Home from the holiday

Hi!! I'm back ... it feels like a small eternity that I've been away and I'm almost overwhelmed at how much I've missed here in blogland, but also thoroughly refreshed by being removed from computers, scanners and virtual communing for what is actually a short time - thanks so much to everybody who left comments and greetings in the last couple of weeks - so very nice to come home to... almost as good as being leapt upon by Very Happy Dog , and pointedly ignored by So Cool Cat, who is punishing us for going AWOL. I'm sorry to present such sorry little sketches first up in 2009, but they are the fond product of much excitement at my Christmas presents from my dear thoughtful husband... a little Moleskine watercolour Notebook (heavily hinted at), and a set of W&N artist quality watercolour half-pans, in a beautifully crafted wooden box (complete surprise and beyond wildest expectations)I immediately planned to do a full sketch record of our journey from Johannesburg to Arniston (about the furthest point in SA you can go to from here), real, live and in the moment, but after these first frantic attempts at scenery flashing past, and waterbrush erratically bouncing from paint to paper, and quite uncontrollable marks making themselves despite my best efforts to control them - I knew I would have to re-think on how to get a long, long journey down on paper -if at all possible... I have travelled this road, with deviations, so many times - as a child with resignation and boredom and as much sleep as possible, and later with growing appreciation for the infinite variation of scenery... colour, light, tone, mood, season... now I know there are really no words or images to express the vastness of possible experience of this journey, and I just want to share as much of my small snippet that I can render with my limited means...Whew - a resting place... we stopped at Beaufort West in the Karoo and were delightfully surprised to find the B&B we'd booked into - La Paix - was new, clean and air-conditioned (memories of spending half the hot night swatting mozzies and the other half trying to find a comfy spot between the protruding bed-springs in 'Rooms', Colesburg - but that was a long time ago) as well as having a lush French-style garden bursting with grape-vines, fat blue agapanthus and lime trees, to relax in before bed between fresh white sheets... (I'm sounding like a travel-guide aren't I?) A bit of the last stretch to the coast - rolling soft mountains with clouds casting undulating shadows - I did these later from the tiny screen on my camera, trying to hang onto the immediacy but without the turbulence - I have a possible plan to continue with this idea, with the trip back home, where I conscientiously and regularly took photos as we went along, driving BFG and my son nuts with the chirrup of my perky camera starting up. But that's all for right now - it was lovely to be there, good to be back.