Sunday mornings

On Sunday mornings we do real. We do dishes. We make breakfast. We don't comb our hair. We let our skins breathe. We walk the dogs. We sometimes cry. We groom. We do comfort. We recover. We do good coffee. We stay in our pajamas as long as we can.
These are the details of an ordinary Sunday morning at Casa El Sol.

Industrial Pretoria

When last did you drive out to your city's industrial areas for strikingly simple aesthetics and incredible textures? On one of our recent Sunday afternoon explorations we took a few photos - digital and film - of the Industrial West of Pretoria.

This is the digital camera edition - film to follow shortly.

Truth be told.

A lot of hope and inspiration comes from Danielle Laporte's writing. Her Manifesto of Encouragement had a profound impact in the way I perceive spirituality and life.

The cake makers

The Husband e-mails me early last week with this link and this note: Let's make it this weekend! In character with the little team we are, I go and buy some ingredients, he looks for raspberries, I make the batter and bake the crepes and he mixes the filling and layers the cake. I came out very nice - not too sweet. I recommend pouring some extra honey over after serving. The recipe is really easy and I love the zesty taste of the pancakes.

Coal mines, Silos and Power stations

These are the landscapes I grew up with. I'm often the subject of jokes and I do a fair amount of joking myself because of where I come from. A girl from a mining town. Only 120 kilometers away from her current home, only an hour's drive - yet some days it feels like an entire lifetime away.

We visited my parents (still living in that town) yesterday and had a lovely lunch at a nursery, saw the brothers and their girlfriends, looked at wedding photos (again), had some tough and deep conversations.

As we left we decided to take the long way home - through some smaller mining towns, with breathtaking landscapes - yellow corn fields, the rugged and utilitarian aesthetic of mining equipment, the strong primary forms of silos, the way in which the Highveld grass moves when the wind blows across the planes, the bright blue of the sky as winter is starting to settle in.

It never fails to give me a lump in my throat, these landscapes I grew up with.

All pics were taken with the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone.

Voer

It was almost like a blind date - only without the disappointments...
On a sweltering February evening Anjo-Marie from the Voer blog cooked for us. This little "affair" started when I was drooling over their blog (she and her partner does it together from different parts of the world) and loving the way in which they often write in Afrikaans about all the places in the city that my husband and I love so much.

Long story short - we got invited to a large Arcadia apartment in one of the most beautiful and interesting old buildings in the city to enjoy Anjo's cooking. One thing we have in common is our belief that you really do not need a large, fancy kitchen with two stoves, five pantries and granite tops to do amazing cooking.

We had a terrific evening - chatting about the all the hidden gems in the city, people's misperceptions of living in Sunnyside and Arcadia, and off course about food...

I didn't take too many photo's of the food, visiting their blog and checking out this post for the dessert is highly recommended. Thanks to Anjo and Johannes (in his absence) for the great food and a lovely night.

Misty Autumn morning

This weekend, we packed our bags (lightly) and headed out to Dullstroom with some friends. The guys took their bikes (three Triumphs, one Harley and a 38 year-old Honda) and the girls followed them on a scenic route through some of the most beautiful parts of the Highveld. Dullstroom also stayed true to its usual icy temperatures (it is one of the highest places in South Africa) and on Sunday morning there was a thick blanket of mist. This naturally makes the most amazing photographs and The Husband and I tried out my friend Marcelle's Canon 7D.

It was one of the most surreal and beautiful mornings.

For the blog-visitors from abroad, here is a map-link to the picturesque village of Dullstroom.

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