Gardens

As the rain pelted down today and the wind gusted up, I stood at the window with my mug of coffee and thought I’d finally have to accept that winter was on its way. But when the rain and wind died down, the birds piped up and the squirrels dashed between the puddles under the trees.

And the garden was dripping and fresh.

Last summer I went a few times to one of my favourite places in Cape Town: the Company’s Garden. The garden was established in 1652 by Dutch settlers to provide fresh produce for the Dutch spice-trading ships en route to South Asia. It originally comprised a number of rectangular fields and open irrigation furrows but grew into a well-known botanical garden.

There are many landmarks around the Company’s Garden, including the Houses of Parliament and Tuynhuys (‘Garden House’ in Dutch and the president’s Cape Town office), the Slave Lodge, St George’s Cathedral and the South African National Gallery (SANG).

It’s lovely just to wander through the garden and along the central walkway, the Avenue. It always seems to be green and shady. There’s much to see, including a rose garden, an aviary and a fish pond. The Garden Tea Room has become a favourite with tour groups but, on a summery day, there are still plenty of locals on every bench and lawn, and great people-watching. And there are always lots of birds and very inquisitive – and cheeky! – squirrels...

Egyptian Geese near the SANG

Mark O’Donovan’s interactive mixed media sculpture ‘Man Running from Lion’ (1997/2005?) 

outside the SANG (You turn a wheel near the base to make the figures move)

The South African National Gallery (SANG)

More about the SANG: http://www.iziko.org.za/museums/south-african-national-gallery

And about the Slave Lodge: http://www.iziko.org.za/museums/slave-lodge

A travelling book

Today I set a book on a journey.

All I had to do was register it over at BookCrossing (http://www.bookcrossing.com/), label it and leave it somewhere for someone to pick up and read – and share with the next person. And maybe, just maybe, someone will report back on the website and I’ll get to follow the adventure.

The book I chose was ‘Tennyson’s Gift’ by Lynne Truss. It’s a farce that throws together some well- and lesser-known Victorians – the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, the writer Lewis Carroll, the painter G. F. Watts and the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron amongst others – on the Isle of Wight one rollicking summer. I thought it was fun and funny, a book to stretch out in the sun with...

Choosing just where to leave it (on a sunny bench up on campus) took some deciding and checking on the website I was delighted to see how many books have already been left at spots all around Cape Town – including Lion’s Head, Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak. Now I wish I’d thought of that..!

I’ll have to choose a good title next time I go climbing... ‘Wuthering Heights’ maybe?

Scrambling up and up

A week ago I climbed up Table Mountain with friends. We took the India Venster route as it’s not as well known – or as crowded – as the route up through Platteklip Gorge. The path runs up under the cableway most of the way up, then passes around the mountain above Camps Bay and finally ends at the top of Platteklip Gorge.

The ravine through which the route runs apparently looks like the shape of India when viewed from below – though I couldn’t see any resemblance myself..! And the venster (‘window’ in Afrikaans) is formed by some of the rocks in the ravine and frames a great view of the surrounding mountains.

It was an exciting climb but far more strenuous than I was expecting. I suppose I’ve always viewed Table Mountain pretty much as a postcard – or a dramatic backdrop. Until now...

I soon discovered that setting off on no more than a cup of coffee was not a good start..! Although we began climbing by 8.30, it was very hot by then already and quite still on the lower slopes. I think my blood sugar level must have been too low because I’d only been climbing about twenty minutes when I felt so dizzy that I crumpled into a little heap on the steps leading up from the lower cableway station. Those last steps I could only do munching on my apple – and that, incredibly, got me most of the way up..! (Well, an apple, plenty of water and a whole lot of stubborn determination not to miss out on any of it...).

We made it up in about three hours, stopping just below the upper cableway station to eat our sandwiches and watch the cable cars whizzing by overhead.

Taking the cable car back down felt far too easy but, as a very inexperienced rock climber, I wouldn’t climb down India Venster (this can be dangerous if you don’t know the route) – I have far too much respect for the mountain to attempt that – just yet.

Slogging up those steps...

Beginning to climb

Scrambling up

Hanging on

Cape Town and Table Bay in the distance

At India Venster

Through the venster

A glimpse of Devil's Peak

A cable car whizzing by overhead

Going around the mountain

Naomi and I very nearly, almost, there...

(Thanks, Brahm, for the great climbing photos!)

Rambling over the mountain

When my mom was here on holiday earlier this month, she decided she wanted to go up Table Mountain – by cable car, not on foot! She’d never been up and the last time I’d gone up was years ago so we set off.

The cable car I’d been in was the Seventies design (– the cableway itself was opened in 1929 –) which was of course very much smaller and slower than the current cable cars which are circular and have rotating floors so that everyone gets a 360 degree view of Cape Town and Table Bay. The ride does seem far too short though..!

It wasn’t a perfectly clear day but we enjoyed taking our time – and plenty of photos of the surrounding mountains, the rocks and trails, the wildlife and fynbos – along the path that leads to Maclear’s Beacon. As the wind grew stronger and the clouds began blowing up, we had to head back to the upper cableway station and never quite made it to the highest point on the mountain.

Maclear’s Beacon was built in 1844 by Sir Thomas Maclear who was Astronomer Royal at the Cape. The 3 m cairn marks the highest point at 1086 m – though it could also be 1087 m, 1085 m or possibly even 1084.6 m! (There seem to be conflicting records out there...)

We were up on the mountain about three hours and did a lot more walking than we thought we would. There was also a section that was a bit steeper and I took some fun shots of my mom tackling the ascent, getting down low to take them so that it appeared all the more difficult..!

I didn’t know then I’d be scrambling up the mountain myself a few weeks later – but more about that in a later post...

At the lower cableway station

On the way up to the upper cableway station

Table Bay and the city down below

Lion's Head

Rambling paths

That steep bit...

Looking down at the city

On the way down – and the steps I’d soon enough be slogging up...

On the street

This may also be part of the Inside Out Project – it was at the same site in Woodstock and is also a black and white photograph pasted up – but it’s not a close-up portrait like the others and this little boy is much younger than the students from Hout Bay High. Perhaps it’s by one of the kids but not part of the original project.

It caught my attention anyway – just like I seem to have caught this little man’s attention too. There’s something quite grown up yet vulnerable about him, in his jacket that’s just a little too big and missing his shoes. Yet his look is as enquiring of me as I am of him.

And this too was on the same disused building. It's by Cape Town street artist Faith47. It looks to me like a baby elephant – collapsed, dead? Almost dreaming – or perhaps in the middle of a nightmare.

To find out more about Faith47: http://www.faith47.com/

Turning the world inside out

I spotted this in Woodstock. It’s part of French photographer and street artist JR’s Inside Out Project.

The Inside Out Project has been travelling around the world and the photographs that were taken in Cape Town were pasted up around the city over five days in July last year. The project aims to address problems specific to each area and in Cape Town it’s racism between black and ‘coloured’ young people.

Unfortunately there’s very little about the project on JR’s website or the Inside Out website but, after some searching for it online, I found the story behind it...

Inside Out Cape Town was a collaboration between local government, Lalela Project (an organisation which provides art and music education to children-at-risk after school and over the weekends), Cape Town photographers Hasan and Husain Essop, as well as JR. The Nelson Mandela Foundation also supported the project as it culminated on Mandela Day 2011, 18 July. Thirty Hout Bay High School students were taught the basics of portrait photography over two months by twin brothers Hasan and Husain. This group consisted of 15 students from Imizamo Yethu (the black community) and 15 from Hangberg (the ‘coloured’ community). The students from the two groups then paired up with each other (one from each community) in order to get to know the other person before photographing each other. JR’s team made the large-scale prints (some as big as 10 x 15 metres) and the kids then pasted their portraits up at each other’s homes and helped paste them up at a number of places around Cape Town, including the Central Library.

JR was awarded the 2011 TED prize. He's said that he wants to catch the attention of people who are not museum visitors. Most people don’t have museums around them or just don’t go to them – let alone pay to see exhibitions. He says his work ‘mixes art and action; it talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit’. He also says that his art hasn’t changed the world – but it might have made someone somewhere laugh unexpectedly (http://www.jr-art.net/).

Well, this photograph made me smile. There’s just something irresistibly mischievous about someone pulling faces...

And I hope that the kids who participated found something that really involved them in the project – curiosity, openness, some recognition, a little more trust and understanding maybe?

At the time, one of the students from Imizamo Yethu Amanda Gaetywa said that pasting up the portraits of black and ‘coloured’ students side by side was ‘like we are bringing the two communities together.’ Another student Zimasa Dyani said that ‘at first we didn’t speak to the coloured people because we have been really separated from apartheid and now we have a stepping stone to communicate with them’ (Cape Times). Students continue to participate in Lalela Project’s programmes.

Watch this if you’d like to find out more about JR: 

If you’d like to participate in Inside Out (you can upload your own photographs which will be made into posters and sent back to you to paste up in your own area): http://www.insideoutproject.net

A SEN school in Margate in KwaZulu-Natal has also participated in the project – you can see their students’ portraits on the website.

From coast to coast

Surrounded by piles of papers and files and books, there were times when I thought 2011 just seemed to be flying by – and what had I actually done? So looking back at the photos I took over the course of the year was a good reminder of how far I’d actually come... I’d moved down to Cape Town, from the east coast to the west, and caught up with old school friends and friends from Japan and the Middle East. I’d shared a lot of ups and downs with friends on my course and course teachers, and lots of laughs and advice (not all from me to them!) with many of my past students. I came back for a family wedding and spent time with visiting family from the UK. And, of course, I went back to my studies after years of working and travelling in the Middle and Far East – and finally got through all of that coursework.

Looking ahead, I’ll be getting stuck into my research this year and getting back to some teaching. I’ll be driving down to Cape Town in ‘Maya’ which will make getting around and out of the city that much easier. And I’ll be back just in time to meet a friend’s long awaited and, by then, newly born daughter...

These are some of the sights from my travels last year. (I’d wanted to choose a photo from each month but I hadn’t taken enough throughout 2011 – they cover the year anyway.)

Tintin in the Cape

Saw this stencil graffiti on campus. Just made me smile...

African All Stars

And a favourite local design. Found this postcard at a shop in Long Street. Love it!

You can get in touch with Star Cards at: info@starcards.co.za

Chapter 1

I found the beginning of a story at my bus stop last week.

I still don’t know who wrote it but I’ve been going up to campus and down again, imagining the two of them... She must get on at my stop but does he? Did he see her read it? Did she blush, laugh or smack him with an armful of books?! Perhaps she was quite cool and gave nothing away. Would he have been bruised or a little bit smug? Maybe he was knocked off his feet!

I sat on the bus smiling and wondering what their next chapter would be. And what title they would give their story. And how many chapters it would have...

I wonder where he wanted to take her.

And, of course, I wonder if she relented and went with him?