Heritage Day

 It was Heritage Day on the 24th September, when South Africans celebrate their very many different histories, traditions and cultural backgrounds. With my English, Scottish and Swedish ancestry long jumbled up in the past, I would have quite liked to potter around in the garden at home with a good old South African braai to finish off the holiday - but a sketchcrawl had been called, so off I went to the Constitution Hill venue, expecting to draw some of the buildings as I did nearly three years ago.

Well, it was a very busy place, with a 'Light the Way' event planned to coincide with the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York just getting into gear. I had started sketching one of the stair towers housing the 'Flame of Democracy', of the old awaiting-trial blocks which have been preserved as a reminder of the Concourt's grim past - but when some very loud thudding music and dancers started getting into action in the square, I turned my attention to them. (perhaps that distraction was why I put the leaning fellow's hand on the tree in the foreground :-o)
After some frantic drawing, eventually there were too many people blocking my view, with quite a crowd gathered around watching every move of my pen I decided it was time to escape the heat and noise and return to my corner of suburbia, and a relaxed braai with my family.