The Light and the Dark

Freesia alba

Deeply rooted in me, twice over. The plant roots because I grew it from seed about 30 years ago. Seed from Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden – distributed free to members. The little bulbs live in pots, so I don’t lose them, and return, and multiply, and spread themselves further each year. When you walk past – the scent induces euphoria. Gone to glory now! You know how, when you take a deep sniff of one of those old, dark red roses – just for a moment the fragrance is so overwhelming, that you almost black out.

Freesia falls within the Iridaceae. 46 of the world’s 65 genera are South African. Technically a corm, not a bulb. Info on cultivation, frost etc at www.plantzafrica.com

And my own roots go deep. Today I asked my mother to tell me again. How her mother loved freesias. Used to buy a bunch and place the vase on the mantelpiece. Which was high and close to the gas-light. Whose heat would draw out the fragrance. And my thoughts wander off on a tangent – my grandmother, and so my mother in her childhood, lived by gas-light! Each time I smell freesias – I say – Hullo my Grandma Jennie! Whom I never met, but, I do remember, she phoned me once, for a birthday!

On that same Scottish journey, when we went to Rest and Be Thankful, we visited the Tenement House in Glasgow. Off Sauchiehall Street – never could work out how Glaswegians say that – but obviously not the way this foreigner read it! And the House – is actually a Scottish flat – Miss Toward was a shorthand typist, who lived here from 1911 to 1965. There I could experience for myself seeing by gas-light. (Info from the National Trust for Scotland guidebook) http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/59/

The dark train of thought was triggered by this lyrical artist’s description, of dark, never BLACK. Luckily, I do not own black paint. Period. It's an old bias picked up in my early painting lessons: no black, no pre-made grays. When I want to paint something black I use sepia (a dark brown) and either Prussian or ultramarine blue. Mixed together these make a quite rich dark that can be "pushed" to a warmer or cooler feel. From http://brushandbaren.blogspot.com/2009/04/book-brush-brilliant-sky-need-we-more.html which is an interview from Walking Nature Home. ((And all that is a sad little rant, because I am cross eyed after reading blogs who choose a dark/black background for their text.))

We close with Japanese style moon-gazing in the Ungardener’s pond. The camera, has found two gorgeous goldfish, which by the clearer light of day, are simply the tiny trumpets of Cape Honeysuckle …