WHAT WE RECEIVE IS ENOUGH

A lovely old-fashioned flower garden in full bloom: hollyhocks, nasturtiums, antirrhinums, marigolds, wild sage and cannas … The wire fence covered with wisteria

In the city, it is all invariably too much. Too hurried, too noisy, too dangerous, too full, too many … it feels as if there is hardly any space or time to be content. This overwhelming excess drives me up the wall, I want to escape to the mountains. But in Cape Town these days you can no longer even do that on your own, at least not without an unnerving sense of insecurity. We all live behind bars, even neighbourliness has become extinct. We grow lonely amid the masses. No wonder my yearnings for a house in Montagu are growing stronger by the day.

I want to get out of here and move to a place where my senses can calm down. The Karoo, not yet crowded and overpopulated, seems ideal. Even the tones