The Restory Retreat Centre

    We are so self-centred. We bring every experience, all that happens, back to us,  me,  I. My creations, my world, my people, my job, my status. Somehow, in every conversation we end up at  Me.   We stroll in the vegetable patch, or in the veld, exclaiming: “Look, Chinese lanterns!”   Things can be so different if we look at the floating softness of Oriental lights, whispering under our breaths: “Look, gooseberries and flower-of-an-hour shaking their moorings!”   We live in a more-than-human world. George

A lush portion of our vegetable garden Our first winter in this valley is fast approaching. I watch with hawk eyes for signs of frost. My young Zulu helpers and I had gotten carried away when we started the vegetable patch and once the first little seedlings raised their heads late January, there were no end to what we tried to crowd into the beds. Never before in my life have I had such perfect conditions to realize a dream: to have a kitchen garden. Winter seemed far off. I now know that most of what grows so abundantly at the moment, had been planted or sown too late in the growing season. We will not see the pumpkins maturing and even the strawberries have trouble blushing up their fruit. I'm not even sure that they ought to be fruiting at the moment! The gooseberry and tomato trellises are covered in frost cloth. I am hoping to at the very least get most of the beautiful bunches of cocktail tomatoes to ripen on the vine before the frost claims my beloved annuals. I han...