Walking to work

Not all of the people I “work” with are actually employed by me, like Alfred, the friendly car guard at the Lions Head parking area. He’s a cheerful, dedicated individual who arrives at work before 7am most days, having made the long trek from Khayelitsha up to Lions Head. He survives on payments from parkers as no one pays him a salary, and it certainly makes the parking lot feel more secure in the early morning.

Lions Head and some of the other mountain areas around the city bowl are where I get a lot of my product/colour inspiration on my morning walks, particularly at the moment with spring “in full sprung”. These pictures were taken on a misty morning recently. Looking at the pictures made me hope that schoolchildren get to see “biology in action” like this. It would not be difficult to remember structural details about plants when you can actually see how much water the leaf hairs hold onto!

I don’t only walk for visual inspiration, somehow it seems to be where I find my cerebral inspiration too. Walking seems to loosen up my thoughts as much as my limbs, so I often “walk to work” although not in the heading-towards-a-destination sense.

And maybe one of these days I can actually employ Alfred by teaching him to knit or crochet and keep his hands busy during his watchful days, unless of course he’s already trained!!