more bits from london and melbourne, from R4R-31 shot in collaboration with melissa. this roll has so much double-exposed goodness!
if there was a theme to april this year, it was family.
the month started with paulo’s parents coming over for a few days, then us going north for daniela’s graduation, and it ended back south with my own parents in town for a short holiday. other highlights included spending time with friends and seeing the passionfruit bloom and give fruit.
it was a loooong month, and i’m happy for all the good memories in it, but also glad it’s done. it’s hard, trying to fit everything in and still do the work in the in-betweens. sigh.
i don’t think i’ve ever met a fruit i didn’t like, but passionfruit feels special. the taste is the definition of exotic in my book — sweet and alien-like.
they’re supposed to be fast-growing plants that enjoy heat, and therefore ideal for our southern climate. last year, a neighbor down the street gave us a couple of his own fruits to eat… but having seen their vigorous vines, we jumped at the opportunity to grow our own. we started them in a container back in 2016 and saw first sprouts some weeks later:
we planted them out in the front garden just under the fence, so that they had something to hold on to. after some dormant months, they begun their ascent in the spring of 2017…
fast forward to a year later, and they have taken over the whole thing. had we known they would insist in growing upwards at every chance, we would have made a better effort to pull them sideways while we could… well, too late now.
we also have our first flowers! they’re super pretty, as all passionfruit flowers are. incidentally, did you know where their name comes from? according to wikipedia,
“Around 1700, the name was given by missionaries in Brazil as an educational aid while trying to convert the indigenous inhabitants to Christianity; its name was flor das cinco chagas or “flower of the five wounds” to illustrate the crucifixion of Christ, with other plant components also named after an emblem in the Passion of Jesus.
The name maracuyá or maracujá comes from a Guaraní word meaning “nursery for flies”.
and just this week, we spotted the first fruit! i can’t wait to finally taste it and strike another item off the 101 list! :P
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journeys are the midwives of thought
“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is before our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, and new thoughts, new places. Introspective reflections that might otherwise be liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape.”
a quote that stayed with me from the art of travel, by alain de botton.
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