The Season of SAD?

There is not as much aerial activity in the garden as there was the previous evening, when the flying ants provided a sky buffet for bulbuls and thrushes, while higher up bats flitted hither and yon and the swallows caught the insects that escaped the lower predators in the pecking order.

The equinox has been and gone and already there are intimations of Autumn. From a promising start the day turned gloomy and grey, and while most of the trees are still green, the foliage has darkened in some, losing the freshness of spring and summer, while other leaves fade to yellow, dropping to carpet the lawn, dappling the shade that was hitherto dense and cool. 

This drooping of the sky and falling leaves brings a general damp dreariness to the atmosphere with an accompanying lack of productivity in the humans affected by it.

The equinox is believed to bring a balance to the world - all should be in equilibrium before tipping towards summer in the North and winter in the South. One would hope that rather than gloom and depression, the mood should be one of tranquillity, serenity and reflection. Perhaps it is simply a moment to pause in order to maintain the equilibrium in a moment of quiet contemplation.

No Hwel

Ja well no fine, as we Seffricans say...

Apparently I am not up to the challenge of writing every day. I either get interrupted and lose whatever I was busy with or have a singular lack of inspiration, unlike Hwel in Sir Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters, who has the inspiration for every movie, stage or TV show sleeting through the atmosphere into his brain, and can hardly manage to fit all the bits into his scripts, much like his creator. 

It was a very sad day for the literary world when the great man was visited by another of his creations, Death, the Grim Reaper.

We have a new world in which we have no more PTerry books to look forward to! In the words of Death: OH BUGGER!

I shall have to adapt my own challenge to fit my lack of discipline, since merely writing appears to be enough of a challenge for me. As long as it happens occasionally. More than once a week... However forgiving and slap-dash this may sound, the original challenge was not intended to become a chore, since chore rhymes with bore, like homework when one hates the subject. 

I have now started using the blogger app on my iPad, rather than online on the PC, in the hopes that I don't get side-tracked by links to interesting bits on the Web, as is another bad habit of mine 😁. Actually, it's debatable whether that is a bad or a good habit, since my tendency to follow branch lines in my train of thought or online reading led to my researching further education far enough to get my Masters - an example of what happens to homework when one is interested in the subject matter. Fifteen pages of references attests to this!

Of blackouts and candles...

Ooh, look! Power! As we emerge from 12 hours of darkness. Eskom and City Power are conspiring to turn South Africans into raving lunatics. They publish "loadshedding" schedules and at the top of the page in large red letters write "we are NOT currently load-shedding", and then all goes black when you're in the middle of doing something on the computer. Last time that happened our fridge died.

At least it provides us with another topic of conversation apart from the weather, and a common cause of complaint apart from the government... Although maybe not that far apart. At least I hadn't decided to bake for last night's book club.

Sudden power cuts do have their positive sides as well. While extremely irritating, the lack of man-made noise makes one more able to appreciate the sounds of nature. Right up until the idiot over the road starts revving up his noisy car again and one yearns for the white noise of the waterfall in the fishpond. 

Another positive is the lack of Internet access, as even the cell companies are affected so mobile data is unavailable, so one must perforce read a book or write with pen and paper,  perhaps even get the creative juices flowing with some drawing.

At least the power tools next door are silenced, and when the traffic noise dies down, it's lovely to sit in the garden...

Summer

Oh dear! Doggie dramas, noisy neighbours renovating and weekends of socializing mean I don't actually get down to writing, never mind have any inspiration.

I love summer. I love the heat, and the feel of the sun on my skin. Unfortunately, my skin doesn't appreciate that, but that's another story. I also love to sit around a fire, gazing into the mesmerizing flames, either in winter in someone's fireplace (we don't have one) or in the bush, around a sociable braai fire or in a boma in the bush. I was very glad, though, to have left the Cape before their latest heatwave. When I say heat, I mean up to 35 degrees at the most, and the Cape has been experiencing temperatures in the late forties. These high temperatures, exacerbated by hot winds, fanned the fires which devastated the Peninsula last week. But Nature is clever. Fire is important to the proliferation and regeneration of the fynbos, although small animals and human infrastructure get caught in the crossfire. Humans came to the rescue, and this fire brought out the best in people, who suddenly found their humanity in the common cause of protecting homes and animals displaced by the fire.


Cape Fire fought by heroic South Africans

The scenes of devastation gave rise to hundreds of awe-inspiringly powerful images, of both Man (and Superman, as the firefighters have been dubbed) and Nature.

and community scenes such as this:

An inspiring music teacher

This should have been yesterday's post...

I didn't get round to writing a blog yesterday. I did write a quick note with a pen, though. Then the day ran away from me - and my dog died...

What I wrote:

Last night I was musing on how music is so evocative of people and places, scenes and happenings.
I had gone into the kitchen to fill up my wine glass, and happened to glance at the clock and notice that it was an hour since I'd been in there cooking, with my first glass next to me. "Each glass lasts an hour," I thought, which started me singing "Streets of London" and I was immediately transported back over 30 years to an incident in Borscht and Tears in Knightsbridge. We had gone there for dinner with Vanessa and were having such a wonderful time with a great bunch of people that when the waiters started clearing tables and even putting chairs on them, we all simply decamped to the balcony, and one of the girls started singing "Streets of London". She had a beautiful voice and we all joined in...

http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Restaurant/Borscht__Tears/a245/


Today, we went to Ark Animal Shelter and brought home a little Yorkie, who is unused to people, having been brought up as a breeding bitch in a cage, so is very skittish and tends to run away and hide under bushes or furniture. I hope this situation improves...

But I really don't want this to be about journalling.

A challenge for myself

I have got out of the way of writing, either longhand or on the screen. I have fallen into the modern trap of writing bite-size snippets appropriate to social media. I hardly even write in decent English any more; it's all very informal. So I decided to challenge myself to write something - anything - every day. (Properly. Mostly in full sentences.) Upon deciding this, I was bombarded (by my brain, suddenly starting to fire, wonder of wonders!) by several questions: 

Firstly, should I allow myself a particular length of time for each day's writing?

Secondly, should I write in longhand, since I am evidently very out of practice at letter-writing altogether, or should I write a blog? I contemplated this and came to the conclusion that there are advantages to both media. In longhand, I have a scratch-pad, scratch-brain thinking process, with pen in hand forming a direct link to my thought processes. (Hmm, good thinking, Batman!) 

However, knowing my lack of self-discipline and willpower, perhaps blogging would be advantageous in that I might conceivably have feedback. And nagging (otherwise knowing as being called on my lack of output.) Perhaps I should try both. See how that goes.

Thirdly, would my writing result in a spectacular dribble of drivel, or cause me to say "Hey! You can still write!"? 

The first and third questions shall remain unanswered for the moment. The first step is taken: I have started a blog, and opened one of my hitherto pristine notebooks, which I have now defaced with my unfortunately unpractised scrawl. I can only hope this state of affairs improves.