Rosendal, in the Eastern Free State, is a small village with big skies. Rob and I drove down on New Year’s Day, from Johannesburg, taking our lives in our hands over the last twenty or thirty kilometres of dangerously potholed roads, a legacy of Ace Magashule’s thieving and mendacious premiership of the province.

Then you arrive, and find your AirBnB, on the far edge of the village, with nothing before you but a garden gate, a dirt road, farmland and cattle, and dramatic cliffs rising up to the no-less dramatic storm clouds that gather each afternoon.

There is nothing to do but read, walk, braai, watch the cloudscapes and the birds, drop in at Benjamin’s for waffles, take a few photographs. That’s the whole point of going there – to do nothing.

So here are four black-and-white photographs, taken from Die Rooi Haan, where we stayed – the fruits of just the right kind of idleness, before the new year kicks in with its meetings and reports, its busy-ness and distraction.

Die Rooi Haan, by the way, is a place that Rob and I would absolutely recommend – perfectly situated, simply but beautifully furnished, with a large covered porch overlooking the farmlands and mountains.

As always, click on the images to enlarge. I hope that you like them.

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