Enough about the exhibition, I say. It will be open until 21 st January 2011 and I will let you know what happens. Today with the end of the wildflower season in sight, I want to tell you about the flowers you probably know as "chinks". Summer is getting warmer and all over the fields they are drying off.
The Greeks, and some sources say the Romans, would describe something that was amazing, incredible and wonderful as "birds milk" which in translation would be ornis + gala. From there the scientific name Ornithogalum. Afrikaans speaking South Africans heard a ching sound when picking at the stems and that gave us the common name Chincherinchees.
You know by now that Kabeljoubank where I live is absolutely steeped in history and culture. Here the British Peer and her crew perished in 1896, and we still see pieces of their red bricks ballast, rounded by ocean movement to the size of pebbles. Here, also, if people will look where I direct them, the process of snoek drying in the seabreeze can be seen.
But this is the nicest Kabeljoubank story of all: Between the two world wars, tourists who had travelled to Cape Town by ocean liner or train, would sometimes in spring and early summer hire a horse cart and travel the distance to Kabeljoubank for a picnic. They admired the beautiful views, the bluest ocean, the fields of spring flowers. One of the sights they saw was the picking of chincherinchees (in bud form) to be exported to Covent Garden where they were sold, a popular flower which lasts for weeks in a vase.
Of course my vases at home have nothing of the sort, as all our flowers in the Cape Flower Kingdom are protected! To be admired, photographed, sketched, but never to be picked! The first image is my painting, the second the veld next to my studio, then a bunch I photographed at the annual Wild Flower Show and lastly a little macro photo I took. Do not forget to let me know if you have ever seen or grown "chinks"!
