Today's Flowers; Mussaenda frondosa;

This is a tropical shrub. It is quite hardy if growing in a sheltered position. It grows well in the subtropics. Responds well to pruning. This shrub has many colloquial names, Dhobi tree, Handkerchief bush, Flagbush etc.

PROPAGATION.
Seeds, which are rarely available, germinate
readily. More commonly, softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings
are rooted during the Summer.

Photo TS.

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Improvisation; A cottage in the bush;

A pretty sky announcing a lovely day;

Paint mosaic done by sun and rain;

It works....

Sunny and cosy;

Reading by candle light....

A pretty window;

Hand washing facilities; Designer J!

Outside shower;

Room with a ...

view;

A friendly neighbour called Monty likes to munch apples.

Today's Flowers; Lady of the Camellias;

Camellias flowering now in the garden.

The Lady of the Camellias (French: La Dame aux camélias) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Theatre de Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to put the story to music. His work became the 1853 opera La Traviata with the female protagonist "Marguerite Gautier" renamed "Violetta Valéry".
In the English-speaking world, The Lady of the Camellias became known as Camille and sixteen versions have been performed at Broadway theatres alone. The "lady of the camellias" is Marguerite Gautier, who is based on Marie Duplessis, the real life lover of author Dumas, fils.

To read more source wikipedia.

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Song of Innocence; Knitted twins;

Knitted Twins;
My Mother was not surprised when I returned earlier than foreseen from my holidays. The school holidays had not yet ended and my Mum said I had to look after myself and reprimanded me to be good as she had to work.

I did not mind to be on my own. Most of my time I would join the village children to play. We played in the gardens on the fields, in the woods and in the haylofts.

I also liked to be by myself. Along the river I had discovered a place where huge boulders had formed a sort of a cave. There I made my own home. I took my books, my crayons, drawing paper and my twin dolls Freddy and Sonja to this secret place.
They were a Christmas present my mother had made for me. She had knitted their bodies and made many garments for them. Sonja was slim with a longish face that did not smile. It was like my mother had run out of stuffing when she made the doll. Freddy was chubby and had a friendly smile on his face, he was also the pretty one of the two. They were soft and pliable only their hair was very rigid in tight curls. Their feet were knitted in black wool to identify shoes.
It was a time when my mother was short of money. My father had caught a bad cold and his kidneys were badly affected. His Doctor made a bad decision and treated him for appendicitis. He was near death and had to spend a long time in hospital until he recovered. It was around Christmas and she made all the Christmas presents herself. Later I received more sophisticated dolls but none were as loved and precious as the knitted twins.
On a visit from a friend of my mother, she gave the twins away to her small daughter. When I discovered that the twins were given away I was very angry with my mother. I pleaded to get them back. She could not understand why I made such a fuss about the rag dolls as I had now better dolls who could say “Mamma” and close their eyes. I said I want my twins back you can give all the other dolls away. My mother relented and talked to her friend about the dolls but they were already thrown away and could not be recovered. I really loved the odd twins, I never got them back. From then on I did not play with dolls anymore.

Photo TS

Today's Flowers; Azaleas;

Bettina;

Little Girl;

Mrs.Bolton;

I grow mainly evergreen Azalea-Rhododendron X; also a few Kurume with small flowers. They are all easily propagated from cuttings from December to February.

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Photos TS.

Light is time; Octavio Paz;

Light is time thinking about itself; Octavio Paz.

Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914–April 19, 1998) was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature
　
he wrote El Laberinto de la Soledad ("The Labyrinth of Solitude"), a groundbreaking study of Mexican identity and thought.
A prolific author and poet, Paz published scores of works during his lifetime, many of which are translated into other languages. His poetry, for example, has been translated into English by Samuel Beckett, Charles Tomlinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Mark Strand. His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, Piedra de Sol ("Sunstone") written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. He also wrote poetry about his other passion, modern painting, dedicating poems to the work of Balthus, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tapies, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roberto Matta. Several of his poems have also been adapted into choral music by composer Eric Whitacre, including "Water Night", "Cloudburst", and "A Boy and a Girl."
As an essayist Paz wrote on topics like Mexican politics and economics, Aztec art, anthropology, and sexuality. His book-length essay, The Labyrinth of Solitude (Spanish: El laberinto de la soledad), delves into the minds of his countrymen, describing them as hidden behind masks of solitude. Due to their history, their identity is lost between a pre-Columbian and a Spanish culture, negating either. A key work in understanding Mexican culture, it greatly influenced other Mexican writers, such as Carlos Fuentes.

Quotes by Octavio Paz
Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don’t move; today is today, always is today.

The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.

To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.

Brotherhood

Homage to Claudius Ptolemy
I am a man: little do I last and the night is enormous.But I look up:the stars write.Unknowing I understand:I too am written,and at this very moment someone spells me out.

Today's Flowers; Golden Girls;

Euryops pectinatus;

I like to dedicate Today's Flowers to the much loved, late actress Bea Arthur.

Bea Arthur, best known as star of the hit TV comedies Maude and Golden Girls, has died at 86.

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The Team

Luiz Santilli jr.

Denise Gullickson

LaertePupo

DeniseB.Castro