This makes me feel very small. And our planet very big. And absurdly beautiful.
Sorry. I just can’t get you around the world quicker than that. I know you’ll understand.
* A time-lapsed doff of the old hat to clearly tireless photographer Kien Lam and the wonderful Colossal art & photography website for this majestic round-the-world trip.
This blogpost is dedicated to all of those people who tut-tut darkly about starlings nesting in their rooves. I wager that they will never look at starlings in quite the same way again.
Just one more thing. Can art truly imitate life?
I think not. That little bit of avian showing-off, dear Hatpeople, is known as starlings doing a spot of murmuration. Murmuration? I’d love to murmurate with all of you. If only.
Nature’s got talent, hey?
* A big, murmurating, hat-tip to Jennifer Kestis Ferguson for the heads-up on wildlife cameraman Dylan Winter\’s majestic footage.
The Girl had spent much of the day with friends at the tidal pool, dolphining in the cool waters, espying salmon-pink, grasping anemone and tiny silvery fish as they darted among the rocks.
When dusk closed in and it was time to return home, she walked along the promenade wall, her salty skin shivering slightly in the evening bite. She felt alive and on top of her world.
She was so happy that she felt she could fly.
But, although she had, just that afternoon, inhabited the water world of fish, she knew sadly that the vast air arena of the birds was beyond her reach…
But wait. Was it? As a loftily-kicked football fell back to earth, a dragonfly magically appeared before her and seemed to beckon her to reach higher… to fly.
But, as she dared to dream, the dragonfly wheeled and soared almost out of sight. Out of reach.
“Come down, Dragonfly,” called The Girl. “Come back. Please show me your way to be free!”
Lights flickered on along the promenade as the sun sank steeply below the horizon. She was out late and he mother would have begun to worry. And she was cold. But… what was this?
The Dragonfly had returned. Wings whispering on the evening breeze, he appeared to be encouraging her to follow him, to gather her belief and stretch her wings. And to fly.
So she did.
Pictures: Hatman Photography
The Girl flew. And, as her dragonfly friend dipped away across the waves, she soared. And soared.
She flew so high that it became possible in her mind to reach out and touch the Moon.
* This is my interpretation of an experience I had with part of a series of sculptures created by Marieke Prinsloo Rowe on the promenade at Sea Point, Cape Town. To enjoy the full story behind Marieke’s beautiful work, fly over to her Walking The Road website.
Thank you, Marieke. For inspiring children to dream.
Cape Town called. Again. As she does. DJ B McG’s 40th birthday gig (a la Track & Field nights of yore) upstairs at the Kimberley was majestic and the tunes laid down by the boys sublime. Tequila. Too much. Folk chick vibe? Admirable.
Two days later, after an almost suitable recovery period, I went down to salivate uncontrollably on the floor of the Ben Sherman shop. Their threads are simply non pareil. Trying not to file the image of that shirt I couldn’t afford in the filing cabinet at the back of my brain marked “Shirts For Which I Would Happily Sacrifice A Testicle But, Actually, I Still Require Both Of Them”, I sought respite among the all-consuming throng wandering around in a retail daze.
Bored, I snapped a picture of a seagull almost scoring a direct hit on the head of a stout German. And then I saw this.
The Wheel, Cape Town, 2011 Pic: Hatman Photography
It was my day off – released from the pixel-searing underbelly of The Argus building – so I hopped on a spray-paint-clad carriage for Kalk Bay.
One of those gloriously still and sunny days occasionally gifted Cape Town by the whimsical windstreams and K Bay showed its most flirtatious face.
I lunched in the heart-warm bosom of the Olympia – and within perfume range of the delightful Dame Janet Suzman – before unleashing my camera on myriad shadows, reflections and warmly-lit walls.
It was then that it dawned on me that we might have wriggled free of winter’s grasp… and, when I saw this young boy playing on the wall of the tidal pool next to the seemingly ancient Brass Bell, I mused that summer had indeed kicked off.
Pic: Hatman Photography
Shot. But so, too, did summer’s wicked wink shoot by and grey drizzle returned the following day. No matter. I had captured in my mind’s eye the golden glow of a majestic and memorable day and that will sustain me until my return to Stanford. And the promise of diving naked off the Jetty of Love into the Klein River by the light of the moon.
It doesn’t say much for humankind when a stray dog is buried alive in the grounds of a school. And when this cruel act was carried out on the orders of the school’s principal, one wonders what message this sends to the children being educated under the supervision of that principal. Who then sacks the school cleaner who dared to alert an animal welfare organisation to the plight of the dog.
It does, however, say a lot of the compassion of Bukelwa Mbulawa, the humble cleaner and sole breadwinner of her family who is in sufficiently in contact with her conscience to blow the whistle on her heartless colleagues.
And it says a great deal about the good works of Mdzananda Animal Clinic in Khayelitsha that they are doing everything in their power to heal the crippled body and traumatised mind of Warrior. Hats off to Jane, Gemma, Daryl and all of the others at Mdzananda who perform miracles daily with limited equipment to save countless township dogs which don’t enjoy the comforts of your or my lucky Fido.
My friend Helen, who has volunteered to help Mdzananda, and I went out to Khayelitsha yesterday to give some assistance… and to check on the progress of Warrior, the brave dog which has thrown the spotlight on how animals are often treated in the hard environment of South Africa’s townships…
This is Warrior. She's now in very good hands... but she is in bad shape and has a long way to go. She barks in terror whenever a stranger approaches her cage...
Let's zoom in on the eye of a Warrior. I'm sure you will see the distrust, the pain, the fear of a dog which was buried alive. Simply because its presence annoyed a man in power, a man who is a role model for the children he is responsible for educating.
Warrior barked in terrible fear when I went close to her cage. Vet Gemma says she doesn’t trust males…
... but Helen, who has a beautiful way with dogs, had a chat and managed to calm her down.
Warrior is, of course, not alone. Countless dogs lose limbs after being knocked over by cars in the township. And this little guy is just one...
Geordie, a pointer-ridgeback cross, is another who was run over. He faces life on three legs but has a gentle temperament and loving nature.
Gemma tells me that is almost impossible to rehome dogs with just three legs. There is a stigma attached to owning dogs that don’t have the full complement of limbs.
Go on. Say it. "Aaaaah..." And, "ag shame!"
So, when Helen was done doing a full makeover of the clinic’s charity shop and I had held dogs firmly in place while Gemma treated their wounds, we went off to do a “mobile” at a squatter camp. There we helped with giving the community’s dogs their routine injections and rounding up those which are taken away in a cage-trailer for sterilisation…
Helen fell for this cutie-pup...
... while my job was to squirt two shots of deworming muti into the mouths of a legion of hounds.
All the while, we were watched intently by the children, happy that their pets were being kept healthy…
And I somehow knew that this little character would provide us with a comedy moment…
And he didn't disappoint!
This is how caring for the health of animals in townships looks…
And Helen and I can’t thank the team at Mdzananda enough for allowing us the opportunity to help in some small way… it was a humbling and rewarding experience.
They - and the animals they treat and save - need your support...
Please help our unsung heroes.
Since so many of you liked the pictures I put on here of my Cape Town sojourn, here’s some more…
Fences, stairs and shadows
Wiggyheads
Helerassic Park
Man on a Manhole
Bumblebee, Vergelegen
Eyebubbles
The pub at The Kimberley was open...
... and I had a "Gem" of a lunchtime. All pics: Hatman Photography
When I arrived at the Kimberley, a public hostelry I far too infrequently visit, I raised my first pint to a late friend who loved the personality of the place. And drank there on numerous occasions. A sudden gust of wind blew through the pub door, knocking my hat off.
Cheers, Richard.
As wondrous as Stanford is, stealing lemons from the neighbours and flogging them down the Saturday Morning Market doth not many boxes of Ouma’s Breakfast Rusks buy. So I went to Cape Town to reintroduce my being to work. W.O.R.K. Heavens to Betsy! My village mellow was well and truly destroyed. But it did give me the chance, inbetween nocturnal enslavement at The Argus and shards of sleep, to photograph things other than sheep, rivers, mountains, birds, butterflies, children running barefoot and freely in paradise and the most beautiful woman in the village. You might want to check these out…
I hear Seth Rotherham has a pair on order. But Aubrey got there first.
Love the dresses, love the hairbunches, love the little girl...
There was this incredible woman on the train. She looked like a prima ballerina who had fallen on hard times. I thought her shoe and rose worked well together...
There was music in the air...
Sometimes you only have to look up...
My friend Helen has this bunny in the window...
Back to the train... and the best of British.
I wonder where they took their kitten for the day?
Sleep Purple
Another railway sleeper...
I followed Cape Town's yellow tile road to the Open Book Festival...
... and, on the way, I thought this late-afternoon sliver of light quite poetic...
... until my ears were caressed by the exquisite prose of the mercurially wordful Isobel Dixon.
After all that, light relief...
So it is. So it is. Pics: Hatman Photography
I’m so looking forward to delivery of the redesigned “SA-positive blog”. Then I can do this picture thing much more effectively for you. Until then…
I was enjoying a pint of Pride at the Birkenhead Brewery just outside Stanford, gazing at Leighan Pepler’s horses nosing about in the fields over in the valley towards the Klein Rivier mountains when Guinness-black clouds were whipped up on my left… oh, how I miss a good pint of Dublin-brewed Guinness.
Black clouds to the left of me...
... my beautiful mountains to the front. Pics: Hatman Photography
Unlike most men I’m not into cars. I mean, I get into them – but only in order to arrive somewhere, not to get off over getting my hands greasy while fiddling with all that paraphernalia I only discover under the bonnet when Sipho at the garage fills up the water.
Look, I’ll admit to getting aroused at the sight of certain vehicles, most particularly when a highly customised Landy bounces past on a dirt road but, on the whole, the guy who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would classify me as a “romanticist” more impressed by the aesthetics of motorised transport than the “classicist” who spends every waking hour obsessing over what actually makes them work.
My car-romanticism nearly blew a gasket when this absolute stunner turned up in the main road of Stanford this week…
The thing of beauty known as an Oldsmobile. Yes, I know. Please remain calm. I have more…
I said, remain calm! Accelerating smoothly on…
So I had a creative moment and thought I’d show you Terry Haw’s house and a bit of Stanford’s main road as well. Shall we drive on?
Pics: Hatman Photography
Hope you enjoyed the ride. I did. But I don’t have R120,000 to drive this honey away. If you have, pop in to see Erwin at the New Junk Shop in Queen Victoria Street and he’ll tell you, with his inimitable charm and charisma, who to give your dosh to. Just don’t tell him I sent you. Toot!
