I found a crazy garden in Israel

As we drove into the Christian Village of Nes Ammim in Western Galilee, my eye caught this crazy garden laid out years ago by a volunteer from Holland.
    What a feast for the eye...

Cornerstone friends admiring Golden Shower

The Golden Shower on the Verandah is at its best in July/August each year.

 My little friends from the Cornerstone Assembly of God came to admire ...

                                                                      The two talkative friends

Big sister ...

                                                                  Little sister ...

Township cool for book club

When book club member Biffie Joubert invited us for an African-themed meeting, I had to think up something "animalistic" because I do not possess a sweswe garment or embroidered African skirt.
   So a fake leopard skin strip had to serve as headpiece and the zebra-patterned silk top (bought in London - 2007) competed against each other.
    The nicest part of it all was wearing Kia's sneakers with "ankle bracelets" bought in Venice at a Chinese shop (copy of Murano beads).

Elephants in Summerstrand ...

Detail on gloves (above) and pearls (below)

                                                             Traditional snack

                                                             Out of Africa cheeseboard

                                      Helena sported European footwear for an African safari

Taste of Hungary!

When Viola Mate requested a bed for two nights on Couchsurfer, I knew that I could ask her to show me how to make Hungarian noodles. I brought a noodlemaker from Budapest in September last year and had never used it.
   What a lovely young woman! We had such fun during her two-night stay. I fetched ther at the BazBus stop and dropped her there again 62 hours later.

                                            Sampling my Malay curry in the kitchen ...

                                       Post Box at the old Lighthouse on the Donkin...

                                                                 Near Something Good ...

                                                            The noodle cooking process!

                                   Paprika Chicken (back) and Hungarian noodles.
                                    Viola phoned her mother to get the Mate family recipe.
                                      400gr flour, 4 eggs and 2 desi-litre water...

                   Lovely gift!     A piece of traditional embroidery made by a family member

She wrote the following to Couchsurfing after leaving for Wilnerness....
                          ... spent 2 nights at Trudie's place. She was so nice and welcoming
                       Being in her house felt like home. It was great spending time together with her and
                       her daughter Kia. Thanks for everything, showing around and the wonderful
                            meal :) Keep in touch :)

Bling at Women's Day tea

Annetjie Stander invited me to the Tea at St John's Methodist Church on Women's Day.
   The brief was Black and Bling... so I duly donned by black dress, fishnet stocking, vintage black shoes velvet hat, silver lurex gloves and tapestry bag...

                                Annetjie's silver on the table... and the hostess herself (below)

Street music fest in its 4th year

The Richmond Hill Music Festival is blooming and the hard work of the Alliance Francaise rewarded.
    This year the streets were even more alive with anything from clowns to koeksisters and classical!

Artists were at work from dawn into the night in front of the Alliance

To get into the swing of things, Eon helped me to yarn bomb

the tree in front of the Verandah

The Doilie Tree!

Christo Zondagh and the lead singer in his band

pic taken by NMMU Photography student

Time to harvest...

The garden is not only about crazy objects and succulents... I am harvesting the most delicious rocket leaves for salads and a variety of herbs for flavour and garnishes.
    The gooseberry bush is prolific this year and the grenadilla has trailed into the dogplum tree and has "shed" a lovely fruit on nearly a daily basis for a month...
     Here is the proof!

    Gooseberries, grenadillas and ONE lonely butternut grown from what I thought was a pumpkin seed.

Couchsurfer from Serbia

Towards the end of May I started corresponding with Stefan Savic who requested a bed for two nights in Grahamstown. When I saw that he  would be arriving after sunset / early evening in June, I offered him a bed in PE for one night so that he could wait for his girlfriend who would be arriving the following evening.
    After a couple of internet conversations, Stefan did not feel like a stranger any more. This your man was coming to Rhodes University to start his PhD in Linguistincs on a South African scholarship  His girlfriend, a Polish concert pianist, is to perform at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival during the next few days.
     I fetched Stefan at the airport and met a very positive young man... At home he met Eon and Kia and our friend Lara.  Supper was vegetable soup and venison-filled pancakes served with kiwi jam. His first time to taste "wild" meat at 33 degrees South!

                                                                  Stefan on the Pier

    While waiting for Joanna's flight, Stefan helped us in the garden, "touched" the ocean when I took him to Summerstrand and the Humewood Pier, and visited my friend Gerda Coetzee Offerman's new eco-house.  I took him to Pick 'n Pay to see what a SA supermarket looked like and he bought us a chicken for that night's supper. Then we went to sit on the deck at Something Good for coffee, also paid by him.
    Stefan is a polyglot... Not only did he study in his own county, but also in Norway and Germany and has a command of many Slavic languages.  When Eon's friend Ryan visited, he got an idea of all the click sounds of Xhosa. His sister, an architect, worked in Holland for some thime and when he visited her there, learnt some Dutch so he was able to adapt to Afrikaans with dankie, goeie more etc.
    I taught him one, yes only one, strong word and that was KAK... and a short sentence, Jy praat kak and told him when to use it.  So when Pieter Verwey's Grahamstown shuttle came to fetch them at the airport, Pieter said, "you can be fortunate that you landed with an "old lady" otherwise you would have learnt many swearwords."   Stefan looked him in the eye and answered: "Jy praat kak."
 

Joanna arrived with a very big suitcase!

00000000000000

Stefan Savić has REQUESTED a friend link to you and has written the

following reference about you on your profile: 

Trudie was an AMAZING host who took care of me the first 24 hours I spent
in South Africa, more precisely in Port Elizabeth. She picked me up from
the airport and was a very generous host who showed me around Port
Elizabeth. I also met her children and their friends who I very much
enjoyed talking to. I really felt like home in Trudie's house - a
beautifully decorated place! I am looking forward to meeting you soon
again!

Take note takes over for a morning

Sometime in 2014,..

            At 8 on this lovely autumn Saturday morning,  Noma,  her production secretary and cameraman,  arrived with make-up, clothes, props etc to start filming a music video in the garden of the Dust Palace.
    Take Note is a Kwazakele Jazz Band. They have been going for 6 years and had a video made previously but it wasn't professional.
Now they have the opportunity to have Noma on board and Victor from the Cameroon is behind the camera. They are doing the stills / frozen shots here and will be going into the township this afternoon for the real thing and lots of noise, I suppose.