It's all real.

Sometime last week I sent this image to my friend Elsibe, because when I look at it, I think of her.

Renée Perle photographed by Jacques-Henri Lartigue,1931.

It's those dark eyes and the sense of occasion. I try to imagine what this woman's day must have been like. Her lips painted with such precision. What on earth did one eat for breakfast in Paris in 1931?

Even living in the same city, even in the same profession, we have such unique lives. They are all real - a million different universes.

I thought of you on Wednesday. I was out at the Stellenbosch studios bright and early. About two years ago, I worked on a film about a U-boat, set in the forties. Back then we packed a container full of props and dressing and it's been standing in a corner of the lot. 

While I waited for the truck, a herd of goats passed by on the other side of the fence. Two Pied Crows wheeled overhead, flying very low. The truck came. The key didn't fit. The set builders from next door had to grind the locks off for us. Sparks flew.

So strange opening this time capsule. Bits and pieces of submarine, beautifully painted. Old dials and mattresses and sheets. A crate full of documents. And in the doorway, a letter on the floor. Stamped with an eagle crest, it starts: Guten Tag, Mein Führer.

On a koppie in the distance they are building a Medieval Village for someone else's fantasy. I spoke to one of the scenic painters, her clothes stiff with paint spatters. Then I drove back to town, listening to Ethiopian jazz.