I remember the day before the spots broke out in support of my claim of feeling unwell. It was a Saturday so we were all at home. I lay on a bean bag in the family room in a patch of winter sunshine feeling to ill to even read. My mother brought me a chicken mayonnaise sandwich at lunchtime but I could not eat it. Not even a bite. She was annoyed when she saw the untouched sandwich and said I was naughty to not eat it. She didn’t believe me when I said I was nauseous. On reflection, its strange that she didn’t believe me as I was never fussy about food and a chicken mayonnaise sandwich was a treat. I’ve never forgotten that she didn’t believe me. A day or two later, I came out in the tell tale rash and Mom knew I had chicken pox. One by one, the other children got sick and came out in rashes. The rash was itchy and I had to lie in a bath with Epsom Salts a few times a day to help sooth my skin which has always been ultra sensitive. We were all warned not to scratch the rash as that would leave scars. The only good thing I remember about this period is that I missed all the end of term tests for my grade. I was given an exemption from writing the tests due to contagious illness. I still have a few white scars along my hairline as testimony to my having had chickenpox. I never liked chicken mayonnaise sandwiches after this and still don’t ever eat them.
An interesting thing about this episode of childhood illness is that Mom never got chickenpox. We all assumed she’d had this virus as a child. A few years ago, my mother contracted chicken pox at the age of eighty four. This illness was a real test of her resilience and she had to be hospitalised for a few days. Her skin was yellow and she looked like a dried pear. It’s amazing that she cared for four sick children and never picked up the illness. Her resistance must have been good at the time.
Dan has featured the Japanese Room for his Thursday Doors post so I am staying with the Japan theme and sharing two doors/gates I saw in Japan in December 2024. You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2026/08/06/japanese-room/
Picture caption: The Akasaka Imperial Gardens front gate in Tokyo Picture caption: Heavy wooden gates of a Bhuddist temple in Tokyo
I wrote this poem today after sorting through my work week in my head. It was a good week. I got a lot done. My young colleague told me on Thursday afternoon just before I left for the week that she was exhausted. She also got a lot done because I give delivery dates for work that I then review. I think its a good thing the team has Friday’s to recover from my tyranny – haha! I am getting a 40 hour week’s worth of work done in 24 hours and that takes drive and determination.
Thursday Doors and The Flower Hour
Terri decided to suggest flowers in planters for The Flower Hour this week. Eeek! I don’t take many photographs of plants in planters. Then, I remembered the indoor conservatory in the delightful hotel TC and I stayed in in Paris. It is called Hotel Keppler and was very old fashioned and delightful. I also took photographs of some of the doors in the hotel so this is a double whammy for Dan’s Thursday Doors too.
Picture caption: Bonjour TC. I like the red seater he’s wearing. I chose it!
Please take a seat in the guest lounge while we complete your check in. (Well, I got to sit, he had to stand at the desk and fill in forms.)
Picture caption: Guest lounge with double glass doors onto a small courtyard
Picture caption: tables and chairs on the other side of the guest lounge where you could order alcoholic drinks or, if you are me and brazen, Earl Grey tea in a teapot. The same double glass doors are in the background.
Two slightly different photographs of the indoor conservatory in the dining room of the Hotel Keppler. It was very pretty with lots of greenery and lovely flowers. The food was very good too.
Picture caption: Purple iris. Photograph by Robbie Chealdle
This is my acrylic painting of a jacaranda tree. I particularly like it because when placed in the sunshine, the purples change colour and shades of pink, blue and purple become evident.
Today is Friday at last and I do have it off. My work hours are under severe threat and I’m going to have to increase them for three months as I have a big project on the go. There is no use in working the hours and not getting paid for them. Anyhow, onwards and upwards.
d’Verse, Tanka Tuesday and W3
I’ve used the d’Verse theme of night provided by the wonderful Dora for both my Tanka Tuesday and my W3 offerings this week.
I selected the tradition of using the Southern Cross constellation as a directional guide combined with working on a computer.
My Artificial Life
Dark night of my computer screen
loads itself into start mode.
Logon criteria flash,
artificial Southern Cross.
Guiding my entrance into
another working day.
The Flower Hour
Last week I mentioned that I’d attended a partner conference in my new job. These photographs are of the gorgeous pincushion protea flower arrangements that graced the lunch tables.
Flower arrangement featuring three pincushion proteas in red, orange, and yellow.
Close up of a single pincushion protea. The red tipped orange petals are narrow and curve inwards above its yellow centre hence its name – pincushion protea.
A slightly more distanced shot of the three pincushion proteas flower arrangement.
Thursday Doors
On Sunday past, my family attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Monte Casinos Pieter Torien theatre. It’s been more years than I’m going to tell you since TC and I last saw this show and I’d forgotten how graphic it is. I was a bit worried about Michael’s friend, Jenna, but she took it in her stride and enjoyed it.
It’s been a crazy week! Is there any other kind of week, I wonder. I attended New Partner Induction on Monday and Tuesday and a Partner Conference from Wednesday to Friday. So many new ideas and new people. My coping mechanism is to draw and paint and write poems so I have three poems to share with you today. I have also started a new art project – my biggest to date and perhaps my most ambitious. Michael thinks its ambitious but I just think its just bigger. All my art projects are very ambitious at the time of initiation. I push myself further with each new painting.
Tanka Tuesday
Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday challege this week is to write a tanka Puente poem with the theme of light vs dark.
Picture caption: kori bustard posing for the camera
Thursday Doors
My blogging friend, Brian, featured a photograph of the gargoyles of Notre Dame pre the fire. You can read his post here: https://equinoxio21.wordpress.com/2026/07/07/random-travels-umpteen/. I am sharing a few pictures I took of Notre Dame and its gargoyles so Brian can rest assured they are thriving. My shots aren’t as good as his!
I’m late this week. I had planned to post this last night but I had a three-hour art class in the morning and then I had to take Mom back to the optometrist for more tests and to chose new frames for her two new pairs of glasses. My mother loves shopping and she can not be hurried, and shouldn’t be because she enjoys it so much, so she tried on just about every frame in the shop. We chose two really lovely frames and she is very happy. I was exhausted when we got home at 4pm as I learned a new technique at art which was quite difficult to implement initially (I’ve got the hang of it now) and then all the traffic and stress of the tests. The good news is the technique looks really good on my current painting and Mom’s eyes are doing a lot better.
This photograph of a gold roses cake I made for my mother’s birthday some years ago is the inspiration for this poem.
Picture caption: Gold roses chocolate cake
The Invastion (double tanka prose)
Whenever I see a shoebox, I am reminded of cockroaches. During the height of my cake making phase, I used to make a lot of fondant flowers. To create the cupped shape of the various flowers, I moulded tinfoil into a bowl shape of the correct size for the flower and carefully arranged the flower inside. I then placed the flowers inside a shoebox and left them to dry for at least a week. Some layered flowers, like roses, took me three weeks to a month to make as I gradually added additional petal layers week by week. I kept a collection of empty shoe boxes in my pantry and used them when I needed them. There were at least ten piled up on a shelf at any given time. Early one summer, I noticed we had several cockroaches in the kitchen. I set some cockroach traps around the room but the problem continued to escalate. A few weeks later, I decided to clear out the entire pantry in an attempt to get rid of the cockroaches. When I brought down the shoeboxes, I discovered they had been adopted as cockroach nests and the boxes were full of these nasty, little creatures. The boxes were disposed of, the pantry cleaned from top to toe, and cockroach traps set just about everywhere. This did bring an end to the invasion but I have never recovered from the horror of discovering all those revolving insects inside those shoeboxes. I no longer collect shoeboxes and am paranoid about cleaning under the fridges and stoves to ensure no unwanted visitors gain a foothold in my kitchen.
Picture caption: Young male nyala antelopePicture caption: head and shoulders of a hartebeestPicture caption: adult hippo walking down an embankmentPicture caption: head and shoulders of a dark maned lion lying in the grassPicture caption: spotted thick knee bird resting in front of the wheel of the carPicture caption: spotted thick knee bird standing in front of the wheel of the carPicture caption: close up of an adult male lion from the side
Terri’s Flower Hour
When I went shopping this morning I saw this gorgeous King Protea flower. I bought it to photograph with a view to paining it. Terri’s The Flower Hour prompt is patriotic florals. The Giant or King protea is the national flower of South Africa.
It doesn’t rain in Johannesburg during the winter. At least it never did until this year. This week, after the winter solstice, we got rain and a heavy mist. While in the traffic on my way into the office, I wrote this poem and took the accompanying photograph. Unusual for my home city.
Picture caption: I loved the doors of this building, 3 Place Denfert-Rochereau, Paris. The late evening sky turned the white of the building blue and the light glows a lovely yellow from the inside. I liked the arched shape of these large doors with the square inlay.
Click on the slideshow to view two giraffes that I saw at Welgevonden Game Reserve in the Waterkloof, South Africa. This is a series of three photographs of the heads and upper necks of two young giraffes against a bright, blue sky. In the first photograph, the two animals are close together but apart. In the second and third photograph, the two giraffes have crossed their necks at the top so that their heads are pointing in opposite directions. In the second photo, the animals are looking straight ahead while in the last photograph they are looking up with their heads angled upwards.
Picture caption: Dam at Pilanesberg Game Reserve with autumn foliage in the front and hills in the background. the predominant colour is misty bluePicture caption: small dam on the golf course at the Johannesburg Country Club in Woodmead. The sky is very blue and so is the water.Picture caption: Trees in autumn red and yellow at the Johannesburg Country Club. The sky is a bright blue.
Another crazy week has come to an end. My mother has had a terrible few weeks with blepharitis and severe eye pain. This condition, combined with her chronic dry eye has made her quality of life very poor. She’s been wearing a hat pulled right down over her eyes and the antibiotic cream made her practically blind. Very worrying for me from a fall risk point of view.
I took her to my optometrist at 7.30am this morning (she squeezed her in) and she now has a whole treatment plan to treat both chronic conditions. I’m hoping she will have no pain and be able to read again soon.
TC has also been in India for the last two weeks. He arrives home this afternoon. When he’s not home I have to do everything so life feels even busier than usual.
This is the main reason why my post is late this week but, as I always say, better late than never.
I’ve been learning colour theory for my painting. I am very happy with the results and will share a new painting incorporating my new skills soon. In the meantime, here is a poem about colour theory.
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