Winter of my content

The merry seagulls with their birdseye view; The Mountain disappeared into a woolly mammoth; longing for coffee and, today, to be in foreign places far away, perhaps to the north but no problem with the south.

Sounds like anywhere doesn't it. East or west too; the longing for noses and faces and hair and hues I don't know. Food and voices too. Colours of eye that look me back to Vikings and Celts and boglands of green and below elephant-grey.

Low-slung with pregnant primeval skies.

All of this from my glass table on the world, the workshop where the dream cells are impregnated with desperate spunks at shutterspeed.

The days are short; the light is less, the sun's infused with milk; the kids in the streets below wear jerseys, are much quieter much earlier.

I pull the duvet much closer now, pad me in and around, probably have to get a blanket now that this winter sees I'm alone. Alone, but looking forward to to a winter-long healing of hibernation.

Last night the first cheery log fire of my winter-content. In a, quiet, restaurant as I dined and wined and read and wrote alone far from the crowd.

Tonight, despite the deepening gloom, quite welcome, my mind's to anonymous company at a bar, where I can pretend to not be my mind. A mind made fuzzy and freiendly with wine.

And I said to myself... what a

Was working from home when load shedding (i.e. the electricity across a large swathe of the city was turned off; long story) hit at 12pm; put on shorts, lightened my backpack (i.e removed all work-related stuff,  like laptops etc.) packed a novel, three boiled eggs and jumped on to a train to Simonstown (one of the last outposts of the British empire despite colonial statues falling at a rate of knots in South Africa). 

Right now: Quaffing white wine and devouring fresh and sumptuous  West Coast mussels (post red tide, that is) and wish you were here. 

Happy sunny Friday autumnal afternoon in a beautiful world (when you squint your eyes a bit and block your ears).

Litres and kilograms of words

The Mountain again. In my face. Rock solid. As I think about the week behind me.

Monday, unexpectedly, this plate-sized flower stared me down from a shrub disconcertingly taller than me. 

I was in a hurry like all the other scurrying city roaches. 

So off-guard I was and looking inwards that it surprised me straight back into The Present; I stopped to smell the roses. 

Those 30 in-the-moment seconds have stood me in good stead right up until now.

I've drawn upon that instance and have smiled satisfyingly about it, at least 15 times already. 

On Tuesday, I wore a jersey for the first time since getting back from Prague in early November, but took it off later. 

In my day-long to-ing and fro-ing, I breathed in deeply wood smoke from only one homely hearth.

That November weekend there was much more rain in Cape Town than there had been for a whole week in wintry Europe. 

Log fires were still burning in my favourite city bowl restaurants and coffee shops as I hesitantly came down from the dizzy high of my travels, and work. 

It was the beginning of summer.

Yesterday I wore a jersey for the entire day. And in my meanderings there was much more aromatic wood smoke from homely hearths to gulp in deeply.

Best of all, the moody day began with the slashing of rain against the windows.

As the seasons clash-and-shift-and-argue I hunker down and gratefully cocoon into my heart of hearts, as litres-and-kilograms-of-words wash-over-and-through me.

Moody blue and running over

Beautiful Monday night that feels like a Sunday, but thank goodness it's not. 

Just in the door, as usual I'm smacked hard by the view (of Lion's Head and Cape Town city centre in the far distance) that, this time, I can see from my bedroom window that snatches my mobile from my back pocket, thrusts open the aluminium window and - please, please don't drop it, it's only six floors down to splinters - and then shutter-clicks away while holding my hand as steady as possible against a feisty breeze reeking of the Atlantic (a favourite reek, mind you) that makes it difficult, very.

Tomorrow back to work. It's been an awesome week off, in terms of both productivity and ample rest. Lots of both. Lots, too, of hardly leaving my apartment, of reading books and drinking wine, listening to music live-streamed from all over the planet, making decisions about sex and friends, showering not so often, of also soaking for hours and deep in the bath, time alone and naked. 

Except for last weekend when I made it up a short drive up the West Coast with friends to Jakob's Baai, again reading, wine and braaing, soaking in the bath, collecting shells, taking pics, grateful to be at the ocean's edge with a notebook and pen. Conversation and laughter with people I love who love me enough to give me my space and I in return theirs.

Today late morning the bug hit me and the isolation got to me, a tad; tired, slightly, of my own company and the same view of the hollow walls of my mind. A late-autumn day. Felt restless to leave and walk the streets of the city, but to do so quietly and calmly. Also, soon the rain and grey and cold - please hurry - will be coming and I'll most likely look back, slightly longingly at times, on these days.

Easter Monday but a Sunday: Inside of me I'm at peace and in quiet, still and centered. Something changed in me this long weekend. A demure day, low-energy and in-between the seasons, much closer now to winter than the summer we've almost left behind. Even the city and it's people are low-energy, transitioning from the fast-paced and long days of summer into a hand-braked hibernation.

Today I loved and danced around my apartment to 'A time for Us' (from "Romeo and Juliet") by Nino Rota and 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini'. This week I'm reading The Guardian UK, Elizabeth Hawes' 'Camus, A Romance' and Patrick Leigh Fermor's 'A Time of Gifts'.

Now to bed with both books and up at 05h30 and into my work routine. 

I'm happy, I'm rested, I'm content and enormously grateful for my simple and streamlined life. I feel rich, extremely. My cup is running over.