Year's end.

I made a mistake.

I had a bad feeling about accepting the last commercial of the year, but I did it anyway. It's only a week, I told myself.

It felt so much longer.

There's a feeling I've been getting lately - South Africa's plummeting rand has been good for the film industry, BUT ...

foreigners arrive here thinking that we are cheap, thus inferior.

I have never been treated with so much condescension and disrespect.

Afterwards, I burnt my notebook. I deleted all of the emails.

The bad feeling lingers.

Sometimes the only good thing about a job like that is the sheer relief when it ends.

And knowing that at home, the earth runs riot.

So much pleasure!

The frangipani blooms much pinker this year.

In a few weeks there will be figs.

The curry leaf tree is flowering now - the scent more intriguing than anything I know. At night we make fires, we brush against basil and bergamot.

I want to join the spotted black beetles as they dive drunkenly into pink blossoms. I want a peaceful new year, for you and for me.