Big Wave Bay

We managed to get out early this morning - and were on the beach at Big Wave Bay by 9.15 - and on one of those rare occasions it lived up to its name.  By 12.00, blown out by sun, sand and surf, in that superserene space that a wild morning can leave you with, pizza at the little cafe on beach.

Friday evening on the bank

Summer's sommer here - sticky - airheavy, deadstill.    We hit the sandbank after work, timing was all good, a 0.3m low tide (the sandbank appears in the middle of the bay if it's 0.5 or below) and its a lovely piece of sand.  The water was just like the air - surf thundering in at 2cm.  Ev worked up a sweat in the construction sector, and then went for a swim; Aiden dug up a huge sand-mussel, no idea how he located it - like a good 20cm across the shoulders, and probably 10cm thick at the join.  We checked it out.  Then I went and stuck it in the sand, sort of shin deep in the water.  I looked down, and there was another big shell half buried, but partially open.  I looked inside, and two eyes looked out at me (!).  It definitely wasn't the sand-mussel.  So with difficulty I prised it open, and hiding inside was  an octopus - holding the two shells closed with its suckers (it was surprisingly strong).  Cool. We checked it out.  It checked us out.  We put it back in the water.  In the shell it was a white octopus - when it got back in the water it shot off, and turned brown in about a second.  It then buried itself in the sand, effortlessly, like it had been swallowed, leaving just its eyes peeking out.  I knew if I looked away and looked back I wouldnt be able to find it.  I put its sand-mussel shell back down on the sand next to it, but open.  We headed off.  Before we left, we went back to look at the shell.  The octopus had undug itself, got back into the shell, and pulled the two halves together again. Somehow it then half buried itself and the shell - all you could see was the end of the two halves, and its eyes peeking out the crack inbetween.  Very cool. Ambush hunter of note. Then we went and watched the Stormers beat the Blues.  Also very cool.  Is it possible for Saturday to measure up to Friday night?  Hope you've got the work under control (as I'm sure you do).  I'll be joining you this weekend at the books.  Good luck next week - I'll whizz you a note before doomsday.

What's happened in the last short while?

...well, Dylan's Easter holiday came to an end, which means that he had to head off back to St Andrew's in Grahamstown.  He's grown a lot, in every way, and it was lovely to see him.  What you can't see in this pic is that he's tickling Aiden, made everyone smile.

Aiden cut his foot and got three stitches - his first (quite a palaver I must say); Ev was fascinated when the plaster came off.  I noticed, of course, the grubby toenails (not too bad actually).



My trusty watch broke (on the plane back from India ...
...so I bought a new one a few days ago (I know you have this watch thing - don't deny it - because I know where it comes from) so instead of buying some designer type thing, I bought THIS - which won't be breaking in a hurry. (not very elegant; but pretty cool time exposure photo with the secondhand blur, no?) 

And finally, I spent a part of this afternoon at one of Ev's classmate's party, at a McDonalds in one of those shopping centres in one of those housing estates in Tsuen Kwan O (you now of course know what I'm talking about) -  I liked his expression - whew; it echoed my thoughts; hi energy, colour, sound and activity overload, man; so I need to immediately hit the sack. Thinking of you, as always, and especially today.

India

India is impossible to photograph if you are not wholly committed to doing it, which I was not, at all.  I didn't take pics of the lovely people who we stayed with, or their beautiful homes; so there is none of that here. But I will say that the rest of the world could learn something other than just cricket from India: at hospitality and warmth, India are world champions too.  So I took a handful of photos, really.  This is in Delhi, bags being tied to the roof before heading to Agra - and the Tajmahal. 

We also travelled by train, which was just great.  Two below, is a pic of Uttar Pradesh landscape at sunset from the train window - harsh as a place to live this, by any standards.  The photo above that is in one of the many stations you pass through.  The old man has a tiffin with him - cool things.  The train took us to Chandigarh, and more fantastic hospitality from lovely people, with lovely kids, and from there we went up up up up up by car to Shimla (Simla), a hill station in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Surreal.  Massive vistas, forests, and the best hotel I've ever stayed in.  The contrast in landscape was mindbending. 

The photos below that are from Chandigarh, a tiny sample of an enormous (40 acres), completely surreal garden, called the Rock Garden, built, initially secretly, by a guy called Nek Chand - which I was moved to take a few snaps in because it reminded me so much of the Owlhouse in Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo - which I seriously recommend going to some time - when that learner's becomes something more permanent, and you develop a taste for the road.  The Rock Garden is all built out of industrial waste - broken bits of this and that (check out the small pic on the left - it is a detail section of a much larger wall, all made out of broken neon light tube holders) - it is a fairyland of shape, and contrast and colour (I would have taken a million more photos, but Aiden puked instead, so we sort of had to take pity on him (and it was 40 something degrees in there).  But as a mindbender, check out this site http://www.nekchand.info/ and then click on the photo links to see the different parts - what I took does it a complete injustice.  Like the Owlhouse - its a great example of how art prevails while all those more serious things in life seem not to; it seems one of our species defining features.

Tajmahal

The Taj was INTERGALACTIC - wholly deserved it's own post I thought - indescribably fantastic - here are three versions of the same photo for fun.  I has no paint, the whole building is translucent marble, so it changes colour, at different times of day.  The writing and flower motifs - incredible detail - that cover it all, are all made up of inlaid semi-prescious stones; it looks symmetrical, but is not.  I thought it was simply out of this world.

Zermatt

Michelle and Laura - my ski partners for the trip - really lovely people.

Super-cool portrait of Michelle - decorated by a sun flare

Wayne - such fun - like the pic too because you can see some of the scenery - a just unbelievable place

I really like this portrait - waiting for the machine below (woohooo). The person on the right is one of the three people who runs the business - she is scalpel sharp, and thoughtful and kind (which is quite an unusual combination in my experience) and I think you would like her a whole lot - she has one of the cars you like (as in one of the cars that you really like.)

This is the best mechanical thing I have ever had anything to do with.  End of story.  Pat pat on the seat, hop in.  Mind the fan.  (Even a cool colour, and with groovy stars).

Hanging by the fan.  High up over the Swiss alps - there are no clouds in this picture.  Those cloud like things are the Italian Alps in teh distance.

The Mattahorn below the sun, exploding through the perspex side window.

Aiden's party (invite)

Aiden's party was, I thought, a bit of a dog-show; so we were managing children, (18 of them) - whew.  I wasn't in the mood to take pics of the little buggers by the time it was in full swing - so the best I can do here is the invite, and its evolution - colours by Aiden - text by dad (though not really my choice of title - sounded like a Hugh Heffner bash - but Aiden and Ange were hung up on the Easter thing, and there was nothing that could be done.

One by Ange

Earlier months of this year

This is a catch up blog post - my apologies - I've done next to nothing for a good while - so these are the things that I snapped but hadn't yet posted (I thought they should be b/w to give them that historic look).

  We set out to climb High Junk Peak one lovely spring morning - here are the boys at the start of the path - lovely speckled light coming through the forest canopy.


In the pic below, Ange and Ev coming up to the saddle. [Grr - I have no idea how to get this formatting to work properly - so the writing might not exactly be where it should - punishment for the backlog hey].

Below that, Ev on the bench at the top of the saddle, looking over HK Island   

   

Ev and I take a break half way up. Huff and puff man - from the trees in the background I've been lugging the not so little dude.

The top of High Junk Peak, at the trig beacon. The air is good and chewy. If you look carefully next to Ange, you can see an island in the sea.

Aiden at the temple in Po Toi O

One morning we took a walk from our place to Po Toi O (about an hour).  On the way we stopped to watch a flock of radio controlled aeroplanes - loved this pic of Ev (who loved the planes).

I did a kitchen photo shoot for Ian who has a kitchen business starting - this was one of them - tough things to photograph, you wouldn't think so, but they are.

Another tricky thing - Jordan doing hand-stands.  Jordan went through a stage of doing at least a thousand handstands a day - any place.  In the first attempt (tricky of course because you are not looking through the camera) I managed to get myself more than her. 

This turned out best - nice grubby little kickers there Jord :-).  The pic below is completely unco-operative - so it's caption comes here - Ev, delighting in the Spring's first beach visit - nice chilly water - not to be deterred.