Outside of a dog

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx

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Morning has broken

It's a magnificent dawn. They come much later now, especially as it's only - roughly - one and a half months until winter's here. But judging by the stark contrast between the very hot days and the chilly mornings, winter might be arriving earlier this year. Especially here on the very edge of the escarpment.
I'm also sitting at my favourite window, facing east, watching as the world wakes..or doesn't. Normally I'd be outside at this time, facing west. But its too chilly for that now.
Yesterday my new chimney was completed. At its completion joy did a little jig in my heart. The fireplace in my studio's 'unused status' is about to come to an end.
The wood stove in the kitchen has finally also got a chimney sprouted through the ceiling and roof. One chilly rainy night this weekend would see both hearth and chunky iron stove tested; so I'd better start collecting wood during my forest walks, so as to stock compile enough for a possibly long winter.
I bet you're thinking that I'm anally winter obsessed, you might be right. But anyone that's subtly 'intuitioned' will sense the great annual change of the millennia's is happening in a flurry of activity right this minute.
SPLAT! The mosquito on my leg is still there, except that it's dead in a smudged former blob of my blood. Don't scratch, don't scratch....

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11 February 1990

From: NELSON MANDELA'S ADDRESS TO A RALLY IN CAPE TOWN ON HIS RELEASE FROM PRISON 20 YEARS AGO TODAY

"...Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' role in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.

In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are true today as they were then:

'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'"

[The photo was taken by my Cape Town-based friend, and journalist, Andrew October: "Lightning storm lights the night sky over Llandudno, near Hout Bay, around 4am yesterday morning." ]

Junk food

I'm on the run, there's not enough hours in the day. As I wrote earlier this week, this is my MAKE month (BREAK is not even an option); I'm adamant to take the Highlands Herald, and myself, through the frustrating Catch22 glass ceiling I've been blooding my scalp, my cranium against.
I'm finding it difficult to eat properly; I'm sustaining myself on coffee (but good coffee!) and junk food; I haven't invested in my vegetable patch like last year this time. Yet despite all I'm roaring on adrenalin.
And I have to give massive thanks for the support team I have around me, mostly connected only by the spindliest (world wide) web.
I'd be sunk (most of them probably wouldn't even realise it) without them: Adri, Alex, Alwyn, Amos, Angel, Christo, my dad, Gretha, Gustav, Harem, Iris, Lien, Linda, Lyndsay, Louis, Mathe, my mother, Norma, Pat, Oom Piet, Silvia, Trina, Steffen...my humble, happy and loving heart in Jozi (without you..um..well..I don't even want to think about it).
Most of all - yes most of all - I give thanks (with all my heart) to my living, loving and omniscient God. There's no middle man that separates us; I live perpetually in a space of endless miracles...and endless kindness, compassion, forgiveness, love and grace. (He is here, right by my face, right now.)
Tonight, though, I've taken out Charles time. I've pottered in the garden at dusk amongst vengeful mosquitoes; I've labelled keys (have you any idea how satisfying that is?); and right now I'm lying on the couch by an open window listening to crickets. Faith is on my lap, Mika at my feet.
I'm about to run a hot, foam bath and lie reading the remainder of Coehlo's biography. Then its up at 5h30 and at it again.
Good night and good luck (do you remember that movie?).
.
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This season's office wear

"Do add this to the blog to show how we townies dress for and arrive at appointments with serijas clients," said motoring editor Alwyn yesterday afternoon, just before we took the Nissan Nevara for a test drive - for the newspaper - up and down the nearby mountains, and past the ancient stone circles and ancient roads.

Alwyn Viljoen: +27 82 458 9332 +words on wheels that work, on air and in ink+