Willing myself into a wondrous Wednesday

I've been complaining about building noise. The photo below is about two months into the build, of which at least three weeks was the constant juddering of the compactor before they poured that vast expanse of concrete.

When this went up, we christened it, the cathedral. Much of that arrived already cut but the owners had to assemble it and that did include some cutting. Into the evenings and on a Saturday. Then there was a two week break while the brickwork went up and then, last Tuesday, another lorry load of wood arrived. We thought it would be the nave to the cathedral. How wrong were we, after another - whole weekend - of cutting and sawing and...gawping passersby.

It's not a nave. It's another cathedral. I'm grumpy. We're losing our open space and the picturesque rural character of our village and our street. I'm working hard on not sending negative vibes that way: I want it finished. I recognise it's not going away, I'd like it finished. Yesterday. And some modicum of peace restored.

Some things don't change

We do have glorious sunsets and on a winter's day with a hot berg wind, they're particularly glorious.

These yellow shrubs are indigenous. I love how the evening and morning light catches on them. The photograph doesn't do them justice. They come up on their own and after this year's flowering (this is about year three), we'll take them out because they'll be spent because they don't lend themselves to cutting back and shaping. More will appear. They always do.

More soul food

A second picking of broad beans to go with last night's pasta supper:

This salad is one of my favourites where the hero is broad beans popped out of their shells and dressed in mint and a French vinaigrette.

I am so loving that we have fresh herbs - especially parsley - in the garden. It's taking me a long time to get over the trauma of the drought. The threat of another constantly lurks especially with the dry winter we're having. I stirred parsley and marjoram through the pasta with which we had slow braised mushrooms and onion marmalade.

The sunset, light and the garden loot turned a rather wobbly Wednesday into an almost wondrous one.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma
Post script

If this post might seem familiar, it's because I'm doing two things:

• re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine....?
• and "re-capturing" nearly two years' worth of posts.

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Original artwork: @artywink

• lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs, images available freely available on @hive.blog and Canva.