Down in G’town – Day 1 – Quick Pics

Registration at Rhodes was fairly painless. My Rhodent status is now confirmed by the requisite unflattering likeness fused onto plastic.
The day’s welcomes and introductions left me a with a bit of daylight to take a short photo-walk down Somerset Road.

Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA) on St Peters Campus, Rhodes University, and home of the MA Creative Writing programme.
When the Grahamstown gaol closed in 1975, it had been the oldest functioning prison in the Republic of South Africa.


Down High Street, towards the St. Michael and St. George Cathedral.

That new year smell

You can rewrite your script at any time but there’s just something about new years and Mondays that import impetus and gravitas to reinventions.

I have just a few resolutions this year;

  • To drop the kilogram-equivalent of a small child.
  • To respect food.
  • To focus on writing and photography.
  • To start my day earlier.

I’ve been accepted into Rhodes University’s part-time MA Creative Writing programme. Over the next two years I will have flare guns directed at my reluctant-writer ass by course deadlines and supervisors.

While I’ve always considered my greatest strength to be the ability to fit into whatever skin is demanded of me, my scattered focus has been to my detriment.

My energies have been stretched across too many frames. I’ve not been writing as I should and I am bereft.

I’ve decided to downscale my freelance work to include only existing copywriting/web management obligations, the ShootCake project and the occasional social media workshop facilitation I do for frayintermedia.

I know this MA will only be as good as the hard work I put into it, but it does offer me a tangible creative process and an end in sight.

I’m hopeful.

Faith paint

Spotted at the paint section of Builder’s Warehouse, Glen Eagles.

“Paint my faith,

You should paint my faith.

It’s the picture of a thousand cheesecloths”

(Apologies to Michael Learns To Rock)

 

Muslin/Muslim typos amuse me.

I often wonder who’s more unfortunate; the muslim having the paneer strained through them or the person who has to eat it after.

My mother’s city

I’m in Cape Town this week, visiting my mum for the first time since she’s moved to the Mother City.

There have been more pictures than words of late, and I’d have turned this entire space into a photo blog yonks ago if it didn’t mean I would be giving my procrastination djinn the rope to strangle my muse.  But for now, while Table Mountain mellows and irons out my thinking, pictures will have to make do.

Looking towards Cape Town from Milnerton beach
Cape Town Stadium about to be hailed back to its mothership
The Turkish bulk carrier Seli 1 ran aground on Table View beach in September, 2009
Turkish bulk carrier Seli 1

Click here to read my 2006 Capsule Cape Town account.