The beauty of the ordinary

Our dining room and stairs, with the light metered for Holly asleep in her secret corner.

Ange in our galley-like kitchen, malva pudding for some friends coming to dinner.

Angela and Liony - industrious morning

The strange beauty of the slightly stuffed wall, the arch, Simon
and Melissa's finger-lady holding the keys - a wedding gift

So why these photos?  I took a mid-day trip on "David Goldblatt Rail"  yesterday, my prolonged absence from SA leaving a longing - so I went through some of his photos that I so love, and which somehow anchor me - the little dry towns passed through over the years, on the journey from here to there.  Graaf-Reinet for example.  The way the Goldblatt Rail trip works is you look at the picture, and then you use Google Maps to go and look at the place as it is now - but of course you are constrained by whatever 360 degree photo that has been uploaded by some kind soul.  It was pretty cool, and did a pretty good job of temporarily quenching my thirst. It also made me giggle.  For example, here is a picture of his of Graaf-Reinet of a young family.  To me, a town passed through on the way to the Eastern Cape - a dry and dusty oasis of sorts in the desolation around.

If you look it up on Google Maps, the 360 degree photo tagged there is really of the town in the distance, taken from a vantage point looking down over the appropriately named Valley of Desolation.  Here's a triptych of screen shots from my phone.  From the left, if you look carefully you can see the town in the distance.  In the middle one, the Valley of Desolation, for what it is.  Both must be taken from some sort of a viewing point (reached by some dusty track no doubt) - and this is the real gem - because it has a sign, shown in the third pic which reads, delightfully: "Don't even think about throwing rocks into the valley below" in both English and Afrikaans.  Reading that really felt like being home:-)

Anyway, I digress, one of the many things I love about Goldblatt are his photos of the details of the incredible beauty of the ordinary all around us, which is what prompted the photos above.  This is his photo of "the voorkamer of a widow in Hillbrow":