I had a message from my Maternal Grandmother this week. That might be normal for many of you but mine passed away over 20 years ago. I had seen the most amazing pictures of a garden with a variety of beautiful, unusually coloured irises and it made me think of my Grandmother who loved irises.

I commented on @RussMorg‘s post that their beautiful irises made me think of spring times spent splitting bulbs with my Grandmother.

Half an hour later I was sitting outside having a bit of toast for lunch when I noticed some bizarre behaviour from multiple birds.

First a little swee waxbill landed on the grass, looked at me and pranced about. I think he was getting my attention. The warm up act if you will.

Then a Sunbird started dancing around and landing on the ornaments in the fairy garden. My grandmother loved hummingbirds and the sunbird is as close as you get to one in South Africa. I’ve always taken sunbirds to represent my Gran.

After it flew away I said out loud ‘Thank you my grandmother for acknowledging that you are with me and you hear me praising your memory’ and Kim, our Malawian handyman, stopped and looked at me. I said that I believe she shows me when she wants to interact with me. He laughed and shook his head. Kim is Muslim and I am an animist which I find interesting as many Africans are either Christian or Animist so we flip that balance on it’s head. He thinks I am a bit wacky but I am very supportive of him and his family so he just smiles at my nonsense.

Then just to confirm that it was indeed a communication from my Grandmother this was the elder’s meditation that I received the following day.

Then on Thursday I was walking in my garden, I stopped to open the gate to the driveway and a tiny little butterfly landed on the plant nearby. I pulled out my phone to snap a pic and it flew up and came down on the knuckle of my hand. It sat on my hand for ages. When I tried to move my phone to take a pic of him, he flew away and landed on the little wooden fence around the garden.

Another day there were little white eyes eating from the feeder as I had added little bits of apple for them to snack on.

I am so thankful for all of the changes this week. I love my house and gardens. I am constantly tweaking my plants and taking note of what grows best where.

From Sunday to Thursday Norm was stretched very thin and I was left to my own devices. He did a little fashion show for me last Sunday. He brought my morning coffee up and then he tried on his new trousers with his various dress shirts and the new jacket. I snapped a pic when he left on Sunday afternoon to go to the event being held at the British Consulate’s residence. His jacket was already in the car to save it from dog fluff.

For me however, last weekend was nicely relaxed. On Saturday I went for lunch with my friend Louise. She collected me on the way. We went 5 minutes up the road to The Deli Social and we were seated outside in the shade.

I ordered an iced coffee and a breakfast bagel. It was gorgeous. The eggs were scrambled properly, the bacon was crispy, fresh spinach (I hate the slime of some spinach) the hollandaise was light and lemony, the bagels were crispy and fresh. I really recommend this dish.

Lou ordered the Reuben Bagel and a glass of wine. She always orders this as it is her fave.

It is always lovely to see Louise, it is as if we just saw each other yesterday. We caught up on each other’s news and had a lovely chat.

I have had a busy week in the garden however. Recently I noticed this plant that has appeared at the gate. I used my PlantScope app to identify it and it says it is a Lizard Orchid, a very rare orchid found in the Western Cape. I thought it was a common Arum Lily which grow wild all over South Africa. So we will see what comes up. I told Norm and Kim not to dig it up, it is not a weed. If it is a weed I want to look at it. A Weed by any other name is but a Weed but it might not be a Weed at all.

I decided to put some plants in this ancient little fairy house. It has now moved to sit on the same wooden disc as the concreate fairy houses and looked a bit sad all bare and empty. We will see what takes root and survives. I always hope for some trailing plants. Oh – see that mushroom birdhouse with the blue roof? Every day a lizard or two suns themselves on the side or the roof. I wondered if maybe they had a nest in there but nope, it is full of rain water.

The shipment of plants I ordered from guvies arrived on Monday. It was packaged nicely, only one of the bougainvillea were broken.

Kim planted the vines along the terrace wall that I am determined to cover in blooms. I bought 2 bougainvillea and a star jasmine to plant on this wall.

He planted another purple bougainvillea outside of the property by the outer wall.

He also moved three large aloe plants (not sure of the genus) which had become too large for a pot and put them into the ground in the Peace Garden. The three pots now have some of the new plants in them. The circle of life baby.

For anyone who questions my Autism / ADHD / AuDHD, let me take you on a journey inside my mind. I saw a photo of a woman’s garden in LA and I asked about the amazing fern she had. She said it was native to SA and I have been looking for that fern everywhere. Why was I obsessed?

It looked like the plant version of Sideshow Bob’s hair.

I finally tracked it down. Let me introduce you to Bob. I now have 4 foxtail ferns.

The others are now by the pool. They are Baby Bobby, Brother Bob, and Margo Robbie (she is the prettiest one). Kim completely redid this bed which he had created a while back. I love that he placed the dilapidated birdhouse and the turtles at the front. He is starting to absorb my whimsy.

The Aloe Arborescens are planted in two of the now empty pots. I love these when they bloom, they shoot up pokers of bright orange little flowers!

An Aloe Arborescens is in the other pot where the larger Aloe was moved out of. You can see an aloe on each side of the pot. I hope they take to being in the ground and I have not inadvertently murdered three well established plants. The largest was root bound and shattered the pot when Kim removed it so he really needed to be moved.

You may spot the new plants in the video below. It shows all of the changes in the Peace Garden.

I mentioned the bracelet that snapped when I was babysitting Bree? I told the lady from Gaia Crystals and she replaced it for me! Funny thing is the package went to the wrong address but the delivery guy knows my name and phoned me to ask if it was mine. I won’t wear this one 24/7 like I did the last one.

We were booked again to babysit last night. Nothing makes me happier than time with our grandbabies. We were asked to sit from 5:30 to 10:30 but Norm was just too exhausted to manage that long so we agreed on a 9:30 end time.

Norm woke slowly on Friday, he said he felt like he had ran a marathon from standing and running for 5 days. It is a lot. He had a slow day pottering about and had an afternoon rest so that he could cope.

Bree was hilarious as always. We got there and Bree was happy to see us. She is not a ‘cozy’ baby in that she is not keen on sitting in your lap or being held, but she loves Norm carrying her around. She wanted to look for hadedas (the huge, loud, annoying birds) and so she and Norm cruised the garden saying ‘no hadeda’ until she was suitably distracted. She seldom cries over anything, even if she falls hard she might say ‘uh oh’ or ‘oh no’ but she pops up and carries on. She banged her palms falling down and I offered to kiss them better and she said ‘no’. She wanted to climb up and over her climbing frame for ages and then Norm and her did some cooking in the play kitchen.

I fed her the dinner they left for her which she always gobbles up so obediently. She has to feed herself however, no one can wield a spoon anywhere near her. After dinner she said ‘all done’ and wanted down from her chair. She had her bottle and then she wanted to climb and play. She brought me a book and patted the couch and said ‘Bree up dere’ so I lifted her up and she listened to the book, then she climbed down and was onto the next thing. She is a busy girl. Then at 7.30 she started to fade, you saw the tiredness in her eyes. I said OK let’s go and put your pajamas on and get ready for bed. She wanted to rather stare at herself in the mirror. Norm brought her over to the bed and she was so cooperative. She let me get her dressed and she assisted where she could.

I sat on the rocker and she climbed up and laid back against me and we read several books of her choosing. Then she wanted to read to me and she chose a book and she then told me what each of the objects in the photo was, pointing at the words but narrating the photos. She started rubbing her eyes so we popped her into her cot and we watched her on the monitor playing quietly with her stuffies. Eventually she passed out. Wes and Cait seemed to have a good night and we headed home as soon as they arrived as Norm was exhausted.

My website unlocked the ‘Globe Trotter achievement’ this week which I thought was pretty cool, it means that my page has been viewed by people who were located in 50 different countries! How many of them read anything or were bots I cannot say, so don’t pee on my parade.

My brain needs things to look forward to. I mentioned that I booked a flight to George in July for Amelia’s birthday. It is also mine and Norm’s anniversary the weekend before I go and we will at least go out for a nice meal. And this week I booked a play for my 65th birthday night. I love having a few things in my calendar.

These little lights of positivity are so important sometimes.

This week I found out that a friend of ours from Belfast has passed away. I met her when I moved to Northern Ireland in the late 1990s and then she came over to visit us in Cape Town after her mom died.

When Norm and I lived in Belfast we saw Rosie most weekends as we travelled in the same crowd. We often had ‘open nights’ at our flat and I would cook a big pot of chili and people would pop in and out on their way out of an evening, or on their way home. People brought their guitars or played spoons but we always had a singalong. We used to laugh and say it was not a good night unless you had at least one lesbian tumbling down the stairs because one night where 3 lesbians were fighting upstairs in the toilet and ended up rolling in a tangled heap down the stairs and landing in the door of the lounge. We had some right crazy times.

Rosie had the best sense of humour, she was what we call ‘great craic’ in Ireland. My face and my stomach would hurt we would laugh so much. She also loved to sing and play guitar or her ukulele. She was in a ukulele group which toured and played and I bet she was the life and soul of the group. Rosie was warm hearted but had her boundaries and took no nonsense. Rosie was also a Virgo, our birthdays were right next to each other’s and we were similar in so many ways. People initially think we both possess an Uncomfortable Amount of Confidence and meanwhile we are both riddled with self doubt and anxiety.

When she came to Cape Town she met my whole family which made me very happy.

I am so sad that she is no longer here but I hope she is happy wherever she is. I am sure she is organising a sing along. RIP our Rosie xx

For the rest of you, until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxox