The Story of a Dress

A few weeks ago I visited a vintage shop in Simon's Town. Akimbo is a vintage lover's dream - great pieces, carefully selected (and sometimes adapted cleverly) by the owner. My eye immediately fell on this dress - 50's I thought, fitted perfectly, and although I very seldom wear green, I loved the green and grey gingham print...



Well, I suppose any fool can see it is a school uniform - but I didn't! Until someone said: "Gee, Anairam, that looks rather like a school uniform, doesn't it?"

So I guess I'd better not wear it with my black pinstripe blazer and mary-janes.

Do you think it will be more acceptable with my knitted wool coat and boots?

... or maybe when it is colder, like this? (That is a beret, by the way, and not supposed to be a depiction of my face.)

Hmmmm, rather a difficult one, this. But if I decide to keep it and not ditch it, I am definitely going to wear it with my Prefect (I mean Perfect) badge - by clever designer Tarien Malherbe (picked up at Design Indaba).

(Any SA readers who recognise the school dress, please let me know which school and where it is situated!)

My Downfall

Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup, and I will sell mine for a packet of Granny Ticklemouse Ginger Biscuits. Yes, they will be my downfall. I am totally addicted to them and so only allow myself a packet once (okay, okay, sometimes it's twice or thrice) a year. This is how it went on Saturday:

12h10 - Mmmmm, I really feel like a GTGB. I think I'll walk down to the shop and get a packet. I'll just have one a day. Okay, two. So I can stretch out the packet for 9 days. Yum!

12h25 - Gee, walking up the hill back to our house is hard work. Let me open the packet and have one biscuit for energy.

12h35 - Yay, I made it up the hill! Now for a cup of tea and a GTGB. Okay, make it two.

12h40 - Gosh, I still have half a cup of tea left, I'll just have to have another biscuit otherwise the tea will feel sooooo lonely travelling down to my stomach.

14h00 - Time for lunch! I think I'll make a nice healthy salad. And while I make it, I'll have just one teeny GTGB. After all, I'm only having salad for lunch. Omigosh, these bikkies are SO good. I'll just have one more. Then I'll have my salad.

14h10 - (Guilt sets in). Okay, so I'll leave off the chickpeas and olive oil.

14h30 - Hmmm, that salad was quite good. Healthy too! And just think of all the calories I saved by not adding chickpeas and olive oil!! I'm pretty sure I've saved enough calories to warrant one more GTGB. Yum. I'll put the packet away right now. Aaaah, what the hell, I'll have another two and call it pudding.

15h00 - Hmmmm rain! I think I'll have a little snooze on the sofa.

15h45 - Goodness, did I dream that or did I sleepwalk to the tin and had another biscuit? Oops, there are crumbs on the sofa, so it couldn't have been a dream ...

16h00 - Well, I guess I'd better go for a good healthy walk. But just in case I feel a little weak on the way, let's boost those energy levels with a GTGB right now! And I'll take another one along for provisions. One never knows in SA, I may very well be kidnapped and at least then I'll be able to nibble on a GTGB while negotiations for my release take place (or not) ...

17h20 - Wow, that was a good walk! I feel so energized and healthy! I must have burnt stacks of calories. I guess that means I can have one little biscuit ...

19h00 - Okay, time to make supper. Hey, who left the GTGBs out?? That L'Usband! Jeez, he must have eaten at least two! Gosh, some people can be so greedy. Honestly. I'll have to have one now to catch up. Honestly, some people!

20h00 - Well, that was a good supper. Pity I did not make any dessert. A GTGB will be just the thing ... Hey, there are only two left! Okay, so I'll have one and I'll save one for L'Usband.

20h10 - Actually, now that I think of it, L'Usband doesn't really like biscuits that much. I mean, he only had two. Wouldn't he have taken more if he really, really liked them? I think that means I can have the last one.

21h00 Funny, I only had a salad for lunch and a bit of pasta for supper. Yet I feel quite ... sated ...

Grey and Pink

Today has been grey - but a good kind of grey. I have been missing the rain all summer and today it came down steadily, soaking the earth and making the streets glisten. I went for a walk and the air was fresh and cool and the rain drops welcome on my face. And I got some pink flowers to celebrate the coming of winter ...



Enjoy the rest of your weekend, my dears!

The Developer

X

Tomorrow South Africa will have its fourth democratic election. I can still remember the euphoria of that first 1994 election - how proud and hopeful we all were! And I guess we have been doing okay over the last 15 years, and we have much to celebrate and be thankful for. But there are many worries and concerns, and tomorrow I will not be voting for the party I have supported since 1994. They have disappointed me. In a few hours I will be walking down the hill to vote, and at the moment I feel a bit like this ...

L'Usband says that choosing between political parties is like having to choose between bad apples - you have to choose the one with the fewest worms. I suppose that is true wherever one lives ...

At 2 a.m.

When you wake up at 2 a.m. this is a good thing to do:

Then make a garland from them and string it across your kitchen window.

If they look like this, fear not! They have not magically (and rather sadly) lost their colour, no you dummy, it is because you have taken the photograph against the light.

I made stacks more - I am thinking of using them to pelt passersby from my window - hahaha!
To make them, see here.

Little Boxes (music & lyrics by Malvina Reynolds)
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Long overdue ...

Some very nice bloggers have given me some very nice awards/tags recently (my definition of recently is very flexible) - the wonderful poet Khaled KEM gave me a Fabulous Blogger award, Jesse, she of the amazing tea towels and fantastic drawings, gave me a Kreativ Blogger award, Anjie of Pompom Emporium whom I met during the TAD challenge, and who makes all kinds of lovely goodies, most recently a lemon drizzle cake, yum, gave me a Fabulous Blogger award and now Lynne (who has a clothing store in CT which I will have to visit soon!) has also given me a Kreativ Blogger. Wow, I feel quite overcome, thank you all very, very much!

I have to list 7 things (but I'm going to make it 8) I love (or are addicted to), so, here goes ...
1. Coffee. First thing in the morning. Especially Woollies' Italian blend, plunged in my plunger. For a cup out, definitely vida e caffe or Seattle Coffee shop
2. Car boot sales. I am addicted. Especially our local one where I always manage to find some quirky, amazing bit of junk.
3. Reading. Love a good book. Just love it! Just finished José Saramago's the History of the Siege of Lisbon and Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn, almost finished with The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, halfway with North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell). I have to read two or three books simultaneously ... not sure why ...
4. Movies. What can I say? I obviously have a desire to live other lives vicariously through books or movies. Last night I finished the mini-series, The Line of Beauty, based on the Alan Hollinghurst novel. It was jolly good, if somewhat depressing. Have also recently finished the BBC series Cranford, as well as North and South, and Wives and Daughters (all based on Elizabeth Gaskell books). They were all fantastic. North and South just has the most romantic kiss on a station platform, oh, I shiver just thinking of it ...
5. The view from our living room across the bay to Simon's Town. It never fails to uplift me.
6. Making things. Or thinking of making things.
7. Synchronicity and discovering unexpected connections.
8. L'Usband. Always.

If you've read through this list, you're tagged!

A New Project

I have to laugh when I look at my (various) lists of projects (planned, started, half-abandoned - but not discarded), and measure it against the tiny handful of completed projects. A beautiful illustration of an inverse relationship ... Also, to complicate the issue, I find that my excitement and desire for new projects grow with leaps and bounds exactly when I have to do other things, such as proofreading.

Anyway, I got this in a junk shop in Kalk Bay last week - an old wooden slide case. I actually bought it as a storage space for papers and drawings ...
but the contents gave me an idea for an art project ...

Five inserts with 48 spaces each to be filled! I am thinking of a series of heads (like these by Sarah), and/or a giant mosaic such as this one by the kendalee (using my own photographs), and/or a hand-drawn cartoon, such as this one by Jesse. I also plan to use one insert for yet another project (movie-related) which I will post about tomorrow. And maybe I can use one of the inserts in conjunction with my zine project (still in conception phase).

Oh, the possibilities are endless! Do you have any other ideas for me, perhaps?

The Weekend

Some photographs I took on the weekend ...

The Birds ...

... near Sunny Cove

I hope you all had a great long weekend!

Milky Way

(Not as in stars, sorry!)
Milky Way is the name of the little pad of black paper I bought for doodling with my white gel pen. I am having great fun ...

STOP !

(Art journal page, with the white gel pen bits illustrating anxieties taking root in my brain and branching out ...)
I would like to stop:
1. greed and avarice and unnecessary consumption.
2. people taking advantage.
3. waking up at 3 a.m. and rolling around, filled with anxieties, and unable to get back to sleep.
4. our neighbour from building (in addition to the new house which he is building next door, he is now also extending the 3rd storey of his current house which is situated at our back, taking away even more of our privacy as well as the last six inches of sunlight that were left in our courtyard).

Simon's Town Colours

I took these in Simon's Town yesterday. Obviously I am in need of colour. See also the lovely colours on Lisa's post here.

The Post box

Did the letter go here, perhaps? Number 3 or number 4? Or maybe it is number 34 and they just get a load of post ...

I took this shot, and the ones below, in Observatory, Cape Town.

The cracked pillar ...

This lovely stencilled art was on a metal gate ...

The suburb I live in is nothing like Obs. It is very neat. With no street art. People tend to arrive home from work and disappear into their homes (or fortresses). There are no cracked pillars. Sometimes I wish it had more character. But then, it has a sea view ...

Have a great weekend, wherever you live. Write a letter! (and post it ...)

The Letter

Is she the sender? Or the recipient? And what does it say? I do not know yet ...

I am working on some new pages in my art journal ...