Collections and Deep Conversations - Day 341

What a lovely day. Nothing exciting but special, full of collections and deep conversations.

I caught up with writing, and eventually, we left our Airbnb to cross the road to a delightful café Wilde Eend Bistro. The waiter, Tobias, was such a happy chap and we pulled his leg about being very particular about our flat whites. When they arrived, I checked out the structure of the microfoam – pretty good, we are becoming experts of said drink, well, of drinking them!. The staff could see me checking, and they all laughed when I gave them the thumbs up. Next arrived our salads; chicken and blue cheese for Tim, avocado and feta for me. I can honestly say that this was the best salad I have ever tasted. What a place – we’d struck gold. I must admit that last night I was a moo. Today I felt like a completely different person. Tim and I had such a close and deep conversation about this. I realised that whenever I get like this, it is when I am tired. I become sensitive when I believe someone is criticising or controlling me. Through chatting with Tim, being very open and honest, we recognised both our patterns and how they were created. Tim has got through “Hangry” and now it’s time for me to get through my “Undetired”. Time to let it go. Mmm…a good one for a Glows Coaching blog. I so appreciate these beautiful conversations with Tim. This travelling is doing us right. After our tête-à-tête, we walked into town with the idea of visiting the Botanical Gardens. Our host Lourens had warned us that it wouldn’t be at its best, and when we walked passed it, we could see he was right. Instead, we made our way to the Bushman Art Gallery and Museum. It turned out that this was a private shop with an extensive collection of African arts and crafts. I chatted to the owner’s son, who shared with me that this started as a passion of his father’s, which then grew so much that it became his business. At the back of the shop were a plethora of items including masks, spears, musical instruments, weird garments for special occasions and much more. I bet his wife was glad to see all this stuff out of their house! Our next visit was to the Namibian Craft Centre which provides retail space to about 40 different craft enterprises. I could hear “hello” then saw a lady sitting on the floor from the Himba tribe. Recognisable by the elaborate hairstyle of dreadlocks covered with a mix of ground ochre, butter and the end is either goat hair or hair extensions that are now imported from India. She got up to show me some bracelets. Up until now, I have been excellent not being tempted by buying any jewellery, which is remarkable as I do have quite a collection back in the UK. This lady must have seen my weakness and quickly put a bracelet around my wrist. She had good taste as it matched my clothes. Two more ladies started choosing bracelets for me, and I ended up having quite an assortment on each wrist. Tim turned up and bartering pursued. I was coaxed into buying two, but one of the ladies was not happy as it meant that I didn’t buy one from her. Hey, you can’t please everyone in life. We eventually agreed on a price but on the proviso that we could have our photo taken with them. At the start, they wouldn’t smile for the camera, but with Tim’s charm and having a laugh with them, we did manage to crack a smile. The next place was totally the opposite of the jewellery spectrum – a diamond shop. We were curious what a rough stone diamond looked like. I am talking about a gem here, not someone like Tim. The charming lady serving informed us that no jewellers are allowed to hold rough stone diamonds based on the De Beer and Government rulings, however she did have some photos to show us. Wouldn’t it be cool to notice one while walking around? Ok, I can dream. I’ll just stick with the rough diamond that I travel with. Tim was getting thirsty, so in the complex of small units was the Music Warehouse & Café. We were greeted by a very cool dude in a tie-dye t-shirt. This turned out to be Hartmut who originates from Swakopmund. We had a fascinating conversation with him about life in Swakopmund when he was a lad and a bit about his travels. I thought this was through his music, but it turns out that he used to work for Siemens in the digital telecom arena when it was at the forefront of the industry. We could have chatted with him for ages, but he had other visitors to talk with. We were admiring the bar built from pallets and logs plus a stencil of Jimmy Hendrix and got chatting to one of Hartmut’s sons, Joshua. He was very complimentary about his brother who had created these works of art, sharing how talented he is and that he must have two right hands. Not only is he creative but also a very accomplished bass player. He called his brother Jonny over, and we had a nice chat. He is planning to travel to South Africa soon; we hope our paths meet again. What delightful young men they both are and a credit to their father.

We wandered back to our Airbnb, greeted again by the crazy boxer dogs. Later Tim asked Lourens if we could have a look at his garden. It is full of cacti, including a beautiful specimen of candelabra cactus. There was another plant that we cannot remember the name of, Lourens had saved this from being destroyed at a site he was visiting. He certainly loves his plants. Just then, Ronelle arrived back from work, and we had a pleasant chat with her. What a lovely couple, plus they were very complimentary about their English guests. Well done fellow Brits. All at once, various guests arrived. They were having a jam session of music and poetry, so we left them to it, enjoying hearing them from our little pad while we had our dinner.