Candles for Earth Hour

Candles, lots of them... for Earth Hour we got out all our most colourful candles and candle holders and lit them all along our big table, before going round the house, switching off all the lights, the TV, the computers. Our eyes adjusted to the low light, the gentle glow of yellow candle flame reflecting off our red clay walls, and then we each took a candle and went out to our circle. As we

Wine Cubes in a Steamy Kitchen

A frantically domestic kitchen mood overtook me this afternoon and I found myself baking rusks for the first time in ages. I used to keep a tin on the go at all times in those days when I was ‘only’ a full time mother and didn’t have the distraction of work and computers. It used to be one of those things that would keep me and two toddlers busy and flour-dusted for half the afternoon, a huge

Earth Hour

Tomorrow is Earth Day. In an event called Earth Hour, millions of people and organizations are going to be turning off their lights at 8.30pm local time for an hour, to make a gesture towards awareness of energy use, global warming and saving the planet. Major monuments like Table Moutain and the Pyramids are going to be turning off their spotlights for an hour and thousands of communities and

Two Trips to Town

It was an average Thursday that kicked off with car no.2 refusing to start for the school run. I’d breathed a sigh of relief having successfully dispatched all three kids out to the car, fully equipped for school, hair brushed and plaited (except for our son!), and was just about to take my first sip of tea, when the door blew open again and they all trooped through on the way to borrow my

Pumpkins and Angels in Autumn

Another equinox has been and gone, signalling shorter days and colder nights for us, and the spring surge of energy and lengthening days for all you Northern hemispherites.We celebrated our autumn festival yesterday. It’s our harvest festival, with the theme of Earth, where we give thanks for all the fruits of the earth and the children build and decorate sandcastles in our big sandpit.After a

Four Legs Good

I’ve never really been a horse person. I learned to ride as a child, because that’s what all the other girls did, when I was growing up in the English countryside, but I had a largely undistinguished career, the main memories that linger being freeze frames: me left hanging from the branch of tree when the pony decided to take a shortcut home and the steering failed; me on ‘my’ pony that refused

Blog Awards and Addictions

Thanks Robyn for this fabulous blog award!Now it's my turn to pass it on to five other fabulous bloggers that I read with pleasure every time their name pops up on my Bloglines reader. Seeing as it's the time of the SA Blog Awards, I thought I'd make this an African theme and nominate my own five top African blogsPlanet Nomad for wonderful writing from the top of Africa.Reluctant Memsahib for

What do you get when you're about to lose everything?

One thing you'll never see in the lobby or dorm counselor office in a homeless shelter is a cash drawer, nor any other forms of valuable lockupable system.

In Jacksonville years ago, attempts were actually made by a few different non profit agencies to bring some form of 'shelter' for people's belongings, rather than have them carting them constantly through downtown streets.

Mind you, we're not talking much more than a high school locker, but for those needing to 'hide' their items while going to job interviews it's a big help.

While storage rooms are available downtown, the fact is people trying to get off the street don't have the cash in hand for the downstroke. That and the possibility of losing everything if they miss a payment can mean losing valuable and irreplaceable documents that they opt to carry regularly.

Think about it. If you only had 60 seconds to grab whatever you could if your home was destroyed, what would you grab...and would you tend to hold tightly to it after having lost everything?

Food for thought?

Nubivagant Words

A nubivagant post off in lala land, wandering among clouds… I’ve adopted a word and have to use it to keep it alive and protect its dictionary listing. Nubivagant (means: moving through and around the clouds) is one of the three I chose from a great site that I was pointed to by Robyn of The Egypt Experience.The site is called Save the Words and is huge fun – click on any weird word and find out

Flower Fairies on Hot Days

On hot days flower fairies make rose petal ice cubes to float in their spring water spritzers.My girls made several ice cube trays of flower fairy ice cubes, back in January, while the roses were in bloom. One or two petals per cube, water poured over and frozen. They stayed in the freezer for ages, almost forgotten until this last run of hot weather sent me looking for cool inspiration. We got

Paying by Numbers

My numerology for March said that money would be flowing out fast…. I wasn’t too surprised, as it does that most months. The first week was true to form: bill for son’s OT treatment after breaking a finger playing football (he saved a goal but it cost over R1000 in all, and it wasn’t even a major league match); filling at the dentist for Youngest (where she was hugely stoical and put up with it

Rock Buns on a Hot Summer's Night

It’s hot. It’s dark. It’s nearly nine o’clock on a fierce summer’s evening and I’m in the kitchen, next to a hot stove, baking rock buns. Is this early onset dementia or just plain madness? No, it’s just yet another class bake sale.With three kids in the school we now have a bake sale just about every other Friday and we’re supposed to send them in with some sort of marginally healthy baked goods

Pine Nut Gatherers

Pine-nuts have always seemed to be the stuff of delis to me, expensive sachets of delectable morsels that vanish in no time and add interest to salads and seed mixes. I had never even tasted them until I went to Italy as an adult and discovered them as an ingredient, used them in loads of invented salad recipes and tasted them on innumerable versions of torta della nonna in restaurants all over