The birds and the bees, and weekends of reading

I try and get away once a month. Not too far, mostly within a two hour drive. I find a little village which looks like it has some nice cafes and restaurants, and find a cheap airbnb. My needs are not great, and so it can be a simple place. So long as it has a comfy bed, I'm happy.

I do this to get away. Mostly, to get away from the barrage of noise from the internet. I go to read, to sleep, to eat, and to drink coffee. I have no electronic devices other than my decade old mobile phone which can only call and text, and so for the most part that is completely silent. If I go away mid day on a Friday and come back mid day on a Sunday I can normally read four or five books. I come back feeling rejuvenated, excited by new ideas I've read about, and ready to tackle the week ahead.

This weekend I was in a little town called Tulbagh, about an hour and a half North East of Cape Town. It's surrounded by wine farms and mountains, and with plenty of cafes and restaurants to keep me deep within my books for many hours at a time. I think that I was reading for around 20-30 hours, but the time flies when you're in other worlds.

This time, the little airbnb I was staying in had a fountain out the back, where birds and bees were playing all Saturday afternoon. As I read my book, I had my camera handy with a zoom lens on it, even though the fountain was about three meters away. I use a Canon 7D and the lens is a 100-600mm Sigma. It's a beautiful lens, much cheaper than its Canon counterpart and, for my money, about as crisp as you'd like. Here are a few shots from my little afternoon of reading and nature watching.

If you would like to follow what I read, look me up on https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8532727 where I'm pretty conscientious about tracking all of my books. I'm always happy to talk books with anyone who has similar...or indeed interestingly dissimilar tastes.