A NEW …

I follow the principle that each new day is a fresh start for me, no matter how the previous day ended.

It is like starting with a fresh slate; a new beginning that holds the promise for greater fulfillment and positivity.

Sometimes one simply needs a new perspective in order to get back onto an even keel or to find the solution to a concern.

Each new life holds the possibility for exploration … and each new day is akin to starting from the beginning, only a little wiser.

There is a sense of a new adventure waiting in the wings every day, if only we care to look around us.

I have so far enjoyed the adventure of discovering wild flowers in this new season as spring unfolds different floral treasures every week. The pompon trees in our garden are just coming into flower and will soon be covered with a mass of these pink beauties.

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THE SEASONS ARE CHANGING

Whatever the temperature of the days and nights might be – although we are finally getting colder – the movement of the sun is the real signpost of the seasons. This is the sunrise taken from my bedroom window at 5:08 on 15th January 2022:

This is another look towards the east from the same vantage point at 5:52 on 6th April 2022:

A DAY THIS WEEK

A day this week began with the moon rising through the clouds:

Sadly, the cloud cover brought no rain. It must be the inevitable dust particles in the air that contributed to this sunrise in the morning:

Both of these views are from my bedroom window. As the day moved on, so did the moon complete its arc and was nearing the horizon by the afternoon:

Not long afterwards, the western sky was lit up as the sun sank below the horizon. This spelled the end of our walk as it was time to turn for home:

AN ORANGE THEME

The warmth of orange helps to keep the chill at bay and so I present to you some orange-themed photographs. The first is a bright morning sky as seen from my bedroom window:

Next come three flowers. The first is one of many more aloes likely to be shown here as the flowering season gets underway:

Deep orange Cape honeysuckle flowers are out already, brightening up gardens, hedges and the open veld:

The golden shower creepers are also showing buds and will soon provide cascades of orange too:

The colouring of the eyes of the Red-billed Oxpecker fits into this theme – just:

Lastly, here is a little boy’s dream:

RED RED

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt began a verse like this:

Red, red gold, a kingdom’s ransom, child,
To weave thy yellow hair she bade them spin.
At early dawn the gossamer spiders toiled,
And wove the sunrise in.

As red plays an important part in the decorations of this festive season, I thought we could start with a ‘red, red gold’ sunrise as seen from our bedroom window – beautiful enough to make one wish to rise straight away and see what the day holds in store:

The drabness of the South African winter is brightened by the arrival of the aloe blossoms in various shades of pinks, through to orange and hues of red – they are certainly worth a ‘kingdom’s ransom’ at the time for their beauty and cheerfulness:

Proteas too lift one’s spirits:

Once the scarlet blooms of the Erythrina trees are over and the trees shrug on their green foliage, which later turns yellow and then brown before dropping, we are treated to the bright red of their seeds revealed when the black pods split open:

On a practical note, warning signs are red. Occasionally one has to ‘make do’ as here when the planks brought home were too long to fit into the boot of the car:

Lastly, on a more aesthetic note, see how red brightens up this stained glass window: