Coffee and Books

If you need coffee for the shot of caffeine, you can drink it on the run. If you like books that are page-turners you can rush into a news agency in a large shopping centre and grab your books, then read them in a weekend! Not for me! I loooooove coffee and I have to drink it in a pretty peaceful place. I also loooooove reading: the slow sort of book, choosing it, discussing it with a knowledgable shop owner, taking it home and finding a place for it on my shelves, that is all part of the experience.

By now I know what you are going to ask: Is that the West Coast way of doing things? It is, and I am guiding you through two large maroon gates near Evita se Perron in Darling to see beyond. It is the Mantis Mall again, and this time I have painted some of the outside coffee tables and the pretty Book League, where Anne and Wendy will always find what you need or order it, tell you who has written a new book and when will it be on the shelves.

The feeling here is so much like some small places in Europe, in the Central Coast of California, and certain towns in Australia. Let us hope that modernisation will not take over such peaceful lifestyles.

Darling's Aunt

The passenger trains could drop you right into the heart of Darling in the old days. Today the station building has been transformed into an entertainment centre with theatre, restaurant, museum-with-a-difference and a shop with locally produced gifts for sale. The pink building is known as Evita se Perron (a multiple pun in the name) as this is where Darling's favourite aunt, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout, holds court when not touring the world with satirical shows. Her tongue is smooth and sweet and sharp as a Samurai sword....(May I just mention here that although Afrikaans-sounding, perron, a synonym for platform, is a proper English word in the Oxford Dictionery)....

Evita is the alter-ego of Pieter-Dirk Uys, whom I have not met, but every local person I have ever asked attested to the fact that he has a deep social commitment and limitless kindness, always creating new projects to boost the community. The biggest of these projects is The Darling Trust that concerns itself with the youth and the building of a large community centre. The young people of Darling will never flounder in a sea of teenage boredom as projects of sport, drama, crafts and early education are launched. http://www.darlingtrust.co.za/

As for this painting, it was the most difficult picture on the blog so far and I will give the next pink corrugated iron structure a wide berth! The shadows on pink paint appear a dirtyish grey! The green is supposed to be Heritage Green, sign of a national monument, but next to pink the colour turns into 'school blazer accidentally washed in bleach'! See you in my next blog when I will reveal where the first forty paintings will be exhibited.