On the sixth day … six geese a-laying, created of colours

Come the 31 Dec and the sixth day. 6 geese a-laying – meaning – six days of creation from crivoice. I’ll take creation and go to colour. My spectrum of six. Blue, indigo, violet? I see blue, or purple.

Created of colour

hat dark night of the soul. He said, I’m sorry to have to tell you …  you walk out, the sun still shines, well it did on that day. The world as I knew it ceased to exist from one moment to the next, and they go on as if nothing has happened!  When you walk along the crumbling edge of a precipice. Silent except for the hiss of gravel, the swish of a small stone, over the edge, and gone. The world reduced to shades of grey. I remember the doctor who took my hand and drew me back onto the path. Which was only a few steps away, I just couldn’t tear myself away from that come-to-me-edge. Light-and-Dark

ack on the path, a carpet of wild flowers, shady trees, distant mountains. I see a butterfly, I hear a bird, and something smells delectable. The sun shines gently on my back and a light breeze fans my hair. Once was a Blue-Essence-invitation from Kiki. My-Blue-story. Love building rainbows out of what nature offers in our garden. Floods-and-a-Rainbow and A Rainbow-of-Foliage

Created of colour
Con-served for nature!

I coveted physics textbooks with hand painted colour samples. FAR too expensive for me to ever dream of buying my own copy. But technology moves on. I’ll put a hex on you. Hex codes. I will name that apricotty taupe  … and that deep blue with just the slightest suggestion of green  … If you can talk Hex Codes with informationarchitects 100% Easy-2-Read Full black and white text starts to flicker. Benchmark: #333 on #fff  … says standard black text on white paper. If you talk fluent Hex, that would be charcoal grey on white paper. If you simply talk English with me, a blackbird hopping around in the snow! My blog colours are inspired by my header, hazy mountains against a sunny sky. Text in 1A455A on a BCCCD4 background.

Hex codes. A hexagon (6 sides) filled with all the colours. If you are playing around with colours on your blog use hex codes to keep the colours consistent. To avoid that maddening hiccup, you’ve Almost finished the second sleeve, but there is Not Quite Enough Wool for the last two inches. And you don’t wear the jersey in the end, because there is that off-key patch on one shoulder. Where The Wool Ran Out ...

Five gre-at books!

Fo-ur si-i-isters, Faith hope and love,
Two-o os-trich-es, And a why-da-ah in a karee tree!!!!

I don’t do daily posts, just for these 12 days. Choose a number between 1 and 12. Those wonderful pictures you didn’t use, because they didn’t fit into any post? Leave me a comment and a link? To a new post, or an old favourite? What is your Six? Sextet of …? For links to The Other Twelve Days. John Denver and the Muppets sing it. Carolyn is starting the year as I wish I could, but hoarders live here, sadly.  New-year's-resolution-to-edit-the-garden

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On the fifth day … five gold rings, five great books

The fifth day of Christmas is 30 December. Bringing us Anglicans to St Andrew, brother to St Peter and patron saint of Constantinople (someone tell Wikipedia it is now called Istanbul), and also of the Ukraine, Romania and Russia. Crucified on the saltire, an X-shaped cross, now known as St Andrew’s Cross. Remember the Scottish flag? A white X on sky blue? Saint Andrew. 5 gold rings – meaning – the Torah or Pentateuch, first five books of the Old Testament from crivoice.

'Beetle' on Euphorbia. Five gold rings

For me that will be five great books. Both large and heavy, and also Great Books that I treasure.

My 5 great books

irst Arno Peter’s Atlas, using an equal area projection instead of the usual how-do-you-make-a-ball-look-like-a-rectangle-when-you-cut-it-open-and-FLATTEN-it we are used to. Gall-Peters projection. Instead of Scotland being squoze up into the top, as I expected when we drove up to John O’Groats. We drove, for days, across a huge country. Stopping at the remains of a tiny village, as sad as Dellville Wood. The broken stone walls standing as a museum and a silent witness to the Highland Clearance.

I love stained glass. One of those books too large to fit into the bookshelf. With photos by Sonia Halliday and Laura Lushington.

One very battered and bandaged copy of The Reader’s Digest Illustrated Atlas of Southern Africa. Which has seen a lot of the Western Cape, and some of the Eastern and Northern Cape too.

inally The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in two volumes. These are heavy, as the Ungardener will tell you, after he carried them across London for me. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Ours is a really and truly English dictionary, from England, so it talks the proper Queen’s English. Once you have worked out what all those pronunciation hieroglyphics mean, that is. I’ve learnt to make sure that any dictionary I buy includes where-does-that-word-come-from?? Which explains why English must be one of the hardest languages to learn. All that unpredictable spelling and pronunciation is because we have lifted words from so many other languages. Squeezed that round peg into a square hole, knocked off a few superfluous letters! Imagine Mrs E A Coulson, whose claim to fame is all the W words in the OED! From Oxford University Press  95 pounds today.

Fo-ur si-i-isters, Faith hope and love,
Two-o os-trich-es, And a why-da-ah in a karee tree!!!!

I am trying for 12 daily posts. Choose a number between 1 and 12 (with a collage ... see my first quartet). A comment and a link? To a new post, or an old favourite? What is your Five? Quintet of …? Let John Denver and the Muppets explain it to you. For links to The Other Twelve Days. 


Suddenly my readers come to forks in the road ... Carolyn's Shade Gardens has a Thanksgiving post which is exactly in the spirit of my meme, garden, and blog.

For the fifth day of Christmas

My true love gave to me

Five native red oaks.

Come see Carolyn's Thanksgiving-Oak-Forest
PS And she has her Great Book in there!

2. Barbara in Mannheim is using
winter's down gardening time to read!


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On the fourth day … four calling birds, four sisters

We reach the fourth day of Christmas on 29 December. Thomas Becket – Archbishop of Canterbury Eyewitness to History. 4 calling birds – meaning – the four Gospels from crivoice.

Four sisters

Yesterday I was thinking – four what? Then I remembered when we used to call home, if my father picked up, he would say to my mother ‘Daughter number four on the phone …’ And I have four nieces. It was only in the fourth generation that Dagan arrived. Scattered around my home, make that, carefully displayed, are works from my sister’s hands. Daughter number one (DON’T mention me on FaceBook!) finished this piece of weaving. Started by daughter Alice, who dyed the yarn. Daughter number two (she is on FB) sculpted this head of her daughter, and also the two small statues that stand on our balustrade rail. Daughter number three (tried to get her on FB but that’s another story) painted this watercolour, and I bought it because I liked it, only saw her signature later!  Daughter number four is me, my father would run thru the names till he got to mine. ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians!’ Had to grow up a lot before I realised what that was about. A corner of my Fairisle knitting, worn in Switzerland, but even in winter here, it is seldom cold enough to wear a woolly pullover. The best bit of knitting is working the sample swatches, then I write the pattern as I go, so the back will match the front. And the sleeves will come from the same family.

Four flowers for four sisters

Teresa at The Cottage on the Corner posted this on 6 December. Play with her sisters and flowers. Teresa asked, if your sister was a flower … what flower? Daughter number one loves true blue flowers and covets a Welsh poppy, making do with wild flax at the Postberg Reserve. Daughter number two loves the Bewitched rose, of which my Oyster Pearl turns out to be a sport. Daughter number three wants deep purple flowers, for her this (used to be called Osteospermum) Dimorphotheca jucunda. Daughter number four, I love our indigenous bulbs, especially the ones I grow from seed. This Albuca came up as a bonus in with the ones that I DID ask for.

Fo-ur si-i-isters, Faith hope and love, Two-o os-trich-es, And a why-da-ah in a karee tree!!!!

I don’t do daily posts BUT I am attempting these 12 days. Choose a number, any or all, between 1 and 12 (if you do all 12 I expect a collage to grow, day by day ... mine will be 3 by 4s). A comment and a link? To a new post, or an old favourite? What is your Four? Quartet of …? For links to The Other Twelve Days. Dunno what I’m on about, let John Denver and the Muppets tell you!

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On the third day … three French hens, and knitting

The third day of Christmas. 28 December. The Holy Innocents – children and babies.

Star-Child, earth-Child, 

go-between of God, 

love Child, Christ Child, 

heaven's lightning rod: 

Street child, beat child, 

no place left to go, 

hurt child, used child,

no one wants to know: 

Grown child, old child, 

memory full of years, 

sad child, lost child, 

story told in tears: 

Spared child, spoiled child, 

having, wanting more, 

wise child, faith child, 

knowing joy in store: 

Hope-for peace Child, 

God's stupendous sign, 

down-to-earth Child, 

Star of stars that shine: 

(Refrain) 

This year, this year,

let the day arrive,

when Christmas comes for everyone,

everyone alive!

We sing this hymn each year at the Cathedral’s Christmas service. Words by  Shirley Erena Murray in New Zealand. 

3 French hens – meaning – faith, hope and love from crivoice.

Faith hope and love
(Celtic cross, anchor, heart shaped Dombeya leaf)

Two ostriches

And a whydah in a karee tree

Once upon a time (many years ago) my niece Alice turned 40 and I knitted her a jersey. Alice loves colour. Think Chagall stained glass windows, my inspiration. Like a magpie I collected my ideas together. First, the bottom row, from Horst Schulz Patchwork knitting  Stitches running from left to right, and, unorthodox, up and down as well. Imagine the STRIPED heels of four socks, side by side, worked all together on five needles. (He suggests working the patches and stitching them together, but I don’t do stitching up). Today the tangled ball in my head has 12 threads, gradually working loose as I tease out these daily posts. Then, I knitted straight thru till 3 in the morning. I knew, if I stopped I would never work out how to go on.

In the middle, four panels framed by cables (hugs and kisses). In each panel ten pairs of … earrings, beads, a tall stained glass window. LOTS of colours like a kid in a candy-shop inspired by Kaffe Fassett, a mess of tangled threads, but it comes right in the end.

On top, strawberries, (Jean Moss Summer Fruits), each lying in my puddle of cream. And somewhere, there were silver guiding stars ... Then I was knitted out. The yarn and needles lurk guiltily in the cupboards.

I love that creative process, gathering ideas and teasing them together, and apart. Then turning what my mind sees into something tangible. Once was cashmere, linen or silk. Now my words, quotations, digital pictures with vital links.

I don’t do daily posts BUT I am attempting these 12 days. Choose a number, any or all, between 1 and 12 (if you do all 12 I expect a collage to grow, day by day ... mine will be 3 by 4s). A comment and a link? To a new post, or an old favourite? What is your Three? Trio of …? For links to The Other Twelve Days. Need prompting, watch John Denver and the Muppets!

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On the second day … two turtle doves

The second day of Christmas is the 27 December. St John.

When we were walking-in-London there was an exhibition of prints from the new St John's Bible.

‘The first handwritten, illuminated Bible since the advent of the printing press. Commissioned by the Benedictine monks of St John’s Abbey/University in Minnesota. Being created in a Scriptorium in Monmouth, Wales. Using calfskin, goose turkey and swan quills, hand-ground pigments and gold-leaf. With a contemporary translation, script (readable and ‘alive on the page’). Illuminations with gold and silver sourced in Eastern Orthodox icons, renaissance tradition, Muslim tapestry, Native American basketry, liturgical vessels, architecture, cave paintings and computer images. To … foster the arts and revive tradition. Everything about this Bible is alive – the quills suggesting the outermost limit of flight (only the primaries are used).’ From An Introduction to the Saint John’s Bible

‘This project offers an insight into the lost skill of patient and prayerful reading. We tend to read greedily and hastily.’ Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

RosemaryWashington has two blog posts. Or the Pepper Bible for-the-pc-mac-ipad-iphone-blackberry-android-windows-phone-and-the-kindle

One-penny-more Following that spirit of ‘giving voice’ to the underprivileged - will you spend two minutes with the migratory workers picking tomatoes in Florida? From Raj Patel, writer, activist and academic. From where I stand in ‘Darkest Africa’ I find it hard to believe that 1 in 6 Americans is ‘food insecure’. Going hungry.

2 turtle doves – meaning – ‘the Old and New Testaments’ from crivoice

Two ostriches

And a whydah in a karee tree

We have laughing doves and the Cape turtle dove, distinguished by his black half-collar. He sat. With the camera. Ready. But no doves today.

Twos. Conversation. Comments. I take my hat off to bloggers like Francis the Faire, who brightly answer EVERY comment. But I am inclined to throw my hat at bloggers who ignore comments. Well they don’t answer questions! The lights are on, but no one is home. You can turn OFF comments, if you just want to stand on your soap-box and shout at us. Then spam … if you leave a stinking heap of spam for your readers to step over as they leave … we won’t be back. Apart from the obvious – porn, links to sell …, U R rich, WHY do they spam? ‘One reason is to test the inefficiency of spam detection systems. Another reason is to hope a blog doesn’t have a moderation scheme, allows the comment, and someone unsuspecting clicks it’. An answered comment on ariwriter how-to-identify-spam-in-blog-comments    

I don’t do daily posts BUT I am attempting these 12 days. Choose a number, any or all, between 1 and 12 (if you do all 12 I expect a collage to grow, day by day ... mine will be 3 by 4s) A comment and a link? To a new post, or an old favourite? What is your Two? Pair of …? For links to The Other Twelve Days. If, like the Ungardener, you are confused by all this, do watch John Denver and the Muppets!

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On the first day … a whydah in a karee tree

The Twelve Days OF Christmas start today on the 26th of December. Remember ‘Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the Feast of Stephen’. Known as Boxing Day, when the postman got his Christmas box. Remember postmen, before DHL and courier services??

‘It is a tradition to give Christmas gifts for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. A song for children? Some have suggested that it perhaps dates to the 16th century religious wars in England, with hidden references to the Christian Faith.’ from  crivoice 12days. And a partridge in a pear tree – meaning – Christ – as a mother bird trailing her broken wing to draw predators away from her nest. So papa whydah drives away other birds to protect lunch for the mothers of his unborn children. Argumentative-Lil-Cuss.

First day - whydah in a karee tree

One True Fan

Wonder how this compares to Blotanical readers. Definitely haven’t got one hundred times more readers than commenters here! That 80% - one visit one article - fair enough. I am looking for … and I found it, goodbye. ‘On average, less than one percent of readers comment on an article on the web. More than 80% of a site’s traffic visits just one time and reads only one article.’ from discover-your-blogs-community

Find your own stats here google reader/view/#trends-page. Sorry, I am not geeky enough to fathom how to do this, without clicking this link found in Louis Gray’s google-reader-shows-if-you-are-skimmer

For Blotanists who wonder about the ‘lurkers/stalkers’ that proverbial 99% who don’t comment. ‘While people once acted surprised at tracking people's habits in spending – Blippy, and travelling - Foursquare, it might seem curious why other friends' Web activity would be of interest to me. But I've been intrigued …’ from LG onetruefan ‘The trick is to live your life in a way that if your employer or future spouse were checking in on you, you would have nothing to fear. We live in a world with many imperfect people, and some really bad ones. Cultivate … great people, and be smart about what you share, and where you do.’ from LG solving-privacy-on-web

Blogspot is now mobile friendly, if you click twice. LG again blogger-introduces-mobile

I don’t do daily posts BUT I did these 12 days. For links to The Other Twelve Days. Choose a number, any or all, between 1 and 12 (if you do all 12 I expect a collage to grow, day by day ... mine will be 3 by 4) Leave a comment and a link. To a new post, or an old favourite. What is your One? What bird is in which tree?



First entrant TheYardArtGame from July training-troops

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Christmas flowers

I need a good excuse to start each paragraph with a Q. Lots of questions today.

 uestion 1. Christmas makes you think of what flower? In South Africa if you have  shade, it is Jack at Sequoia Gardens  hydrangeas. If your garden is sunny, it will be  Agapanthus. (NOT the Lily of the Nile, it grows wild in the South of Africa). I am tying  this to Gail's WildFlower Wednesday tomorrow clayandlimestone and  Noelle in Arizona's End of the Month Bouquet Christmas-garden-bouquet and Happy Holiday Blogtastic Shout Out at Recommended Daily Dose. Last year I showed you Christmas-flowers-in-our-garden and we have come full circle. A whole year has passed.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus detail

Advent 4

 uestion 2. What music do you choose to listen to at Christmas time? What can’t you  bear to hear another thousand times! Cluck of the Bells in curbstonevalley. Food  Court Flash Mob sing Hallelujah from Handels' Messiah for thecottageonthecorner.  The Three Kings in vegplotting. Village Carol Service cancelled by snow?! Don't you  believe it ... read purplepoddedpeas. We will be in St George’s Cathedral on Christmas day – to worship with Anglicans for once in the year, and to revel in glorious music!

I heard the Christmas angel sing ...

 uestion 3. What new traditions has your Christmas gained? Strange, we live  surrounded by wheat fields, and yet straw stars are part of the Nordic/Germannic  heritage. I was utterly enchanted and learnt to make my own when I lived in  Switzerland. My English voice has learnt to sing in German and Afrikaans.

Straw stars

  uestion 4. How green is your Christmas? Found a wonderful new meme on another     Southern blog. Veggiegobbler is in Melbourne Australia. fallen-branch-christmas-trees-revealed Pine trees are not a natural part of a summer Christmas. Artificial             trees only count as ‘green’ if you keep using them for TWENTY  years. Our                   Christmas tree is a huge branch from neighbour Andre’s pecan tree.

Southern summer Christmas tree

 uestion 5. And without … it just doesn’t feel like Christmas? Our Swiss Ungardener  cannot     get     used to a summer Christmas. He would like some of your snow. I am  used to Christmas cake, heavy and dark with marzipan and Royal icing. Also seen at    our wedding. My new Swiss in-laws looked at me doubtfully and asked – you don’t         EAT that icing, do you?? And family – my heart goes out to people celebrating a ‘happy’ Christmas for the first time without …

Bought at Liberty's, embroidered for me by my sister
Blue pine cone from childhood
Jute angel from Bangladesh
Glass dove from Switzerland
Bead angel, body mind heart and soul, I made myself

How did we go from a baby born in a manger filled with straw  … to focussing on the gold, frankinsense and myrhh? The shop till you drop worship in a shopping mall near you. Altho yesterday we found the shops very quiet for the week before Christmas. The recession bites.

At the Owl House in Nieu Bethesda

I wish you, my readers, a Happy Christmas. To family in England and bloggers in the UK may the Big Freeze bring you a Christmas you will never forget, for GOOD reasons! If you are as honest as a former colleague – I don’t celebrate Christmas – then I wish you peace and happiness with your friends and family over the holiday season. Peace and happiness also to hospital staff, police, shop assistants, bus and train drivers, and especially the man or woman in your corner cafe or convenience store.  I’ll be back with a turning of the year post.

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Karoo violets and birds, to Matjiesfontein

In November we went to the Karoo National Park. To see the lions and their new Lunch.

Karoo violets. Such a wonderful intense colour. From our flower book I didn’t realise quite how tiny this plant is. That is the toe of my boot for scale. Aptosimum indivisum in the Scrophulariaceae (with OUR Diascia, Freylinia, Halleria, Linaria and Nemesia – and YOUR Antirrhinum, Digitalis and Penstemon). Like most Karoo plants will also flower after rain. Pollinated by tiny pollen wasps. Could be used between paving slabs in a hot dry climate.  Info from PlantZAfrica

Karoo violets

You can see the dry stony slopes of a Karoo Koppie and the lush green of Acacia karoo  thorn trees along the riverbed. Walking across to the museum. Plants, animals, rocks and fossils and landscape (my first love), and human history from prehistoric to living memory.

To the museum

The cottages have a verandah, deeply shaded and opening across to this view. Do NOT feed the birds, but they ask, so nicely, so they got flaked oats.

View from the cottages

We are not twitchers or birders. So our pictures are of Birds. As I sort the better pictures I try to work out who they are. Starting with the obvious and familiar.  

The ostrich. No they don’t ‘bury their heads in the sand’, ostriches are digging for water.

Ostriches

A whitebacked mousebird. New to me!  Mousebirds have a crest, and a long tail. In our garden we had redfaced mousebirds.

Whitebacked mousebird

At first we thought this was a Nother mousebird. Same shape and colour, long tail? But no crest. Wait, it looks like a dove, with a long tail and a formal black waistcoat. Namaqua dove. Should be common in open country near our home, but I have never seen it before.

Namaqua dove

Remember Douglas the dikkop sleeping in Eden. This is what he would look like when he woke up again. A spotted dikkop, with very large eyes, ringed with buff and black making them even larger! We hear these birds at home, calling on moonlit nights. A haunting noise.

Dikkop

The new camera is slowly revealing its secret capabilities. A female Cape weaver grooming her wing.

Weaver

Here she is feeding her great brute of a hungry baby.

Feeding the weaver baby

This is how we usually see red bishops. Over there, you can make out two tones of red feathers.

Red bishop

But he and his new camera, can reveal the details of the colours ON the feathers. Up close and personal this rivals the golden pheasants we saw at Birds of Eden!

Red bishop, look at the colour ON the feathers

Soft brown above, chesnutty below. What is this one? Claire thinks it is a Familiar Chat, and Pierre says the jury is still out.

Who is it? A Familiar Chat? (THAT is an official bird's name?)  

A red ringed eye. Very dark brown head and back, cream below. Heavy dark beak. Claire has convinced me this is an African redeyed bulbul. 

African redeyed bulbul

When we are driving across the Karoo, we usually stop for lunch and a stroll in Matjiesfontein. A Victorian village which now seems to be in the middle of nowhere, it is on the railway line from Jo’burg to Cape Town. 

Matjiesfontein Station. Deliberately faded photo ...

Founded in 1884 by James Douglas Logan. Heading for Australia, he was shipwrecked at the Cape. From railway porter to thriving entrepreneur. Olive Schreiner – Story of an African Farm – lived here for 5 years. The village was restored in 1970 and is a National Monument. Info from Matjiesfontein

Matjiesfontein. We happened on a day
when there was a rally of vintage cars. Photo again faded ...

Rudyard Kipling

"The Native Born" 1894

To the home of the floods and the thunder,
To her pale dry healing blue -
To the lift of the great Cape combers,
And the smell of the baked Karoo
To the growl of the sleucing stamp-head - 
To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
To the map that is half unrolled!

Pictures by Jurg (and Diana), words by Diana of Elephant's Eye   

   

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