Not about porridge and living with bears Sometimes the routine of working just gets to me. Things that worked last week, make me feel restless and irritable. There are days that even three cups of good coffee cannot fix. This type of existential crisis can play out in different ways. A few days ago, I […]
Storytelling in the modern diaspora Many of my friends are grandparents with children living overseas. Once or twice a year they book a flight to visit a child in a foreign country. Grandparents laden with gifts are met with great excitement by young, excitable grandchildren, but as the years pass, grandparents are often left to […]
Not quite what I was going to write about I initially wanted to write a post on the psychological costs of precarious employment but became a little sidetracked while making supper. I often listen to podcasts when I am in the kitchen, especially discussions on history. I find it very relaxing. Somehow, a more distant […]
The myth of the productive home office: false productivity I am the nerd who cannot wait to buy a new diary and spends a vast amount of time deciding whether I need to buy an A5 or A4 diary. For years I maintained a very confusing dual system of an analogue diary (stationery fetish) and […]
The dahlia’s comeback as a cut flower I am not a big fan of flowers that are too showy — unless they are peonies. Peonies can never be anything but breathtaking; but I digress. I used to think dahlias are just too theatrical, too high maintenance. Now I find single dahlias completely irresistible. Dahlias sort […]
Prioritising what has true value I discovered my favourite coffee shop/deli during the Covid-19 pandemic. Every Friday morning I would load my bike and cycle for kilometres on the farm’s narrow dirt roads; through orchards, paddocks filled with grass-fed cattle, free-range hens and fallow land filled with meaddow flowers and grasses. Friday mornings the outdoor […]
Summers in the Cape Winelands can be hot, really hot. It is hell if you are not on holiday. For some reason, the weather is always pleasant when you are covered in SP50 and wearing sandals and a sunhat. Sun-deprived tourists flock to Cape Town and the Winelands during summer. What is not to enjoy: […]
Early summer is a beautiful time in the Cape’s Winelands. Today is a day for intentional laziness and ‘admin lite’ on a wine estate about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. The setting could not be more beautiful. It is too early for visitors and the waiters are still putting out chairs and wiping off […]
Conversations, listening and what dialogue sounds like
It is really fascinating to watch people communicate. The ability to communicate is one of the first skills we attempt to acquire and spend a lifetime accumulating language skills. Yet we can be so very bad at getting it right. I always thought of myself as a good listener, with experience interviewing people for articles […]
Today, I am working in a converted Victorian school building. Pressed ceilings and skylights; tall bay windows with muslin curtains. Beyond the open windows, blue sky and the mountain’s domed granite outline; so close, it looks like wall art. I have taken the morning off to do some reading. Well, I don’t feel like working […]
Happiness is rarely what you think it is I recently did a road trip with two cousins, one from upcountry and the other visiting from New Zealand. It was late-winter, a little rainy, with some snow on the mountains. We had driven through the Little Karoo and turned towards the coast. Unhappy with our accommodation, […]
When you are travelling, coffee is where you find it – whether it is sipping steaming black coffee from a flask in an endless landscape of horizons, or drinking a flat white from a takeaway cup. I love this photograph of a coffee-shop cat helping herself to some cream after we had finished our breakfast. […]
I recall a time when having a home office and working from the local coffee shops felt more like a life-style statement. I would text a friend ‘Working at J__ join me for coffee or a late breakfast/early lunch’, and they would arrive with a laptop and an eagerness to escape an approaching deadline. Surrounded […]
