Reflections in, on and round about…with a lot of cooking on the side
It's no secret that I take on paid-for writing work. Like all gigs for clients, sometimes one hits the mark and sometimes one doesn't. One job involved looking at the impact of the pandemic on people's mental health. I admit to having found myself in a rather deep rabit hole. A function, I suspect, of … Continue reading It’s not just about Covid
Summer's heading our way. Although it doesn't feel like it today as a galeforce wind howls around the house. Having a foretaste of summer earlier in the week, it feels as though winter's returned. One of the things I really enjoy about summer is a frappé. No, not the Greek one, but the one that, … Continue reading Those Ice Cream Days
On Monday, my helper came to work and told me that her niece had won a scholarship to go to a conference in New York. She went on to say that, as is often the case, the scholarship wouldn't cover everything, and that the family would be holding fundraising events in the village. Starting at … Continue reading Hayley’s going to Change the World – with our help
I associate burgers with quick food. They are, if one gets them "done". They're not if they're home made from scratch. I make both meat and plant-based burgers. One has to go a long way to find a good vegan or vegetarian patty. Especially at a restaurant: I've had some really memorable (for all the … Continue reading A burger’s a burger, or is it?
A friend and I had a conversation at the market this morning. Little did we know that exactly what were discussing - and fearing - she more than I - had come to pass. Incomprehensible. My heart aches for her: the burden she has carried over the last few years and, particularly over the last … Continue reading Contemplating the incomprehensible
I have been making koeksisters for the McGregor Market for more than six years having last made them in the early 1990's. At that time, I thought they were horrendously enormous and occasionally trotted them out with tea or as a dessert. Fast forward twenty or so years: the world is much more health conscious … Continue reading Seriously sizzling – these siss-sters
In the last five or so months I've ventured no further than the top of the Road to Nowhere. That was two weekends ago when we braved the cold and took a drive to see winter's last farewell (we hope). Having spent a large proportion of my working life on aeroplanes and living out of … Continue reading Trippin’ out
A woman in my family is a rape survivor. August is Women's month in South Africa with the 9th being the anniversary of the Women's March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting the proposed pass laws which would effectively rent families apart. The month is now dedicated to women in a country plagued by … Continue reading Revisited: Punishment or revenge?
I must have been all of five years old when I learned about triffids. Or so I thought. They were in the new vegetable garden of the new house we'd moved into not long before Granny came to visit. Dad, the horticulturist he was, and having grown up with an alotment, composted the garden from … Continue reading Granny’s Triffids
Having grown up in a small town and in high school, having gone to boarding school in another town, road trips were commonplace. There are, however, some trips that remain embedded in my memory. The first that I really remember would have been in 1967. It was the year after we arrived in South Africa … Continue reading Roads trips – a retrospective